B-Schools Need To Focus More On Developing The Emotional Quotient

WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT B-SCHOOL

Management education drives a diverse set of individuals towards learning the same things. This should change too

There are far too many things that come to mind when one begins to compare the years at B-school with those of working life. But my experience makes me believe one or two interconnected issues are especially important.

One of the most important, tangible items to be carried out of a B-school is a network. It consists of your batchmates, the immediate seniors and the juniors.

Add to this the combined intellectual weight of your teachers and the strength of experience from the alumni. All in all, this is a sizeable chunk of management mind space.

Once you enter the corridors of corpodom, the scope to continually add to this network with co-workers (their networks), vendors, clients and so on increases manifold.

And yet, the ability to continually keep this storehouse of capital charged is not something most schools talk about or spend time on.

While everybody forms a network of some sort and many do exploit the same, the awareness that systematic networking has the potential to ease working life is not too widespread.

Can B-schools teach you to improve on your networking quotient (NQ)? The answer is definitely yes. The key to improving the NQ is inter-personal skills and communication. A lot of schools teach "business" communication "" not many teach "inter-personal" communication.

This brings me to a larger area of neglect "" people management (of which networking can be called a subset).

Getting work done or doing your work optimally has a very simple barrier "" human relationships and perceptions carried by others.

No B-school teaches the mantra of perception "" till it is encountered. Be it peers, superiors, subordinates, clients or vendors, the need to get work done and thereby the need to deal optimally with others, brings out a basic flaw in our B-school processes "" most of those who move out of the system are just not equipped in effective person-to-person interaction.

How many schools actually put in as much effort in the "soft" skills areas as they do in areas like finance and marketing? Very few. How many students actually opt for the so-called "soft" courses at the expense of specific, functional options? Very few again.

What can be done to rectify this? More focus on getting people involved in understanding their own self and others around, and on developing the emotional quotient.

The current "learning" philosophy needs to change too. To borrow liberally from a well-known strategy guru, we are stuck with first generation learning methodology, using second generation knowledge and technology to promote third generation thinking and adaptability.

The traditional classroom way in which learning is imparted has not changed since the beginning of management education.

Despite the group projects et al, it still promotes the idea of learning being an individual process. Learning across the group and from group mates is a very powerful tool that is seldom utilised.

Teamwork for projects and assignments is supposed to be the B-school's answer to the above. But is it? Check this. A typical project team includes:

The go-getter (I will get my A+ come what may); 1-2 people

The worker ant (these chaps will help me hit some needed high grades); 1 person

The floater (am I in this group?); 1 person

The sleeper (what, me worry?); 1 person

The guru (all theory with no practical application and gift of the gab); 1 person

The focus is then essentially grades or survival. What contribution does this have towards making these students better people?

The basic premise and promise of group learning is that individuals can "learn" different things from the same set of experiences. A typical B-school project is driving a diverse set of individuals towards learning the same/similar things. That is one area of recommended change.

Real world organisations can no longer be just products of superior strategy. An organisation of personal philosophers will foster decay. The need of the hour is to have superior execution of even simple strategy.

That will come from organisations built around groups that network and build relationships "" both inter and intra organisational relationships.

My experience in recruiting from the best schools has led me to believe that some of the basics of education imparted are on the right track. We produce analytically oriented and functionally super-aware managers.

What is sorely missing is the understanding of the principles of people management, networking and making relationships work towards process optimisation. Where we fail then is the application of knowledge.

To address this, academia needs to relook at our teaching processes and methodology. A relook that will require innovative solutions that are out-of-the-box.

Alind Sharma belongs to the 1996 batch of IIM, Ahmedabad, and is vice-president, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals