B-schoolia

As yet another batch of managers ready themselves to join the workforce they seem to be welcomed into with open arms, most of us experience a tinge of nostalgia over the experiences of the past two years. Well, past 19 months, to be precise. For most of the managers-in-waiting, this represents the end of nearly 20 years of non-stop academia, and also the start of a new experience, into hitherto uncharted territory. And I’m sure that I would not be alone in expressing a feeling of relief when this is all over. The amount of learning over the last two years certainly seems disproportionate to the small window of time we spent here. Here’s a brief account of the takeaways from the time we spent running to stand still in the hallowed corridors of IIML.

The six day week: The disorienting experience of working on Saturdays has ensured that the weeks meld into one another. Wake up late on Sunday, after an enjoyable Saturday evening in Samanjasya, and you realize that half the weekend is already up. By the time this shock wears off, it is already time to “prepare” for the cases to be discussed in Monday’s classes.

The case study approach: A four page case followed by 25 pages of exhibits is hardly an enticing read. What makes it all the more surreal is the presence of balance sheet exhibits in a marketing case study, and the presence of market share data in a case on valuation. The principle of preparing for a case beforehand is often the first requisite of B-school learning that goes for a toss. So much so, that the effect of preparation for the cases is one aspect we MBAs seem to share with graduate students in the field of rocket science.

Team Work: The two words that are much bandied about in the interviews we need to clear before we enter the institute. Since every course necessarily has some component of teamwork, over time, the students have optimized the exercise to such an extent that to produce quality output, we don’t even need to meet up in one place and discuss anything anymore. Forty page outputs, replete with graphs, tables and frameworks, are generated in a matter of a few hours without one person in the team knowing what the other is doing. This optimization maximizes productivity, enabling a student to complete (from scratch) three projects while studying for three end-terms the next day. After all, multi-tasking is one aspect all of us have improved in, by leaps and bounds.

Globe, Projects and Presentations: There was a time when we were mortally scared of presenting our findings in front of a gathering of people we know. With six or seven presentations for each term, over two years, B-school has ensured that we can now talk about any subject for 15 minutes, without even having a look at the slides beforehand. Armed with interchangeable keywords (paradigm, global, synergy, leverage, competencies, strategies et al), students can hold the attention of a rapt audience with very little effort. This would surely help us in justifying out points of view to a diverse audience, making us ideal leadership material that the companies fight to hire.

The key here is how, over a two year period, the students have internalized various skills essential to be successful in the corporate world. The academic rigor practiced by IIM Lucknow has, in more ways than one, made the students ideal managers in a world that is rapidly changing. After all, life in the last two years has definitely made us more aware of the “real world”, far away from gear ratios, Reynolds numbers, Poisson’s ratios and pressure driven flows. Maybe that is what learning is all about…