Career

From Classroom To Boardroom

Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications on Monday, Apr 10, 2006

Harsh reality awaits the student as she moves into the corporate world.

Between the idea and the reality... lies the shadow." I think this quote by T. S. Eliot best summarises my musings on how different the corporate environment is from the classroom environment. The very first idea a person with an MBA realises in the corporate world is that she is no longer a lone ranger, but is part of a group or a team. It is true that the MBA curriculum in the classroom prepares her to work in teams. And she thinks that by completing group projects and making presentations in B-school, she is all set to take on the world. But then, that is the idea. The reality is different; in fact vastly different.

The reality is that unlike in B-school, where all team members are peers and share equal responsibility, in the corporate world the equation is a bit skewed. Most probably, the MBA finds himself on the lowest rung of the hierarchy in the team and is expected to do the maximum `donkey' work involved in the assignment's execution. So neither are you among peers, nor are you sharing equal workload. (Don't be surprised to find yourself making photo copies!) To make you feel a bit better, the corporate world euphemistically calls it "dirtying your hands". That's when reality strikes.

Another idea, which the MBA is made to believe in a B-school classroom or even before entering one, is that her alma mater's name is one prestigious `credit card' which will, so to speak, deliver all the goods . The bigger the name of the alma mater, the more tempting it is to swipe that card. So, the idea of having an MBA from a prestigious institute is, metaphorically put, akin to owning a luxury limousine that is more than enough to lead the race on the corporate highway.

STARK TRUTH
However, the reality is starkly otherwise. Agreed that graduating from a prestigious B-school is always a matter of pride. But, the reality is that the name of the alma mater can at most help somebody enter the company. One can only take it so far. Once inside the company, there is only one yardstick that the company measures you by — your performance. So, don't be surprised to find MBAs from lesser-known colleges racing past your luxury limos in their performance-charged-sedans.

One more idea that strikes the MBA when he moves into the corporate world is that of managing people. In B-school, one always has the option to choose and make friends and, sometimes, enemies too. Somehow, we always tend to coalesce with people who share our values and, more or less, agree with our thinking.

But in the corporate world, that option — to choose the people whom we work and interact with — is a luxury. One has to be extremely lucky to get colleagues and peers with whom our `frequencies match'. When one is not that lucky, it is the people skills of the manager that will decide how far the individual goes ahead on the corporate ladder. By people skills, I broadly mean how to take care that when there is a conflict of interest, which one typically finds in a competitive environment like a company, one emerges with a win-win solution. That is when you rue missing that organisational behaviour lecture which discussed Game Theory!

Yet again, that's when reality strikes.

One of the most common ideas an MBA cultivates during the two years of her stint at B-school is that the MBA degree will make her eligible to apply for a large variety of jobs . Having learnt everything (well, almost), from finance to marketing to law to HR, the MBA is equipped with a unique skill-set. No wonder, MBAs are called — master of all trades.

Fortunately, that idea closely resembles the reality. Today, if an MBA is one of the most sought after professional degrees among students, it is primarily because it makes a person versatile enough to switch not only departments or companies, but also industries. Even the corporate world values the MBA recruit because it makes perfect economic sense to hire someone who can swiftly switch roles and adapt to new conditions; a quality other professional degrees rarely meet.

That's when reality strikes gold!

IDEA VS ACTUALITY
Finally, let me throw some light on something between the idea and the reality — the shadow. In B-school , the MBA is fascinated by the similarity between what is taught in the B-school and how much of it is actually used in the corporate world. She wonders: is option valuation in the financial markets really done using Black-Scholes formula? Does every product really go through the product life cycle (PLC)?

Frankly, the answer to all the above questions is more of `yes', bit of `no'. Yes, valuation is done using the same Black-Scholes formula, but you will not find managers in companies rote-learning that formula or tagging it on their workstations. Yes, products do go through the PLC, but the start and end of the cycle will rarely match with the one you found in the age-old Kotler. The reason for `bit of no' is that in the corporate environment, all the formulas, cycles and charts, which one learns in B-school, are automated in one way or the other. So the MBA very soon realises that what the company demands is not how to compute formulas or draw charts and cycles, but what to infer from the computed results. And that's when reality casts its shadow on the idea.

(The writer, an alumnus of NMIMS, works with SBI Capital Markets Ltd. The views presented here are his own.)