What Makes an MBA ?

Tough question, in fact a research question. Its high time B Schools make a conscious effort in introspecting in what kinds of output they would like to produce. Leaders of tommorow or clerks of bygone era . And its high time for students to "graduate" into a truly professional leadership oriented academic program. The  syllabus is outdated and stinking with no relevance to the existing demands of the corporate world. Exposure to the realistic management world is close to nil.All we have is bundled set of subjects that make up "volume based " credits rather than value based credits. Inculcation of critical analytical and leadership skills is non-existant.By the way I seriously attribute  the present day financial turmoil to the great "MBA"s running our financial powerhouses. We always believed in the great corporate model  tweaked with human liberty and spirit, but see whats happened? we blame our political class for every problem but here is a classic example how bad leaders (majority of MBA's) have ruined the world economy through their bad judgements and decisions. Yes ethics has also played a major role .. but does anyB school bother to inculcate ethics in true sense. Its more of a ritual nothing more nothing less. We always feared how an incapable doctor could prove hazardous to patients and health care at large. The same seems to be happening in the world of management education

BSchools wake up !

as we are ushering into a liberalized, privatized and globalized world, your MBA grads are lifelines to the modern day economy. Managers of today and leaders of tomorrow. what they take in from your school will have a cascading and ripple effect on all branches of our social and economic life. Your responsibility is no less than the kind of soldiers  produced by defence colleges. Its high time that you start asking the right questions.  Firstly what  comprises a good MBA. A good management program has to be on a 60-40 ratio, 60 % expertise- experiential driven and 40 % self driven. I coined this term "expertise-experiential" form of education. This relates to the faculty who have expertise and also experience in the nuances of corporate decision making not just running it. A PhD  or a GM @ a factory alone does qualify one to be a good teacher in  BSchool its the kind of situations one has handled, experienced and created that can be transfered to students. Remember the 1st law of thermodynamics, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transferred. Unfortunately our process of looking at teachers is clumsy and nonsensical we   poach faculty with impressive academic resumes or from those who have been part of "well known " brands.  The first class devotes to the academics which again in India is close to negligible, we still don't have a quality culture of PhD's in Management with hardly  couple of institutes offering them at large. The kind of research and problem statements that they are investigating is of prime importance and driver for hiring them. But its hardly the case : firstly we have very few academics and amongst them hardly few are researching to some of the significant problem statements that industry is facing.

A true academic oriented faculty is one who is a catalyst in resolving some serious pain points faced by the industry. Example  Professor Richard A. D'Aveni at Tuck School of Business (http://oracle-www.dartmouth.edu/dart/groucho/tuck_faculty_and_research.faculty_profile?p_id=A332QC), father of HyperCompetition is Currently working on  Strategies for dealing with rapid change and aggressive competition, value erosion, price-benefit product positioning which have such a serious impact for organizations worldwide. Remember he was the guy who told us to go "beyond Porter" and introduced hyper competition which is so relevant in the modern day context. Are Indian Academics listening ?

Then we have second category of faculty for BSchools in India, the one from Industry, we are obsessed with "brands" and all it takes is "X" no of years at a reasonable position to make him qualified for a BSChool faculty position.  We do not know what all he did there, was he a growth driver, was he a change agent, did he/she leave a lasting imprint in hos or her organization .. Not of concern, all we need is  GM/VP etc etc from a well known company. What if his company , his subordinates suffered under him in that organization ? do we bother to look at it ? and imagine what kind of knowledge such a person will transfer and what leadership principles he or she will inculcate.

and now coming to curriculum ; do we have subjects like decision modelling and sciences, optimization theory, mathematical modelling,comparative models in leadership,private equity market,Venture capital, international currency fluctuations, entrepreneurship,probability etc etc.. I can go on and. Innovation which is the buzz word in corporate world is lacking in the management education. Besides its high time that we in India also start offering Masters in financial Engineering , MS in Computational Finance . In fact I even urge MBA's ; if you can go and pursue these degrees in the finest schools go ahead even after an MBA here. There may be scholarships available for these programs provided you are the best.

A special curriculum committee must be constituted so that the subjects and broader themes can be worked out. This should be at the industry-institute partnership level , of course the faculty should have flexibility on the delivery and pedagogy but the broad contours should be well defined.

Lets get quality centric not quatity centric. Lets end this MBA tamasha