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Sunday, February 15, 2009

MBA -- Mentally Blocked Aadmi !!

The elephant trainers, they say, tie baby elephant to a pole with a chain. The animal is kept tied till it becomes adult and then the chain is removed. But the elephant still does not go away because mentally it always feels itself tied to that pole. Somewhat same thing happens in the B schools too.

There are millions of students dying to get into B-schools to get an MBA degree and B schools too charge exorbitant fees to teach students various fundas and tricks of business. I have studied in a good B school myself and know it inside out. Simple things are expressed in mind boggling, impressive jargon and there are activities like corporate lectures to impress industry people. But what I have always noticed and felt is our esteemed faculties mould the young and inquisitive minds into a slave mentality.

To any act of indiscipline on the part of students, the usual and the first reaction of the faculty is ‘this is not expected of you, how you will survive in a job?’ Or ‘such acts will not make any company recruit you people’ … I have been through all this, and I still wonder why don’t faculty takes it in a slightly different light and say ‘this is not expected of you, how will you manage your own venture this way?’.

The years in a B-school put a cage around the free creative mind of a young soul, teaching students to be good employees and to keep their bosses happy, to work like a machine, never to say no to any work, to defend their job with their life, etc but hardly if ever to be good entrepreneurs and to recruit and keep ‘their’ employees happy and satisfied. They teach us to generate new ideas to get early promotions but not to start a new venture of our own. Even the biggest B-school carries this mentality though, it’s now changing fast. B-schools, agreed, teach us business but also make us perceive a job as a most precious thing.

Where are all the ethics gone? The B-Grads learn to excel in jobs with chutzpah and to be competitive even with friends, and carry razor sharp professionalism in their attitude, a typical trait they have learnt in B-schools and are quite proud of, but what the MBA has not taught them is where to and with whom to apply this professionalism of theirs. That’s why half of them end up making rounds of mental counselors. None of the faculties (except that of the subject ‘entrepreneurship development’ that too is an elective one carrying minor weight) ever encourages entrepreneurship.

Are we churning out manager- robots from our high profile B-schools, who are going to carry this mental attitude with a pride all their life? Just like the poor elephant that spends its entire life tied to a pole absolutely unaware of its strength, thanks to the mental block it has been put into.

12 comments:

  1. Wow... applauds for such a post..! Really relaly well said.. These days every1 is going for MBAs no matter what!

    So u r an MBA as well?

    and MBA is Mentally Blocked Aurat also!

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  2. It takes courage to stand up and realize that you are part of a sinking ship!!!!After a certain point, you just cannot deny there is after all smthing goin wrong smwhere..
    Well, I have not done an MBA, so I cannot say if this is how it goes... But yes, I do believe that 'Education', as a whole, everywhere, is imposed on us all the time.. We need to go to school, we need to get good grades.. we need to do all sorts of courses!!!!!!and well, We most importantly have to get the MBA done , in order to survive in this competitive world... Thats the way the 'Forced Education' world ruins our lives, killing creativity and happiness... We dnt get to do wat we want,.... ever.. do we???
    The MBA course is just a nicer/ethical way of making us dumb horses be taken to the pond and then given no other option, but to drink the water!!!!

    Bravo for the post...
    Keep Blogging
    :)
    Cheers

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  3. well said.... I specifically like your idea on entrepreneurship...
    Its like " If you give someone bread you feed him for the day, but if you teach him to earn his bread you feed him a lifetime" :)

    I really support the idea changing the MBA program to be more job producing than job oriented... :)

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  4. Nice post.. I completely agree with your content and specifically liked when you picked up the entrepreneurship issue...

    As they say " If u give someone bread, you feed him for the day. But if you teach him to earn his bread you feed him for lifetime".

    keep writing....

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  5. Hi Abhinav

    thanks dude for cmmenting :)

    yup ! u r right .. it has become a ritual to go for MBA.

    yup, I am an MBA too :)

    and ya this is gender neutral post :)

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  6. Hi Divya :)

    thanks dear for such thoughtful a comment :)and thanks for the compliment :)

    I absolutely agree with u . our educaton system actually stinks. we study things we'll never ever need again in life leaving those wherein our natural flair lie.
    when I was in class 4 or 5, I did a lot of study (text and school's own assignments like charts, scrapbooks etc)on Zaire and Zimbawe.. I dont think the hardwork my little brain applied then is ever going to come in use ...

    Sad but true .thats why I loved 'taare zameen pe' so very much :)

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  7. Hi Pranjal

    thanks for this wonderful comment :)

    ya I agree , u hit the nail .. MBA progrm. should ideally be more job producing than job oriented... :)

    :)

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  8. Kudos to you for having the guts to speak differently. Its a fad for each of us to finish MBA. Why? Everyone does it; so would I. I am an Engineering graduate. The courses available does not prepare one to face the technical stuff that is actually done at the work place. Why Our Indian Education System is evolved that way. Its been that way and they want to continue that way. Why cant it be such that we can apply what we learn than memorize it to score numbers. Its high time the education system re-invented itself

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  9. Hi Insignia

    Thanks for the comment and the compliment :)

    yup! going for an MBA has become a fashion now a days..joining the MBA bandwagon without even giving a second thought.

    and yes I strongly feel

    'OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM STINKS'

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  10. AS u are a rockstar...I have been telling this to my dad since time immemorial but he feels that doing MBA is a necessity. Dhirubhai ambani never did MBA yet he managed to establish one of India's leading company, Reliance. Bookish knowledge is not one needs to become a successful entrepreneur...one needs to have a fine sense of business and foresight.

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  11. hi Gayathri

    thanks for this wonderful comment...:) loved it !

    yup! I agree, vision and perseverance are needed not a flashy MBA degree....bookish knowledge leads to nowhere..:(
    but sadly this is the very reality of our B schools.. :(

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  12. interesting post..I can relate to some extent with my consultant post,where the roots of it are from mba..

    but I beg to differ with @Insignia
    ..just like some one said it is fad to do mba..same like it has become a fad to accuse our education system..if someone says that infront of me...I will easily pick up a fight..

    I always believe in thinkin from different perspectives..ok even I've seen 3idiots..

    so what practical work is being referred here to be taught....werent we taught welding,carpentry,etc during engg.(atleast most of the colleges have).
    Now we students..who do civil engg,mech,elec..we just jump onto IT jobs..cos it pays higher..so why are we blaming educ system that things we learnt were all useless..
    now for ex a guy who is genuinely passionate in electronics..does his Mtech or MS..who joins a semiconductor/chip company..dont u think the education he had comes to handy in daily job?

    let me tell something clearly..learning doesnt stop when u get out with degree..there is practical learning as well..which involves both learning and unlearning things...

    I have seen another fad about accusing memorizing things..we Indians from time immemorial have been stressing on memorizing things..that has been our strength..brahmins chanting mantras/gita..not using calculators..memorizing tables..etc.. i think all that has now lead us to become the most intelligent bread in the world(ok i know now many questions would arise here..even I've seen Taare Zamin par..but the crux of the movie I understood it is attitude of people to be changed..the parents and teachers..the grading/marking system)...next time when we pat our back that our kids have been consistently winning the spelling bee contest understand how it is happening........our 6th class student is much much better than a 12th class student in US..now if we start aping them saying why are we stressing our children..lettin them use calculators..replace everything with MCQ(some will end up with a,b,c,d only)..we'll basically become another dumb set of ppl in coming future... pls for GOD sake dont ape westerners...am not saying load children with courses..and squeeze them with stuff to by heart till they break out...yes u can change the grading system to accommodate the complete memorizing part..some of the sensible teachers I had in school used to award marks if the answer meant the same and not word to word ditto..isnt that enough...and there are practical stuff also in our schools..the labs etc..I dont understand why ppl say this..we are not taught anything useful..our schools are common till 12th after which we choose our stream which ideally should have been a conscious decision which sadly we dont..only to blame our system....

    I very well agree with MBA...but partly we are to blamed as well..why did we join MBA? is it for learning..if it is only for learning..there is nothing stoppin us..but since we have huge amount of sunk cost(fees)..and opportunity cost..we pressurize ourselves..and be part of the rat race and later blame the education system..I've seen guys who have been passionate of something..focused on learning part which helped them in achieving the something...given up placements..and finally went on to realize the dreams as well

    ReplyDelete