I specialized in MBA finance and today, I use zero ‘finance’ in my job. My friend specialised in HR and he uses every bit of it on a daily basis. So the immediate question that comes to me naturally is – are the subjects taught during an MBA actually relevant?If yes, to what extent? But a better and more important question is -why not put your investment (both in terms oftime and money)into makingthese MBA subjects relevant?

Technically, thereis no set of rules in making your MBA relevant. However, there is always a way to judge what is of real importance. Let us look at some of them.

Choose selectively: Choosing between an MBA in finance, marketing, HR or operations is a question that exists in almost every MBA aspirant’s mind. And it may get tough to decide which field to specialize in. Consider a personality test at that point. Ask yourself if you are a fact based person or someone who gets along with people easily or if you’re a process follower. Learn from your past to direct your future. While you cannot predict your future, you can use your common sense and aptitude to give it a direction. Closely analyse the things that work for you or have resulted in a success in your favour and follow that path. This doesn’t mean asking you to stick to your comfort zone. Choose a specialization that according to you and you alone makes sense for your long term personal and professional growth.

Choose now or suffer later!

Challenge your knowledge: Challenging yourself, especially your knowledge is critical for decision making. It is a brave act since going through the process can be quite taxing mentally, and may even affect your self-esteem. But try it. Do it for your own good. By the time we complete our MBA, we have already absorbed a plethora of knowledge from our learning and experiences at school, during graduation and of course, personal experiences, being the most important. However, the key to success is to constantly challenge your existing knowledgeas we live in a dynamic environment which is constantly changing and evolving.And something that holds true today may lose its meaning or significance the next day. Something as mundane as our choice of clothes or the gadgets that we use keeps changing every few months.The computers that were being so widely used till a few years ago, without which, one could not imagine working, are now considered outdated. By saying this, I do not mean that our knowledge becomes obsolete, but its application changes faster than we can imagine. Knowledge keeps evolving and so does its application. Hence, it is vital for the MBA subjects also to evolve as per the need of the hour and we should not shy away from challenging their relevance and suitability if they seem outmoded, and in the process, renew the confidence in what we do.

Everything has an expiry date, even knowledge!

Challenge your Professors: A B-school today will offer you tremendous opportunities for learning and innovation. However, you will still find a few professors who may burden you with traditional, theoretical ways of teaching and thinking. In such situations, an ideal solution is totake the lead and challenge for new ideas, new ways of conducting classroom sessionsand demand new content. These curious, entrepreneurial acts will increase the value of your MBA subjects and the learning experience, making them much more relevant for the real world. Create case studies in everything possible, try and relate it to real life and if you do not find a way to relate it to the practical world, consider disregarding or questioning it.

Ask your professor,“Am I really going to use this in real life? And if yes, how?”

Commercial alignment: Professionals with a commercially alignedthinking is what corporates are looking for in anMBA graduate today. Your knowledge of the subjects won’t be of much use if you cannot make money for the firm. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to adapt yourself according tothe market dynamics before opting for a specialization. Today, if I were to do my MBA again, I would have not optedfor the traditional choice of finance or marketing. I would have chosen a specialization in entrepreneurship in emerging marketsor risk mitigationor leadership, innovation etc. Considering that the selection of specialization happens after one year in most colleges, you will have ample time to think about the subjects of relevance that cater to your needs and aptitude.All you need to do is to make sure that your time is effectively invested and managed.

Create a new skill: Pursuing an MBA comes with several benefits, one of them being the ability to create and develop in you an innovative skill by leveraging the MBA subjects. One needs to thoroughly analyze the ‘skills of the future’ and prepare himself/herself for it during the course of the program. Organizations demand and value skills over any “specialization”. The future workforce is expected to be more dynamic and innovative. And if you are one of them, you will go places. The more skilled you are, the more employable you become.

A skill doesn’t need to great; Even a simple skill that is ‘commercial’ sells!

What does it mean for you?

The importance of MBA subjects can neither be undermined, nor be considered paramount. The most crucial aspect remains the application of subjects that you study during the course – whichever specialization it may be. And application will only come with experimentation and by displaying entrepreneurship skills. The subjects and degree will just act as a base for a few years after your MBA. Once you’re on the job, nobody really caresabout your degree. But you are expected to know a lot of things, just because you are an MBA graduate. And the expectations are really high from your leaders, colleagues and family. You will be required to handle big tasks and responsibilities. And all you need to do is apply a simple idea to solve them. And the one thing that will keep you alive and help you succeed is your commercial acumen and the ability to deal with the ever changing situations using your skills.

Contributed by Virag Jain ( Class of 2010, IBS MUMBAI )

There are many ways to define the word ‘spirituality’. In words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, “Spirituality blossoming simply means blossoming in life in all dimensions; being happy, at ease with yourself and everybody around you”. It primarily deals with finer human aspects.

Classical definition of management is that it is the art and science of getting things done through other people. It is science because there are certain principles and rules which operate on logic. These can be seen in the areas of accounting, finance, marketing etc. It is art because in management we deal with people all the way and people cannot be handled with logic. People have thoughts, feelings, emotions, instincts and certain values & morals in dealing with situations.

Most management programme syllabus cover the intellectual portions which operate on principles of logic very well though these programme fail miserably in dealing with people aspects. People aspects are generally covered under the subject of organizational behaviour which primarily include topics like motivation, morale, leadership etc. but these do not touch upon the finer issues of human aspects.

We shall look at the past nearly 140 years and see how the human aspects have evolved. In early stages of industrial revolution in the late 19^th century, the people aspect was not well known and scientific management principles propounded by F. W. Taylor, Frank & Lillian Gilbreth and others were based on the science aspects of management i.e. on the logic part. It was only during 1932 -1936 while conducting of the Hawthorne experiment at Western Electric Company, Chicago that management thinkers for the first time got a feel of the human aspect. They were puzzled with findings of the experiment. The electrical assembly shop had been divided into two parts, one being a reference group and the other experimental group. The purpose of the experiment was to study effect of changes in light intensity and noise level on productivity of workers. It was observed that whether we increased or decreased the variable parameters, productivity always went up. It was proved beyond any doubt that treating workers as meaningful human beings instead of a cog in the production system was the reason behind continuous increase in productivity.

Another interesting story came from Japan. During the World War II (1939-1945) the economy of Japan was totally shattered and atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki knelt a deadly blow to the economy. Japan does not have many natural resources and hence revival of its economy was a distant possibility. However, the spectacular rise of Japanese industry in 1960s and 1970s stunned the whole world. Researchers from all over the world, notably the US went to Japan to study the underlying causes of such spectacular progress.

Surprisingly, they found the humble ‘Quality Circle’ was doing miracles at ground root level. A quality circle comprises a group of 8 to 10 workers from the same work area, who meet periodically on voluntary basis to discuss, analyse and solve problems and issues related to their work area. The quality circle members use seven tools of quality circle viz. brainstorming, histogram, pareto chart etc.

American firms tried to replicate the quality circle concept in their work areas but it was utter failure everywhere. The basic concept of quality circles in Japan was based on the fact that managements in Japan believe all employees to be intelligent and capable human beings, who know their jobs and work areas the best. Thus, it was the dignity and respect for human beings which results in people doing wonders in their work areas. The seven tools were simple techniques which were used only to formalize ideas and thoughts of group members. American culture which primarily operates on the principle of hire and fire could not appreciate the spirit behind quality circles and tried to copy only the methodology. In many other countries of the world, including India the concept of quality circle has been introduced, but due to very limited success most of these quality circles died a natural death.

Next important milestone came in 1985 when Mr Daniel Goleman popularized the concept of emotional intelligence through his book ‘Emotional Intelligence at Work’. A lot has been published on the subject since then and it has given impetus to all types of organizations. It is well known now that success of  a person depends only 20% on his intelligence level (Intelligence Quotient – IQ) and 80 % on his emotional intelligence level (Emotional Quotient – EQ).

The real breakthrough in dealing with human beings has not yet come through and it is expected that spirituality (Spiritual Quotient – SQ) may provide the answer.

Spirituality may be defined in any one of the following ways;

1. Living values as integrity, probity, passion, co-operation, ethics, commitment, loyalty and tolerance at workplace.
2. Wisdom required to effectively function in a complex business environment.
3. It helps eliminate prejudice, biases and subjectivity.
4. It leads to leadership excellence, balancing spiritual and material aspects and helps coping with stress from within.
5. It denotes ability to effectively communicate with people from diverse global backgrounds and perspectives.
6. It helps us to recognize and nurture giftedness in other people.

Spirituality primarily deals with total fabric of inner core values of a person. People differ very widely in all aspects, but the most crucial is the spiritual aspect.

Spirituality is often confused with religion but these two are poles apart. A person’s religion may be Hindu, Muslim, Christianity etc. and each religion has its own set of guidelines including concept of God, rituals, worship methods etc. Spirituality is above all religions, i.e. it looks at human being as a unit and innermost cravings, thoughts, aspirations, feelings, instincts and perversions etc., are considered.

Today’s executives operate under extremely complex and demanding work situations and one has to deal with people of all hues and mentalities. Unless the person is well grounded in his innermost core values and convictions he may falter under highly conflicting demands and temptations.

One technique which is extensively used for improving spirituality is meditation. Meditation implies stilling and calming down the inner chatter of mind in order to perceive and judge an emerging situation clearly so as to arrive at appropriate action step. There are many methods of meditation but the most common are vipasana (focusing on breathing) and transcendental meditation (focusing on any neutral object not associated with any religion).

The MBA courses of high grade do realize the significance of spirituality and develop & use the teaching methodology in such a way that it leads to development of spirituality in students. Group projects, role plays, weekend retreats, outdoor activities like hill climbing, community living in hostels (where 100% students live in hostels), reviews of spiritual books by groups of students, guest speakers, personal journal etc are all aimed at developing spirituality.

Recent scandals like fraud in Enron, Worldcom and Satyam, collapse of Lehman Brothers and other such cases point to spiritual bankruptcy of the individuals involved. Even though persons at the helm of affairs managed the results very efficiently, they all had low inner morals and values, so that they succumbed to extreme greed, criminality and other low values.

Today’s MBA’s are required to be insulated from such situations. They would not be tempted by the lure of temptations as their grounding is on strong values and morals. In a nut shell we can say that strong founding in spirituality is the sine qua non of MBA education. We can briefly state as follows:

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) – How you think?

Emotional Quotient (EQ)  – How you feel?

Spiritual Quotient (SQ)     – Who you are as a person?

Contributed by Sumit Gulati (Class of 2009, IBS HYDERABAD)