I passed my MBA 10 years back from IBS. I know that it has been a long time and you must be thinking why I am talking about the things that I learnt during my MBA days, now.

Let me share with you an interesting experience. Recently, I visited the IBS campus at Ahmedabad for an Alumni Meet where I happened to meet a group of candidates for the MBA programme 2015 (yes…Old memories are back…just feeling like an old veteran), and they asked me a few questions and out of which one question was:

• Can you share with us what are the things that you have learnt during your MBA days which are helping you even now?

After pausing for a long time….I manage to answer it somehow. To be honest with you, while coming back home…I was thinking what could have been a better answer. That’s the reason I thought of writing this blog today. I think it is a very significant question that could help present and prospective MBAs during their time in ICFAI Business School.

So, No more gyaan, below are the 10 things that I learnt during my MBA in ICFAI Business School:

1. Work Smarter and Not Harder

In today’s competitive world, the major problem is we have too much work but unfortunately too little time to do it. Keywords that come to my mind are productivity and multitasking. During my earlier college days, I use to work hard but not really in a smart way. There were no nights, weekends, and evenings on weekdays.

Once, my professor told me that you should learn to adjust your habits in order to get more time for the things that matter most. Ultimately the numbers of hours in day i.e. 24 hours, will never change.

That was the turning point for me, I became more competent, and my productivity peaked. I learned how to multi-task and plan activities better. Not just in college, but also in my daily life.

Some Quick points to remember are:

1. Plan Regularly and Ahead
2. Prioritize
3. Delegate
4. Set Deadlines
5. Organize Your Day
6. Stay Flexible

2. Never Give Up it’s a Long-Road Ahead:

Life is like a roller coaster. You may not believe me but I wanted to drop out many times from my MBA. I found out later that it’s absolutely normal (sounds crazy, doesn’t it?) for such feelings to crop up.

Believe me, I wanted to quit but HE never wanted me to do that– If you are wondering who HE is, I mean the divine power above. MBA was in my destiny. Trust me “God has a plan for everyone”.

God has given me excellent professors, good friends and family who provided me with a hopeful future. Someday, if you feel like quitting, think about -what got you here, how far you have made it and what exactly is bothering you.

If you someday feel like quitting – Read the Poem below:

Don’t give up because you can’t do something

Don’t give up because you can’t achieve anything

Don’t give up because you are able to do nothing

You actually have it in you to do everything

Don’t give up because you can’t reach somewhere

Don’t give up because you can get anywhere

Don’t give up because you are ending up nowhere

You actually have it in you to attain success everywhere

 3. Give Back And Help Others:

Whatever I endured and resisted, I want to pass on to whoever reads this blog. I also meet people personally and listen to their problems in the hope of answering any questions they might have.

My advice is to cooperate with everyone, help somebody with less experience, offer assistance or expertise, and so on. Finally, you are gaining leadership skills.

4. Break The Barrier And Go Ahead:

The more I passed exams and saw the results that I got, the more I realized that there is never an end to success. Only thing that changes is your focus.

My focus on doing things serves as my motivation. So always ask yourself: What will be my next barrier that I need to break?

 5. Pursue Things Outside the Project:

What do I mean by this? If it doesn’t work within the project – always think “out of the box”. This skill will help you to grow in your career. It is always vital to be focused and motivated, you just need to do things a little outside of the box.

Example: If you treat your entire life like a project, you can’t use the same technique in different situations.

6. Depend On Friends And Family To Help Get You Through:

Without the help and support from friends and family it is not very easy to achieve success. We all need Motivators just like Arjun (from the Mahabharata) had Krishna as a supporter. Your mental and physical health is very important.

We need support at both financial and emotional levels. I am a very social person, and just as I seek encouragement from others I am also ready to support others. With this blog, I want to say thank you to all my friends and family, and I hope they realize how much their support has helped me get through some of the hardest times of my life.

 7. Develop Character and Be a Leader

Before joining MBA, I always considered myself a leader. At MBA college, I got a chance to hone my skill and ultimately turn into someone with MORE initiative, passion, persistence, perseverance.

During these days, you are entirely on your own which forces you to develop certain character skills and develop as a better leader. Force yourself and make the best out of this.

Being a leader, you will develop skills such as time management, writing skills, communication skills, analytical skills, critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills and so on.

 8. We all have different definition of skills –Enjoy your work

The answer is yes. If one person is good in Marketing, another may be good in Finance or Human Resources. Everyone has different talent, so just enjoy whatever you do. It’s important to understand this right from the MBA class as it will help you to handle the healthy competition in the world.

Remember, in the real world enjoying work can be a little more complicated than in college days. There can be numerous other issues.

 9. Learn and Recover From “Failure:

Failure is needed, as it is a step to success. Remember – it’s going to happen. You’re going to feel like a failure particularlyin first few years when you are learning something new.

It is not a failure; it is instead a fight that you want to win.One good thing that I learnt during my MBA days is that “Failure is not the end. In fact it is the beginning of a beautiful journey.” I pushed myself forward every time I failed and looked at the BIG picture. Ultimately success was waiting for me.

Today, I am a stronger person and better equipped to handle things in the real competitive world.

Some words to remember – ACCEPT, OVERCOME, and LEARN from failures and find solutions.

10. Good Moments and Bad Moments:

Good moments – when you are “happy” due to good results or excellent project grades. Good moments come to you because you didn’t give up. Good moments give you self-satisfaction that you have worked hard.

Bad moments – Sometime, you did all the hard work, but unfortunately due to lack of information or reasons beyond your control, the project was delayed. Just when you think you have that “ah-hah” moment, you tweak it, repeat it, and that answer comes later.

Good or bad moments keep coming during MBA days. Just be sure to celebrate the good moments when they happen. Just learn from the bad moments and forget it. Don’t take good moments for granted because they don’t come as often as the bad moments.

Though the learnings may be different from person to person but remember one thing that you need to be really open to take all kind of feedbacks and comments whether positive or negative from your fellow colleagues or professors or your employer during summers etc. Just ask yourself, what is your learning quotient? Keep sharing with me, I will be happy to guide you.

When you join an MBA programme at a good institution, you spend plenty of money and substantial prime time of your professional life. Obviously, you do this with some expectation of better life ahead. So, let’s look at what are your take-away from the MBA programme. These are mainly the following;

1. A degree certificate confirming your having attended and successfully completed the program. It may also indicate division/distinction achieved.
2. A marks list indicating the list of subjects studied by you during the two year period of MBA course and the percentage marks or grade achieved in each.
3. Good knowledge on various subjects of the curriculum with more detailed understanding and knowledge of the specializations chosen by you, like ‘finance’, ‘marketing’, ‘human resource’, etc.
4. A group of friends and contacts on whom you may rely in times of need.

That’s about all. However, all these are not enough for you to achieve fabulous career in a professionally managed firm with ultra-high salary package that you might have dreamt. You also expected the job to be highly satisfying, providing tremendous opportunities for learning and growth. All these and much more are possible only, repeat only, if you acquire one more take-away, as follows;

5. To be a good person, i.e., totally different person when you come out of MBA programme compared to the person who joined the MBA course.

This 5^th point, unfortunately, is not a part of the curriculum and it is generally not taught. It requires self-initiative and considerable effort. Some people call it ‘personality development’ but it is far more than that.

It involves complete overhaul of your innermost beliefs, instincts, emotions, attitudes, habits, behaviour and thought patterns. These aspects are extremely difficult to modify, as these are deep rooted in a person’s psyche and have been acquired over many years of living. It requires a deep urge to explore this area and introduce changes with considerable effort. The good news is that it is possible to bring about positive changes, albeit with keen insight, initiative, determination and perseverance of high order.

For a person to perform the assigned job with high sense of responsibility, one must possess good efficiency and high order of effectiveness. In addition one must be a good person at the core of his being. We shall now examine each of these aspects in more detail.

Many people confused between the words ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’. Broadly speaking, efficiency means doing things right whereas effectiveness means doing the right things. Effective signifies ‘what’ and efficiency signifies ‘how well’. One must achieve effectiveness and efficiency both, but effectiveness always comes first. For example, if you want to proceed in your personal journey of growth, effectiveness would imply your destination, direction and right path to reach the destination. Efficiency, on the other hand would imply using the available resources in an optimum way to complete the journey in the shortest possible time.

Efficiency is mostly a technical term signifying level of output from a given amount of input. In simple terms output divided by input is defined as efficiency. In management context it implies getting substantial work output from limited resources, especially using the limited time which is available.

Simplest form of efficiency improvement boils down to time management. Many people have examined the issue of time management and come out with large number of ideas and suggestions. Some of these are explained below.

1. Plan your work. Make things-to-do lists everyday and prioritize the same.
2. Increase your energy level by nutritious food, proper exercise, and adequate sound sleep etc.
3. Delegate mundane work to levels where it belongs.
4. Meditate everyday to develop inner calmness and highly focussed mind.
5. Introduce lean thinking and 5-S in your work environment.
6. Use technological gadgets and tools like Scraps, MakeMe, PayAnywhere, Producteev, Wunderlist, GoToMyPC, Google Docs, Dropbox, Roboform, Evernote, Google Drive, Dragon Mobile Assistant etc.
7. Standardise the processes and document the same for future reference.
8. Get accreditation of ISO 9001 (Quality) and ISO 14001 (Environment) so that production processes, systems and practices become formalized and get audited periodically.

Effectiveness on the other hand is a much wider term. It signifies that one must align all his actions and efficiencies towards the broader organizational objective. Issue of effectiveness in organizations has also been much deliberated. Some ideas for improving effectiveness are given below;

1. Keep the focus on your contribution. Blaming the circumstances or other people never pays.
2. Learn to be a team player. Even a genius cannot achieve good results by working alone.
3. Learn to take responsibility. Simply doing what is asked does not take you to great heights.
4. Always use innovation, creativity and better ways of doing work.
5. Read repeatedly and assimilate the book ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey.

The most important and highly complex issue pertains to performing well under various types of favourable and most adverse situations. It requires bringing about innermost changes in the way a person perceives, feels, thinks and behaves. The issue of morals, ethics, values and deep rooted instincts occupies very high significance in this context. Consider the recent industrial frauds like Enron, Satyam etc. In all these cases the persons at the helm of affairs were highly efficient and effective. However, in all cases they had perversions, deep roots of greed, criminality, falsehood and other associated characteristics. A few steps those may be helpful to begin your journey in the right direction are given below;

1. Highly useful qualities like enthusiasm, optimism, hope, compassion, synergy etc cannot be taught. These concepts can be explained by a teacher along with use of some examples. However, these need to be ingrained into your persona and that requires considerable will power, patience and perseverance.
2. Observe other high achieving persons, read their biographies and cull out ideas and concepts you can use for your own development and growth. For example, Benjamin Franklin had very early in life laid down thirteen values to guide him in his living. Later in his life he was involved in framing the constitution of USA and rose to the position of President of USA. The list of thirteen values with brief description of each is readily available on internet and anyone can use these for personal transformation and growth.
3. Charge your subconscious regularly with the thoughts you want to cultivate. This is also called self-hypnotism. If you tell something specific to your brain periodically with regularity, the inner brain called your subconscious mind absorbs such thoughts and it modifies your thoughts and behaviour patterns.

Once this aspect of MBA degree is understood right at the beginning of the course, students must embark upon a personal journey of their own in order to graduate out from the institution as a totally transformed person compared to one who got in. Then, and only then, sky is the limit for you and you can soar to great heights and fulfil your aspirations and ambitions with considerable finesse and ease.