A workplace is all about collaborative behaviour and team work, though all this is hardly taught at B-school, believes Vinita Bali, former Managing Director of Britannia Industries Ltd.
Bali, an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, worked with multinationals such as Coca-Cola in the US and Cadbury’s in the UK and South Africa. She says there is little exposure to team work in B-school, as it’s all about individual assignments, marks and grades and individual contributions.
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“Most of us eventually work in teams and manage teams, work in cross-functional set-ups, which require sensitivity and empathy of one’s team members,” she says, adding that this element is missing in MBA education today and B-schools would do well to teach students what is required of them when they begin to work in organisations.
Bali, who believes that an MBA is a good ‘rounding off degree’ of what one has learnt in college, says that doing an MBA after some work experience would be ideal for students.
“Work experience makes a lot of sense. I would strongly recommend three to four years of work. If it’s not a requirement by an institute, then an individual should consider getting that experience. Getting into any organisation, whether an NGO or a commercial enterprise, would help to know how things work,” she says.
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