B-School

What does entrepreneurship really teach you? Apart from all the experience and the financial management, there’s an inert sense of corporate management that runs beneath every organization, a start up or an enterprise. When you’re a part of a greater organization, that sense can be instilled with the common experience that can be shared and discussed, tried and tested, because the shared experience has each other’s back. When you’re riding the entrepreneurial ship alone when you start, what happens then? Do you miss the saddle and fall because you did not find that inert management, or is it all over-hyped? Let’s decipher.

The inert sense of management being discussed here is the way an organization is managed, through its various phases and cycles. There are decisions to be taken, people to be hired and investors to be answered to. In the middle of all this, there’s the vision and mission of the entire energy. If this is not handled with sensitivity and objectivity, there’s a risk of the organization losing its path and toppling over in all the management areas, be it financial, marketing or strategy. It is this understanding that we call the inert sense of corporate management.

Now the debate has always been if this inert sense can be put together, packaged and delivered in business schools, because eventually, till the time you’re in the make or break real life situations, the anxiety can never be simulated or felt. It’s like preparing the horse for the final race and running the race. There is a big difference. And this difference is all that matters. Business schools can deliver the concept of management via case studies, internships, presentations and valued books, but do all these perfectly substitute the adrenaline rush of sitting in a conference room and discussing the next day’s $ 1.5 million planned marketing campaign roll-out. The argument comes down to finances, and it really isn’t wrong when it does. The risk of losing a rank or grade can never be compared to losing finances. Its learning in the former and experience in the latter. It’s the experience which eventually is the real-life and the learning is being doled out of experiences that others have undergone. Can that be enough? Is that why internships and on-the job projects are gaining primal importance? Well, let’s look on the other side before we jump to a conclusion.

Management schools have evolved with time and corporate maturity. They do not simply put together the term patterns and books for the students. It’s well-thought of and is close to industry. There’s a lot that goes into the ‘teaching’ and the faculty when a world-class business school is shaped. With corporate honchos as faculties to C-level internships, business schools are now no longer just the management churners but are management groomers today. In the path to entrepreneurship, there’s a lot that a business school can offer its students. The MBA-to-entrepreneur journey can be fulfilling because:

Learn to start working as a group early

The beauty of a business school lies in its resources. That does not mean the physical infrastructure but the capabilities and knowledge that the graduates come with. There’s freshness, eagerness to learn and a get-going spirit. Many corporate members who take a break for an MBA degree praise the back-to-school experience because it does not come with targets and pressures; it comes with an openness to experiment, to learn and to do with mistakes. This they feel gives a much needed creative and learning boost which might have faded during their working. When such interesting minds flock together, you get not only new ideas but a learning to think and work together.

Subjects are practical

With the multiple theories that a management student encounters during the course, there’s always one question that comes parallel, is this actually applicable in real life? Will I ever get to even refer to these theories during real business decisions? Not so surprisingly, the answer is yes, they do. From Accounting to Human Resource Management, the subjects are taught with a reality check. And the check is always in favor. Many decision makers have attributed their winning formulas to business school teachings.

Teachers come with an enriching experience

There’s no better teacher than experience. But there’s nobody better than an experienced teacher as well. And when industry shakes hands with academia, the formula just gets better. Faculties at leading business schools not only come with a valuable industry experience but also with rich research backgrounds. This helps not only in understanding what’s wrong and right (industry) but also in what can be done and has not been done till now (research). This is most helpful when you start up as it gives an insight in both understanding the new requirements of the industry and shaping the existing wheel better.

Shapes the way you think

Finally, the most important element that a business school gifts its students is a way to think. That is the basic reason management schools were born. There’s a need to understand and marriage ethical behavior, sustainable strategies and financial growth. This requires what most term as a genie formula but is actually the way a manger thinks. And it is this thinking which gets a holistic development in a business school. The whole here is management, really.

There is no one answer to the question that do entrepreneurs need MBA? Or do start ups need to hire MBAs? Well, nothing is right or wrong here but there’s a better standing always. And though MBA is not the primary requirement to build a strong entrepreneurial spirit , it definitely does help. It helps to give a thought in decision making, it helps to understand why employee performance levels might be going down, it helps to strategize in a more sustainable manner and most importantly, it helps to answer what is going right when an organization is performing great or what’s wrong during a flat performance? The answer in both the cases is indeed, management.

I’ll leave with an interesting TED talk video by Frank Peters on the Art of Entrepreneurship. It’s very interesting with great insights. Have a look.

TEDxFullerton – Frank Peters – The Art Of Entrepreneurship