B-schools & the paralysis of analysis

B-schools fail to teach you how to handle non-performers in your team -- if you have to let them go, how do you handle that? It is a painful process that needs to be tackled sensitively. But most managers feel uncomfortable and, hence, mess it up.

The reason many businesses don't perform well is lack of execution. There are enough examples of people who pass out of B-school with flying colours but are a misfit in the corporate world.

At the same time, there are people who have the ability to learn as they grow. B-schools may need to look at their screening process and take in only those who have the ability to learn along the way, on their own, rather than learn by rote and then expect to perform well in the corporate world.

In business, you don't always take the right decisions. You just have to make sure you have a high percentage of right decisions. If you keep waiting for more data and more analysis of that data, you lose time.

B-schools are masters at teaching the importance of analysis and several people become victims of paralysis of analysis. If there are 100 decisions to be taken and you take five right ones, that's good. But what about the other 95 for which you didn't have time?

Compare that with someone who has taken 70 right and 30 wrong decisions. B-schools need to sensitise their students that decision-making is not black-and-white; there are plenty of grey areas.

B-schools also need to imbibe values in their students: how an organisation should work, what culture they should build within it, how to interact with the stakeholders. These are critical issues and perhaps matter more than understanding financial analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and strategies.

How can this be achieved? The faculty needs to better understand the corporate world. Increased industry interaction is the way forward.