Nurturing Disruptive Thinking In B-Schools

It is imperative for B-Schools to focus on developing a future-ready, resilient and agile workforce

OVER the years, Indian B-Schools have been trying to bridge the skill gap and produce a job ready workforce. However, the socio-economic disruption in the last couple of years has brought the spotlight on making the curriculum more dynamic and relevant to a hyper-connected global market. B-schools are surely making students job-ready, but are they making them future-ready beyond early years of their careers? Are they giving them insights into how to build and shape their careers as well as a strong understanding of what a corporate journey is like? The following are my top five recommendations to make the Indian management education more competitive and future-ready.

Challenge the status quo

Stanford professor Scott Sagan once said something that every management student, practitioner, or academician should frame and hang on their favorite wall: “Things that have never happened before happen all the time.” While B-Schools have been doing a phenomenal job of training students on various models of how things work, there is scope for more emphasis on how things can work differently, unlike any precedent in the past.

The habit of thinking without the fear of failure is the stepping stone for innovation that sets businesses apart. BSchools need to encourage students to always challenge the status quo, and the academic faculty and the pedagogy will need to take the onus for this to happen. The curriculum in itself needs to be progressive and must challenge students to think beyond the realm of possibilities leading to innovation.

Data-driven decision-making