B-schools should focus on education, foster thinking ability: Naushad Forbes

Companies are looking at students’ ability to solve problems, work as team members and cultural sensitivity before recruiting them.

These are critical in today’s global business scenario, said Naushad Forbes, Director of Forbes Marshall and Vice-President, Confederation of Indian Industry. Too often, management institutes and engineering colleges worry about relevance.

“I don’t think we should. We should worry about providing great education where people learn how to think. Let our B-schools, focus on education and chase excellence, and foster the ability to think,” he said at a two-day CII Management Education Conclave inaugurated on Wednesday.

Teamwork capability and cultural sensitivity are two major requisites. Best teams are diverse with complementary strengths.

And, with international workforce, cultural sensitivity assumes importance. Students can gain these by participating in the planning of events in the campuses.

For example, a student could have organised an event in the college in which he had to deal with complex problems in organising it. It is this quality of a student able to solve a complex problem by a leading a team consisting of unknown people that companies look for in students, he said. To educators, Forbes had two suggestions.

The first is to encourage students do project work and discuss cases that are from the real world. The second is to allow students do a lot of research.

MM Murugappan, Vice-Chairman, Murugappa Group, urged educators to collaborate, spend time with industry and institutions, and listen.

“Let us work together on the metrics of performance and synchronise the same to translate aspirations to strategic transformations. Management talent needs to be equipped with vision, understanding, clarity, and agility. Students need to have ‘critical thinking’ wherein they are expected to take and implement decisions.

Critical thinking should be made mandatory at all functions at the college level. The probability of making inappropriate decisions is high, with attendant consequences.

And, the factors that mitigate this risk are in-depth analysis of issues, and logical structuring of reasons that lead to conclusion, which are the elements of critical thinking, he said.