The English idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” is a metaphorical phrase that means one shouldn’t presume the worth or value of someone/something by its outward appearance alone. Well, for ages we have been hearing this popular English phrase. But, in practice we all do the opposite. We turn someone down easily if the person is not properly attired or is unattractive. “I am not handsome but I can give my hand to someone who needs help… Because beauty is required in heart not in face….” this quote of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam gives such a strong message.

Some of insignificant looking men and women do most significant work in society. The President of Harvard made a mistake by presuming Mr and Mrs. Leland Stanford to be some worthless people and it cost him greatly. A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the president’s outer office. His secretary spoke to them rudely considering them as backwoods country hicks and they were made to feel that they had no business at Harvard and probably didn’t even deserve to be in Cambridge.

For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become dispirited and go away. They didn’t. And the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted to do. “Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they’ll leave,” she told him. And he signed in exasperation and nodded. The President of Harvard looking at their out appearance was rude and disgraceful towards Stanfords.

The lady told him, “We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.” The president wasn’t touched; he was shocked. “Madam,” he said gruffly, “We can’t put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.”“Oh, no,” the lady explained quickly, “We don’t want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.”

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, “A building! Do you have any possible idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical plant at Harvard.” For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now. And the lady turned to her husband and said quietly, “Is that all it costs to start a University? Why don’t we just start our own?” Her husband nodded.

The president’s face drooped in confusion and seemed disorientation. And Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, travelling to Palo Alto, California, where they established the Stanford University that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard did not cared about.

The very premise of the tale was completely incredible. Leland Stanford (1824-93) was one of the most prominent men of his time in America: He was a wealthy railroad magnate who built the Central Pacific Railroad (and drove the gold spike to symbolize the completion of the first transcontinental rail line at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869), as well as a Republican Party leader who served as California’s eighth governor (1862-63) and later represented that state in the U.S. Senate (1885-93). He was a striking figure, hardly the type of man to dress in a “homespun threadbare suit,” walk “timidly” into someone’s office without an appointment, and sit cooling his heels “for hours” until someone stooped to see him. Harvard’s president was unaware of Mr. Stanford’s standing in society.

Our society is more fixated on physical appearance; it was not so in past. Few decades ago, people were more graceful and had ethics in treating others with respect. People of great standing and intelligence prefer dressing up simply. Their knowledge, their expertise, their intellect makes them sand out in crowd.

But, these days great care is taken by all celebrities to ensure they look perfect when they are seen and to suppress all pictures of them looking less than ideal. The proliferation of these unreal images is thought to be linked with eating disorders and with many ordinary people’s dissatisfaction with their own appearance. If you see Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Ratan Tata, Elon Musk they are not flashily dressed, they don’t show off their wealth. These people rose from low to high they know the value of money and showing it won’t proliferate their wealth. They don’t flaunt on Instragram. For that matter even Instagram founder is such a simple gentleman and grounded.  Ever noticed that billionaires lead such a simple life why? Because they don’t need to prove people by materialistic things that they are rich they prove by their remarkable contribution like donations, inventions, for betterment of the society.

Our poor understanding of what constitutes attractiveness as opposed to beauty is creased. We concentrate more on our outer beauty than inner beauty. Warmth, kindness and compassion are some qualities that make a person more attractive. However these qualities are quite impalpable and difficult to define, so there is a natural tendency to overestimate the importance of physical good looks which are more easily quantified and readily visible.

Ironically, MBA/MMS course which once reined the educational streams seems to have lost its zest; almost 50% seats remaining vacant. The case is worse in Nagpur University where 59% management seats remained vacant in 60 colleges. Though the number of MBA seats is increasing every year, the colleges are facing crunch of students, especially the newer ones. Karnataka has 236 colleges having an intake of 14,148 for MBA degree. Out of these, 8,007 seats were allotted through the Post-Graduate Common Entrance Test conducted by the Karnataka Examination Authority. And of them only 7,600 students have reported to colleges.

Students used to look up to the MBA course because of the employability it offered. But today corporate world prefers Economics graduates; they prefer BMS (Bachelor’s of Business Management) to the MBAs. “These students (BBAs, BMS, BFAs, and BMMs) carry less head weight and are down to earth. They are humble and supple therefore they are easy to shape, also, they study all subjects taught in the MBA degree at the degree level itself” say some of the HR Heads from prominent companies. In most Universities the syllabus the MBA degree overlaps with the degree course such as BBA, BMS, BAF, BMM etc.

Successful entrepreneurs are rare among MBAs  

In an article published few years back in ‘The Economist’ by a Harvard MBA, Philip Delves Broughton, the author was very forthright while suggesting that MBAs have lost value, he says successful entrepreneurs are rare among MBAs. They come from general public. Entrepreneurs know that business is fundamentally about two things innovation and selling. Most MBA programs don’t teach both of these. If MBA is about networking, it happens when you are successful and you don’t need to get into an over cramped networking of MBAs struggling to clinch on to their jobs.

In today’s business world “innovation” is the hottest thing. Google searches for the term have grown by more than 500% in the past few years. The Wall Street Journal has published that innovation is no longer obsession of entrepreneurs only; it matters even to the general public. Innovation is the key word in everybody’s life because it is the key to living life brilliantly.

Lesser interest for MBAs could be due to increased demand for market oriented postgraduate diploma courses. Some experts blame the lukewarm industry response during campus placements. Students are reluctant to invest up to Rs 5 lakh for an MBA degree after graduation. If they do, they seek instant gratification in way of lucrative placements on campus. Many are taking up jobs and opting for part-time MBA courses instead of taking up full-time MBA programme.

With so many students doing an MBA it has almost become like a generic graduation degree, the other fact is too many institutions are offering the course. Startups are reluctant to hire MBA graduates because they don’t learn the basic techniques used in a business and big employers say they lack the skills required to effectively manage today’s diverse, globally-dispersed, super-connected and resource-constrained organizations. They lack things like strategic thinking, scientific analysis, formal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, ethical reasoning and most importantly leadership and interpersonal communications.

MBA courses concentrated only on theory

An old criticism of MBA degree courses was that they only concentrated on theory, thus leaving graduates wholly unprepared for the big bad business world. The focus of MBA degree courses has changed to some extent with focus on case studies. Only a senior faculty with good industry experience can solve a case study with points like what is the issue, the goal of the analysis, what is the context of the problem, what key facts should be considered, what alternatives are available to the decision-maker and last but not the least recommendation from the learner to the case.  Experienced and seasoned faculties are in dearth. Are such faculty available in the best business schools or in top MBA programs.

A study by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad (IIM-A) has publicized that business school research in India is lacking. The research conducted by Professor Arindam Banerjee of IIM- Ahmedabad, aimed to look at “some historic reasons” for poor productivity in research in India, including unproductive competition among institutions due to a false sense of self sufficiency, lack of adequate research infrastructure at the institution level and, the long standing government policy in India that has considered teaching to be the core activity in the Indian university system.

In fact, research adds on competency to the faculty’s teaching skill. We need macro level policies regarding fund allocation and revising mandates to do some meaningful research says the report. The MBA course requires learning and adapting changes as a core of its syllabi; owning to knowledge, honing skills and capacity of the learner.

Contemplating and integrating with student’s experience in the course work is very important. Does that happen? Does an eMBA program take this in account.

The world has changed a lot over the last 15 years – it is very much an ‘unknowable world’. For instance, the numbers of Fortune 100 companies from 10 years ago are no longer in existence today. It is a swiftly, rapidly shifting world and it is hard to keep up with all the new features of change. The technology, the ethnicity, the business trends, climate changes, geographical tapering, world politics, everything is changing so swiftly. Technology is changing so fast that we see gadgets and updates that seem to come out on a monthly basis. Technological advances have hastened business practices – bringing in changes in business strategies.

Flexibility in MBA program

We have to ready ourselves to apply flexibility to our MBA programs. Take feedback from industry, make them a party while changing syllabus for MBA degree programs. Take feedback from the senior academicians; involve them in making effective curriculum. Take feedback from alumni and the current students by increasing choices of courses and flexibility. Allow students to choose their elective in the first year itself. Take leads from the market. I think we need to customize the curriculum as per demands from the employers. We need to bring concepts to the student’s life. Use effective pedagogies such as live projects, simulations, prototyping, role-playing scenarios, global captivation, and case studies.

In conclusion, let’s bring back the lost sheen of the MBA course and prepare the business leaders of tomorrow through best MBA programs.