5 ways to make Indian B-Schools feature in global rankings

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story called 'why don’t many Indian MBA programs appear in global rankings?'

It is always the same story. We have no dearth of B Schools in India. We have more than 150 of them in that list. That list does not include the departments of business education and management in every other university that grants the equivalent of an MBA. Talking of Indian Institutes of Management, we now have 19 of them – the latest one being in a place called Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh.Being located in a remote location makes it harder to find good faculty to come and teach there and even harder for employers to trudge the extra distance to hire one or two students. We will no doubt be having more IIMs being authorized in future as well. It may be worth thinking about choice of location.More importantly, it may be worth asking why only 10% of the MBAs churned out by hundreds of mushrooming B-Schools are really employable.

Global Rankings

When it comes to comparing with other B Schools around the world, we do not see more than one or two of the Indian B-Schools in the lists. While in India the IIM-A is a source of pride, The Economist’s ranking places it at the 60^th rank this year. No other India B School features in the list. The Financial Times listing places IIM-A at 26^th and IIM-B at 82^nd rank this year globally. The Businessweek rankings for this year do not have a single B School from India in the list.We can always question their methodology and accuse them of bias. That would be similar to my blaming the poor quality of weighing scales and mirror that seem to indicate that I am overweight.

5 easy to implement ideas

1. Build diversity in the students: Look at the incoming batch of students in most B Schools and you will see a classroom full of engineering graduates. Have almost equal proportion of students who have degrees in literature, fine arts, design etc. At least one third of the students should be from other countries. Having a generous representation of the LGBT community and People with Disabilities prepares students for discussions that are already going mainstream in organizations.
2. Full-time work experience: Having 3-4 years of full time work experience (that comes with strong references and recommendations) creates a great context in the classroom in which to place the academic discussions. The classroom conversations will then have a healthy representation of all the sectors from manufacturing to e-commerce and everything else.
3. Languages: It does not matter which language is taught in the B School. Having Mandarin, Spanish etc on your resume is a signal to a future employer that you are serious about having a global career. Learning to speak another Indian language is an effective way to build appreciation for the diversity of India. Either way, it is a great way to strengthen learning agility.
4. Mix of Academics & Practitioners: Not every practitioner is good at deconstructing their experience and creating teachable moments. Bringing in practitioners from different industries to share their approach to the same issue can create rich learning opportunities. For example: Practicing managers from different sectors can share how they approach talent acquisition or a new product launch. <Read: Do we need PhDs to teach in B Schools?>
5. Coaching and feedback: Building self-awareness, working collaboratively, building fluency in articulation and having deep skills in listening and observation through rigorous field work are ways in which to build employability. Debriefing after any experience is an important step in learning. When students work in groups, not everyone pulls their weight. How can the student persuade the peer to pitch in wholeheartedly without burning the bridges can be a great lesson taught in B Schools. Having professors teach each other’s subjects can be an interesting experiment that schools can try out at no cost. It builds a cross disciplinary perspective.

Teaching the students how to deal with ambiguity, taking decisions with limited data points, being mindful and listening without device-distraction – the list can go on. It really is not about making it to the global rankings, but about how to reset business education that has become increasingly inward looking and irrelevant. Instead of ridiculing or ignoring the rankings, we can use the criteria used by the rankings to shore up the quality of India’s business schools.-----------Read: Do B-School rankings matterRead: How to make MBAs employable