First written 10:55 AM; April 29, 2001 Revised and Updated Wednesday, July 02, 2008 Redefining Business Education A company is not judged by the Corporate Jet of the Chairman & CEO. It is judged by the way the ordinary people behave in the front office - Ms. Patricia Fripp - Cited in the best of Bits & Pieces Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never - Napoleon Bonaparte Harvard Business School (HBS) is a renowned institution and in existence for a long time. This real life story happened in early 1900s. The President of HBS is a big post. One day an elderly couple were waiting outside his office to meet him. His secretary found the couple very ordinarily dressed and thought they were just some commoners wanting to meet the President for some favor. She stalled them and made them wait indefinitely. The old couple just dug in. Finally, the President relented to meet them. The old lady said that they had lost their son while studying at Harvard and wanted to set up a building in his memorial. The arrogant President said, pointing out to the campus, 'do you know it costs million dollars to build this kind of institution'. Immediately, the lady said, 'let us go Bill, it costs just a million dollars'. They were Mr. & Mrs. William Stanford and who built the Stanford University in California - Source Bits & Pieces, Lawrence Ragan Communications. USA. The moral of the story is real leaders do not show off. It is the mediocre people who are arrogant. It is the empty vessels that make the most noise. Never judge people and institutions by their simplicity - Madhavan Gopalachary Getting an MBA degree has always been an obsession of most ambitious young people. The huge supply demand gap has led to plethora of institutions and colleges whose credentials are suspect. Is it education or a money making racket ? An interesting article titled 'Making global managers' appeared in the leading Chennai newspaper 'The Hindu' on May 15, 2005. The author had pointed out the various reasons for the dilution of the management education, popularly known as MBA programs. Unlike fields of engineering, law, medicine, natural sciences, the subject of business management is not well developed, as it is comparatively new. I had an opportunity to interact with some top members of two Indian business schools recently. I must admit that they were not the top rung ones. All of them were PhDs in some subjects but had no industry or business experience. I did not find anything impressive about them. After this interaction, I realized that these academics had no knowledge of how the businesses actually function. I would not dare offer them a job or consultancy assignment in industry or business. I came back wondering what kind of future managers such business schools were churning out ? You have hundreds of such business schools all over India. Many of them claim to be deemed universities and hand out their own degrees and diplomas. They have become an assembly line operation producing MBAs, whose worth is decided by the pay packet at entry level. Institutions are evaluated by the pay packages of its students. Leading business magazines carry out an annual survey and rank these business schools. I gathered from one of the institute's dean that this ranking was based on the extent of advertising carried out in such journals. It could be a case of grapes being sour as their ranking was low but cannot be ruled out. It is rather a sorry state of affairs. The GMAT or CAT scores can be used as a common benchmark for MBA aspirants. Unfortunately, there is no yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of the faculty members. The salary level is abysmally low to attract good talent. How do you expect young people to choose teaching as a career when you have professors holding PhD degrees drawing less than a young IT executives ?  If education has to succeed, it has to be done by people who have the right blend of theory and practice and for that the policies have to change. Management education is a big business today and everyone from industrialists to ordinary businessmen are entering it and not all of them are educationists with altruistic motives. Some people who are in it are creating a media hype and must realize that they are doing more damage to the system in the long run. The present management educational system focuses too much on quantitative techniques at the cost of other business processes. Things in actual business and industry are much more different and complicated. How people behave in the workplace can never be taught. It can only be experienced. It can be best taught by people who have such experience. Case study method propounded originally by HBS is a very good concept. The problem is getting hold of real life case studies. History has a strange habit of repeating itself. The artificial case studies, imaginatively and well prepared for class room simulation and discussion, will be interesting but not of much relevance to the workplace. Too many complicated and contrived situations will make it unrealistic and too little will make it an exercise in futility. Getting the balance is very difficult. Management is pure common sense which is most uncommon to quote a cliché ? It should be backed by the following basics: Discipline, Courtesy, Consideration, Courage, Caring, Trust and Cooperation. If you have all these backed by the necessary knowledge, skills and experience then you are a world class leader in whatever field you are. Written  by Madhavan T Gopalachary This is an abridged global and free member version of the article first published under the title 'Redefining economy, business and education'. The original can be accessed by paying members by clicking on the link. The views, opinions and interpretations are personal. Sponsorship does not mean that the sponsors endorse them. Editorial Policy © Copyright, Jul-08 . www.madgopes.com . Without prejudice. All rights reserved www.mmgindia.com is the official website of Madras Management Group, Chennai, India. www.madgopes.com and www.mmg.name are personal websites and all editorials are published under their banner to retain editorial independence. We would highly appreciate feedback from readers and it may be sent to ipr@mmg.name.