An email from an IIM(A) friend points me to an interesting article on Business World’s website :

Many argue that an MBA merely gives you a skill-set that you can apply in anything you choose to do. True. But the reality is that the choice is extremely limited because you become inherently risk averse.

I must confess, as an MBA and a generalist, I never regarded the degree as the primary contributor to risk aversion. In fact, common perception is that the qualification and exposure only equips you to deal with a wide variety of business situations. But the author makes some very cogent arguments to substantiate her case :

Let’s face it – the decision to do an MBA is more about external validation than internal conviction. The first validation occurs when you are accepted into the programme, the second when someone offers you a fantastic salary on passing out. The MBA is really more of a finishing school which guarantees parents that their kids will get ‘well settled’ and can then move into the marriage and procreation market!

In 1944, C.S. Lewis delivered a speech titled ‘The Inner Ring’ to the graduating class of Kings College at the University of London. He asserted that the strongest of all drives is the desire to belong to an ‘inner ring’ – an imaginary circle of the important. But, he warned, status is like an onion comprising endless layers. No sooner do you crack one ring than you become obsessed with getting to the even-more-exclusive ring inside that one.

Entering an IIM is entering an inner ring with which you are stuck for life. The ring sets the pace and the goals. Designation, salary, perks, your kid’s school, holidays abroad – these are the milestones the peer group sets and you seek to achieve. But in a tiny crevice in their hearts, I think most MBAs know something is missing from their lives.

On an idle Sunday afternoon the ugly question might rear its head – is making more money for X hedge fund or relaunching lemony detergent Y the reason I was put on Earth? But having realised that, the MBA’s only solution is: let me look for a new, more exciting job. That job could be with a mutual fund, or with a diaper company, or a consultancy, but it is essentially the same thing. The change of scene and the extra dosh it brings pushes the ugly question back into its cave. And thus the cycle continues.

When I look around me, I only see more and more people falling into the same trap – no matter where their business education came from. We become victims of our own doing, and of the society we choose to belong to.

I am convinced that we all *have* a choice in the matter. And I am reminded of Ayn Rand’s “sanction of the victim” – we choose to be victims, no matter what the circumstances.

As Steve Jobs once asked John Sculley: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water? Or, do you want a chance to change the world?”