Perspectives at the End of the MBA

"No learning is complete until we reach the stage where we can question it"

by Vivek Bhatnagar

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Vivek Bhatnagar
Babson
MBA Class of 2008

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You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

—Heraclitus, On the Universe

In the Indian Army, there are three core command courses an officer can attend at the Army War College at Mhow: the Junior Command (JC) course, attended by captains and young majors; Senior Command (SC), for lieutenant colonels; and Higher Command (HC), for colonels. JC is meant to prepare officers to command an infantry company, SC to command a battalion, and HC for higher leadership roles such as commanding a brigade. Yet surprisingly, the core textbooks for all three are the same.

This truly confounded me. How could courses with different objectives and different required qualifications have the same manuals? It didn't make sense. So at the first opportunity, I asked one of the HC student officers I knew when I was a faculty commander at the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering, located near the Army War College.

He answered: "In JC, you learn the theory of battle operations. In SC, you apply your learning. And in HC, you question it."

The answer—simple in explanation yet so profound in substance—stumped me. Looking back, I've realized no learning is complete until we reach the stage where we can question it. More often than not, we stop at the first two steps, never realizing why we aren't moving beyond incremental growth.

With my MBA close to finish, I can see how this has played out. While the first year and the subsequent summer had huge doses of theories and their applications, the second year has seen me questioning some of that learning. For instance, in the first year we learned the theory of accounting and how companies report their financials. Subsequently, we learned how these companies apply their practices. Now, we seem to be debating the very definitions of sustainability and profits; one is measured across time while the other is a snapshot. How do you compare a moment in time with a period of time? And unless we change the way we define "profitability", we cannot resolve this dilemma. This is a challenge many enterprises face, and one we will face when we enter the real world.

Forward, March

This brings me to my next question. What are my post-MBA plans? Well, I graduate on May 17 and I join Townsend Polymer Services & Information on Monday, May 19. (Yes, I do get to have a day's break in between). I'll be joining as a vice-president for corporate entrepreneurship, working on creating new business ventures.

Although I had choices, this wasn't a tough decision. I have been interning with the Townsend group of companies since the summer of '07. I'd worked with Phil Townsend—founder, chairman, president, and CEO—and this was a wonderful opportunity to continue to gain from his wide experience. Needless to say I'm eagerly looking forward to being back in Houston.

Currently, I'm creating a management brief dealing with some of the issues resulting from China's ban on plastic bags. I'm also helping the company in hosting Townsend's Emerging Markets in the Plastics Industry conference in Las Vegas in June.

But coming back to my second year. They say that, compared with first year, the second is a piece of cake. You can debate whether it is easy or not, but the second year is definitely different. It may be equally—if not more—busy, but now it's the student who chooses to be busy, unlike first year, when busy-ness is thrust upon you. It's like owning a store and working for yourself vs. working in a store for an owner.