Design thinking necessary @IIM-A

  In a flat world order, leading B-Schools of India should be getting used to creating more room at the top. Older IIMs at the top need to imbibe lessons in design thinking to promote greater public good. Instead of competing with each other to be at the top, they need to create healthy collaborative networks. It is important for them to create an ambience where autonomy percolates right down to the bottom of the “hierarchical Indian academic pyramid”.

Before discussing more about IIM-A, here is one article by Gurbir Singh titled “A teaching experiment that failed in success”[TNIE, 30 Jan 2013; pdf version]. Though segregation of “good” from the “not-so-good” is unhealthy, in this case it accidentally resulted in transforming the less gifted students. Thanks to a gifted teacher who adopted a totally different pedagogical approach at the bottom of the pyramid.

Design thinking organizations make conscious efforts to promote such initiatives. The academic regulators in India need to take cognizance of this fact and allow autonomy to the teacher who shoulders greater responsibility in transforming the less gifted students in schools that do not belong to the top league.

While India with its inclusive growth challenges needs more such transformations, let us take a look at the top league. Here is an earlier Business Today article by Shamni Pande titled “Back to Class – IIM-A is once again India's best business school” (Oct 28, 2012). Some excerpts:

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“The fall from its perch was stunning, but it appears to have been an aberration - IIM-A has roared back to the top in the 2012 survey…….The institute scored well on brand value……Where it fell short was on the living experience, return on investment and, in what should be a big cause for worry, the learning experience.”

"B-school education of the kind exemplified by IIM-A is rooted in the assumptions of an earlier era," says Santosh Desai, MD and CEO, Future Brands, and an IIM-A alumnus. "The traditional MBA programme was created for a time when managers were the most vital part of large, stable businesses operating in limited geographies." Desai, considered a branding and marketing expert, says that the focus today has shifted from management to creation, where volatility is the norm and culture is a key determinant of success or failure.

"The operations research based approach followed by IIM-A needs to give way to a more complete one that incorporates areas like behavioural economics, anthropology and design thinking." The lack of dynamism, Desai believes, will hinder the institute from fostering entrepreneurs and leaders capable of creating businesses around ideas rather than around historical infrastructural advantages, as has been the case with traditional businesses.

Future Brands's Desai believes IIM-A needs a complete overhaul to prepare students for the real world. "The institute taught me nothing about marketing. If anything, it impeded a deep understanding of the subject by making it a sterile exercise in rudimentary logic," he says. "It did not open my mind enough to new modes of thinking, and while it spoke of 'thinking outside the box', it spent all its energies in building the box instead."

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These are indeed some constructive criticisms coming from an alumnus of IIM-A. Apparently he understands the importance of design thinking for developing managers and its distinct absence from a premier B-School of the country.

While much has been mentioned earlier in this blog about the need for “Design Thinking transforming Indian Higher Education”, it is important to highlight India Inc’s design deficit. It is, therefore, not surprising to see the premature reactions of some other alumni of IIM-A in today’s ET report titled “CEOs protest against govt proposal for greater control over IIMs”. Some excerpts:

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A battery of powerful CEOs, many of whose careers were birthed at IIM-Ahmedabad, are rallying in protest against a government proposal seeking greater control over the 13 IIMs in the country.

"Any move to control IIM-A, now run autonomously, will bring down the standard of the institution as well as dilute a global brand," said AM Naik, executive chairman of engineering giant Larsen & Toubro

"It ain't broke. Don't fix it," said Phaneesh Murthy, chief executive officer of iGate who graduated from the institute in 1987. "It is amazing how with so many problems in education the government wants to divert its efforts to the one thing that is already working well."

"I do not believe that issuing a degree is any great incentive for an IIM to lose its autonomy," said Manvinder Singh Banga…. He is an IIM-A gold medallist (1977).”

“While newer IIMs are happy to trade autonomy for the greater credibility that a degree brings, older institutes, led vociferously by IIM-A, didn't fancy the deal, ET had reported.”

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While the move toward any form of unhealthy control must be rejected, it is important to look beyond the “It ain’t broke. Don’t fix it” mentality to a continuous improvement philosophy.  Thus, instead of reacting to IIM-A losing its autonomy, these CEOs of corporate India should be aiming to create viable collaborative networks to promote greater shared outcomes for the stakeholders of the Indian Education System. This brings me to one blog post by Nigel Scott titled “The Social Network vs. the Collaborative Network” [30 Mar 2012]. In the first cartoon clip the biggest ant wins and all ants want to be like the biggest ant. A more healthy model is presented in the second clip. See the excerpts following the cartoon clips.

Hence, instead of IIM-A trying harder and harder to be the lead ant “always”, it will do the country good if it learns to share the harvest with other ants. Corporate India needs to provide the necessary guidance in doing so. As rightly observed by one alumnus of IIM-A, it is time they did some serious “out-of-box” thinking for shouldering the inclusive growth challenges of India.

That means students at all levels of the pyramid need to be trained with the help of newer methods. Instead of blindly following their respective lead ants (i.e., the role models in their league) they need to be taught to explore for food (i.e., knowledge in the new economy).

Related posts: See under the label “design thinking”