Soft skills development should be the focus of MBA courses

Soft skills development should be the focus of MBA courses

A degree in Masters in Business Administration has become one of the most sought after career options for students. From engineers to commerce students, everybody has jumped on to the bandwagon of pursuing an MBA. The handsome pay packages that come along with fast pace growth in corporate life lure millions of students to opt for MBA. The trend has witnessed only a surge in the last decade. While a degree in MBA teaches students core subjects such as accountancy, finance, marketing, HR amongst others, what differentiates businesses and defines their success is their ability to communicate with people.

Hence, communicating rightly is extremely critical for the success of MBA students and soft skills need to be a part of the student’s curriculum for enhancing their skills. It is essential for students to understand the importance of communication besides the business acumen that the course teaches them.

While a lot of attention is paid to the core subjects being taught in the rigorous year long or two year long MBA courses, none of it pays attention to the communication aspect of students. A chunk of the students who make it to the top institutes are pass outs from India’s cream colleges such as the IIT’s, Pilani and Delhi College of Engineering amongst other engineering colleges of the country.

A large majority of students who take admission straight after finishing their engineering or other bachelor course only end up only revising English for cracking an examination and gaining admission to a good institute. However, the foundation of effective communication gets sidelined and students compete for the best scores during their two year stint at the management colleges.

In order to ensure that students do not get a rude shock when they step out into the real world and notice that more than the knowledge, what would matter is good communication which would help them during the daily grinding of the job. Although, this cannot be learnt in classes, but like case studies help students in better understanding of company, its strategy as well as its financials, some case studies demonstrating effective use of communication can go a long way in ameliorating their existing soft skills.

Even though some specific courses such as Marketing and Advertising do specifically make students polished in terms of soft skills, all institutes need to introduce soft skills as a separate subject. The subject should be a part of the basic curriculum for all the students no matter what electives are chosen by them in the second year.

This would not only result in augmenting efficiency of businesses but also help in faster growth of individuals who may lag behind only due to ineffective communication skills.