Monday, October 22, 2012

Master of Networking!

Network!

Ask any undergrad kid preparing for a business school, what is the reason for him to do an MBA, and you are sure to hear him say, " It will help me network with blah blah...."
If not synergy, then networking has to be most abused word in business school circuit. Right from the day someone gets a shortlist for a business school till the time you graduate out and move to your professional career, all you want to be good at, is networking.
After all, don't you want to be in the best job that you can land yourself in an Indian Business school. No doubt your profile needs to be awesome ( a secret formula that checks the awesomeness of the profile ), but if you are not making news, not connecting with the right people, then, you are not there, as yet! You need to network with your seniors, after all they are the people who will help you with your placements, your being into the "coveted" groups in the campus, and what not. Then you need to network with your alumni, after all, they been through it, done it all, and now it's their turn to be on the other side. They are there for you, just that those poor guys might have a decent job and a family to chose as a priority. But then, it's your duty, to network with them. If they are not on your LinkedIn contacts, gosh, you are not exploiting your opportunities well.
Talking of LinkedIn  well, how can one forget the social networking sites. As if you don't have 500+ contacts on Linkedin, the courts will issue a non-bailable warrant against your crime of poor networking. It will be a great contest where people are asked to list down their contacts on LinkedIn or Facebook, or even asking them names from their contact list and mapping their recalling ability. I am sure the results would embarrass most people. But does that matter? Do you actually care about what's happening to your network? A more interesting question to ask a B school student or even a MBA professional with decent professional experience would be to give the percentage of friends he/she has in their network. I can only fathom the situation, but then, as any MBA would say, "It Depends!"
"Waqt aane par Gadhe ko bhi baap banana padta hai" - This metaphor, ironically, captures the art of networking that B schools preach and practice with utmost stupidity. It's actually funny, observing people do this thing, daily, in their life and work, and succeed. It's not that I do not network, neither can I avoid the lure of it. It's not a bad thing either, in fact, looks like most things in life thrive on it. Just that sometimes, it feels too cliched, too artificial, the whole thing about networking. I have learned more about it than any subject of management in the past 4 and a half terms.
Or maybe, they should change the name of the course, call it Master of Networking, instead of an MBA, then, I shall have my peace!

1 comment:

kpn said...

Funny how the term networking always reminds me of the line: "Come into my parlour", said the spider to the fly :D