My Goal Before, During and After MBA

My pre-MBA life revolved around software, dollar salary and complaints. As you might have guessed, I was yet another software engineer working on legacy mainframe earning the big dollars for my firm and pocketing some in return. On one hand, there was never a moment in my work life that passed without cribbing (mostly about how hard I am working). On the other hand, there were these good things in life like onsite opportunity, great appraisals with least amount of effort and promotions in quick succession. However, there was a void in life. This was due to the feeling that I was a just a cog in the giant wheel. I wanted to change that and somehow, without rhyme or reason, MBA seemed to be the solution. Passion for management was the last thing that dragged me into it. The most important thing that suck like a quick sand was the news of big fat pay checks for MBA grads. All hell broke loose when I started writing my essays. Let me be honest. I gave up on them twice. Solely because of bschool-admit kind of friends, I could complete the third time. The first tough question was to fit my decision to do a MBA to my past experience. I yarned stories like spirit-of-management, become-a-leader-like-Narayana-Murthy but lost focus on the real reason which was to create visible impact in an organization. The tougher question was to answer where I wanted to be after MBA. To start with, I had no clue. I would have been happy with hefty salary from any company. I was even ready to 'shovel shit in Louisiana'. The more I researched, the more I knew. The more I spoke, the more it became clear. So, the goal I came up with during my application process was "To be a part of a small IT organization where I could create visible impact ".

On the first day at bschool, my goal statement went for a toss. I was interacting with students from various backgrounds and was stunned with the appetite of risk taking. People sold lucrative businesses and gave up plumb positions to do a MBA. I thought I was shooting a low lying fruit by aiming to go back to IT. After a week, when an alumnus friend asked me if I was clear on where I wanted to go, my answer was a thoughtful yes. I will either get into Management Consulting or IT consulting. My backup is I-banking and maybe Marketing in a top FMCG company!!! He nudged me to say that I have missed Private Equity and Pharma!!! It was then I realized that the peer pressure caught on to me. As the courses zoomed by, I was stretching myself preparing for Management Consulting jobs. As I spoke to more of my Alumni in consulting jobs, the more I was sure that I did not want to waste my youth slogging my arss off. However, the peer pressure kept me on my toes to prepare for consulting jobs until I met a placement consultant. He discussed with me about my aims and aspirations. He reminded me of my goal before I joined the MBA program. He made me cognizant of my family commitments, inner desires and feelings. This was when I gave up the peer pressure to restate my goal and thankfully just before the placement session. " To be a part of Tier-II IT services organization located in my home town offering the position of a Consultant with a pay package greater than x lakhs per annum".

In the first week of my job, I could see eyes drool over me when my listeners heard of my alma mater. I cherished the feeling to the greatest extent. Unfortunately, this was short lived. As weeks passed by, reality stuck me. The zeal and enthusiasm to implement the bschool concepts took a back seat. The zest to do something new met with Reluctant Resistance – 'the idea is good but requires a lot of change management' kind of an answer. Again I started doing what I always did in times of confusion. I spoke to my alumni and seniors at work who changed my perspective to my post MBA life. They stressed on establishing one self before proceeding with phenomenal ideas. It slowly dawned on me that it takes time for people to follow your thought process and they do it well if you are a performer. Hence, my renewed short term goal became " To gain credibility of my line manager in my core function along with exploring new pursuits for the business unit".