Yes Master...No Master...

The given question has two very evident components. I’d like to tackle both separately. Here is my take on whether ‘Are management graduates meant to be corporate servants or corporate masters?’

The basic assumption in the question, as well as the inherent flaw, is that management graduates have to be one of the above. For all those who just sighed and said, ‘here goes another diplomat’, allow me to elaborate:

Lets dive into the history of management institutes in India and the reasons why they were set-up. Taking the IIM’s as our example, we know that these institutes where set up to produce quality managerial talent for our PSU’s so that they could adopt world best practices and evolve into more productive and efficient organizations. The corporate/policy structure at the time was such that more than 70 percent of all resources were govt. owned and these PSU’s were the tools by which the government wished to propel our nation into the bracket of ‘developed nations’. At that time, perhaps, we could’ve made a blanket statement and said – “management graduates are meant to be corporate servant”.

Cut to the present day. Today, the ratios have reversed. Govt. controls just 30 percent of resources while the remaining 70 is in private hands (and this ratio shifts as we speak). Today, there is as much a need for ‘corporate servants’ who can leverage their managerial capabilities and take existing, fundamentally strong and big, firms to new levels of efficiency as there is of great and bold entrepreneurs, of ‘corporate masters’ who have the courage and conviction to open up new organizations and follow their own dreams.

If we extrapolate the trend, then, perhaps, there will come a day (ideally, but not probably) when all existing firms would’ve reached the pinnacle of their efficiency. A day when no value could be created by improving something that already exists as that ‘thing’ would already be the best it can be. A day, when the only value possible would be that which a new idea or a paradigm shift could create. That would be the day when we could make another blanket statement and say that ‘now all management graduates are meant to be corporate masters’.

But till we reach Utopia, we need to understand that a management graduate is not MEANT to be anything – not a servant, nor a master. Or, perhaps he is meant to be both at the same time (finally…some of the diplomacy you feared).