Learn It The Hard Way

B-schools and students can no longer afford to let softskills take a back seat. It could cost them dear.

- Dr Debashish Sengupta

Samaira was our second semester MBA student, and one of the brightest in her class, who had recently joined a company for internship. A few weeks later, when I met her, I noticed she was not her usual self. She was upset that her manager thought she was lazy and had poor work ethics; she was so unsure of her manager’s reaction that she was often hesitant to even report to her on completion of an assigned task. From what she said, I gathered that Samaira’s manager was a go-getter and a highachiever, and expected everyone to meet the high standards she had set for herself.

Ironically, Samaira still believed that her manager was inherently a fair person. It was clear then that the problem lied elsewhere— Samira was proficient in her business competencies, but was lacking in soft skills. She was not able to manage behaviours at the workplace and did not know how to handle rejection and disapproval. She did not know how to handle a manager with high expectations and her communication skills were poor.

During my mentoring sessions with her, I reminded her how she had ignored the soft skills training classes in college. She believed her business competencies would sail her through, a classical mistake most students make. Their professional competencies tend to obliterate the need for soft skills, which later ruins their professional lives. Luckily, Samaira was still doing internship and had enough time to make amends.

Two weeks after the sessions got over, there was a perceptible change in her. Samaira’s manager had appreciated her work for the first time, and colleagues had congratulated her on this. Samaira has been honing her soft skills since then, and she is now part of HR in an MNC; and she has been receiving awards for her performance for the last three years.