A very important reason one goes to b-school is to expand their network, meet diverse and interesting people, and learn personal and professional best practices from the diverse set of people. Right?
I want to believe the above view is represented by a large percentage of MBA students, but sadly, I am observing the complete opposite. MBA students, some very smart ones, are rarely pro-active in working with *random* group of people, or taking up assignments/projects/competitions with a group of people they have not met before.
Instead, most people just flock to others who they know well and have worked with before. In some ridiculous cases, I have seen students request re-shuffling the entire set of class study groups just so they get to work with the 2-3 students who they are comfortable with.
I wish this was not the case. Folks need to realize that uncertainty, ambiguity, and diversity all go hand in hand. One can gain A LOT from working outside the comfort zone and trying to work with people who are different and I daresay, *hard* to work with.
I am surprised that changing teams was allowed. We were never allowed to change teams, NEVER. Also, school made sure that team member of all different characteristics (according to Myers-Briggs tests) were on a team.
@Amit, fantastic idea to put different Myers-Briggs types on a team. I am going to suggest this at ISB. Thanks.
Interesting article Rahul.
While I have also fallen prey to working with common folks across many courses, in hindsight, my biggest takeaway from ISB has been the fortune to work with many different people in the different groups.
I used to believe diversity is given undue ‘exaggerated’ importance; till I worked with folks from Ad agencies, Entrepreneurial , finance and consulting backgrounds and others.
I was very pleasantly surprised to get new learnings and takeaways whenever I was involved in these new groups.