MBA magic: Business of the game

From tennis and tug-of-war to football, salsa dancing and poker, the annual MBA Tournament (MBAT) at HEC Paris (May 9-12) brings together 1,500 students and alumni from B-schools across the globe to develop their team working abilities.
Is it all about classroom learning? Maybe not. With the MBA Tournament (MBAT) this month, the business of learning has turned into a fun game.Hosted and organised by HEC Paris students, MBAT this year will see around 1,500 students from 14 business schools across the world competing in 23 different sports.
Anubhav Consul, event organiser, an MBA student from India, explains how the tournament was launched 23 years ago in an effort to offer MBA students from business schools across the globe an opportunity to network and mingle in a competitive yet convivial environment. "Sports provide us with the opportunity to exercise the skills that are essential to succeed in business, and also help us to understand the value of key concepts like teamwork and leadership," he says.
All enrolled students from wellknown business schools are eligible to participate. Also, alumni, partners of students, faculty members, and students from non-MBA programmes in these business schools are also allowed to participate.
As to the focus of the tournament this year, Consul says it is teamwork. Most of the events, he informs, are team events and winning teams will be decided on the basis of not individual efforts but the collective effort of the team.
Further, the tournament, according to Consul, provides students with the opportunity of competing with one another and implementing team-building and motivation skills that they have learnt at B-schools. It is a test of one's managerial and strategy skills. "The team that eventually wins the MBAT will not necessarily be the one with the best sportsmen in it, but the one that has been able to motivate, inspire and extract the most from its participants," he says.
Consul, along with team members, started working on the MBAT seven months ago. Students had to negotiate with sponsors, work closely with other B-school participants, liaise with caterers, seek the support and co-operation of classmates, manage finances , create efficient and effective procedures where applicable, plan and schedule events with limited resources . "It has been a challenging experience. We also had to balance MBAT with our studies, group projects, internship applications, interviews, networking sessions. Time management is a skill we have all mastered now."