Delving deep into an MBA's Sensitivity Quotient

There is too much ado on a basic personality question “How sensitive are you?” What does sensitivity mean to you? What is your sensitivity quotient? How important is it in your professional/personal life?

“Sensitivity” literarily means change in moods in response to an external impact caused by our surrounding environment, the degree of mood swing translates to the measurement of sensitivity quotient. So how do we deal with this quotient? Do we suppress it or let it flow down freely? What is the general trend? What should be the correct response?

Let’s try to analyze this in terms of people’s mental plane. We play numerous roles in our present life, sometimes as a son/daughter, lover, friend, follower, counselor, life partner, subordinate, boss etc. And to a large extent our sensitivity quotient is influenced by the role we are playing at that time. Being a lover, sensitivity towards beloved would be definitely different compared to being the boss towards a subordinate. Also to a large extent it is afflicted by gender bias even if we do or don’t want to agree on it.

A quick observation into the prevailing trend reveals that the much more qualified a person is the less sensitive he is actually or he should be when it calls for sensitivity. An ordinary graduate is expected to be more amicable / gullible (translating to higher sensitivity quotient) than a person who holds a higher professional degree such as MBA, PhD etc (translating to lower sensitivity quotient). Professionals with client facing roles are expected to have a fine balance in this quotient i.e. more sensitive toward client’s needs/ moods and less sensitive to own quotient, feelings. And being holding higher positions in corporate hierarchy, they should manage the show efficiently no matter what happens. Why is this irrational expectation from professionals holding higher degrees? Don’t they have a heart, don’t they crave for basic human need of affection, and don’t they feel the pain when something adverse happens with them? Yet it is expected that being an incumbent qualified professional, you must overcome this strong feeling and appear normal even if there is an emotional turbulence within. That’s what we call professional maturity.

One thing to point out here is, in this process of attaining professional maturity & claiming accolades for professional mannerisms in every professional conduct, it gradually brings up a least needed change to a person’s psychology, to its sensitivity, present situation demands so much from a MBA person that he forgets the basic values of life which holds souls together in a harmonious balance. If you try to draw parallel to the subject in question with the concept of the movie ‘Rock On’ [where a team of very close friends during their college days became so busy in their professional lives later that they tended to ignore their passion of playing Guitar & making a grand event. They were so busy in their professional lives, that it was almost impossible for them for a reunion to rediscover their true passions] , you would be able to fathom what I am trying to point out here.

Many a times, there is a big question mark of leading a harmonious marital life, when two MBA graduates finally decide to tie the knot. The uncertainty that hovers is “Will the couple be able to live up to their own career aspirations?” Will each one be able to complement the other when there is a need of ‘emotional security’? Won’t they be engrossed in their professional lives (given the demanding nature of the job an MBA professional has) so much that they will hardly have any time to spend with the partner & understanding them & their softer needs expected from their partners? When I think of this, a fusillade of questions pounce on me so forcefully that it becomes a challenge for me in my personal life, amidst uncertainty and i have to take a decision, the problem appears even bigger enough that may seem insurmountable.

Indeed an emotional draining experience……