Group discussions (GDs) are an important part of the admission process across
MBA colleges in India. In GDs, you are pitted against 10 to 20 other candidates
whom you have to outshine in a discussion. In order to ace GDs, you should
have-
1. The ability to communicate your thoughts in a clear and effective
manner.
2. Requisite knowledge of the topic in discussion.
The second can be an onerous task for many and putting together content
for the discussion is one of the major hurdles. Thus, it helps to list down all
that you can do to overcome this challenge.
Content creation for a GD can be divided into two stages:
1. The prep stage
2. Content generation during the GD
The prep stage requires you to do a simple task-go through the current
affairs of the last six months and list down the major socio-political,
economic, international, business and sports-related news. You should also be
equipped with relevant facts and figures.
The second stage is about how you can come up with content during the
actual discussion? Well, there are some definite approaches that will help you.
These approaches require you to think laterally about different topics and
develop varied perspectives. These methods will help you break free from
conventional thinking patterns and create unique content for your GD.
So let’s consider these approaches one at a time.
Approach 1: Multi-perspective Analysis
Generally, when we are given a GD topic, we simply start enumerating various
ideas that come to our mind. Though this is helpful, it also creates confusion
and does not outline a clear path for you to follow. Also, one tends to face
frequent mental blocks as one does not open oneself up to various possibilities
for generating content.
Then how you should analyse a topic? Well, for any given topic, keep
the following perspectives in mind:
·
Social
·
Political
·
Legal
·
Economic
·
Personal
·
Media-related
·
Management
·
Business-related
·
Technology
Now, all you need to do is think of two to three points for each of the
above perspectives. This way, you will be able to generate a substantial number
of points for the topic.
Acronym for the above approach: SPELT
The five salient perspectives-social, political, economic, legal, and
technology- form the acronym SPELT. This acronym will enable easy retention of
the aspects and help you analyse a topic.
Approach 2: Keyword Analysis
Use of keywords is extremely important in a GD. For example, you might be
given a topic: Should mercy killing be legalised?
Now, the first thing you need to focus is one the keyword ‘mercy
killing’. The best way get a head start is by defining the term and laying out
a framework for the discussion. Also,
you can question yourself about the topic and understand the major concerns.
The term mercy killing (the act of painlessly killing someone who is suffering
from an incurable illness) should instantly lead you to the following points:
·
Do humans have the right to take life?
·
Is it fair on the person and his relatives to suffer
so much when there is an easier way out?
·
Is there a chance of abuse of this act?
These are some of the basic points about this topic that should come to
your mind. You could delve into each one of these in the discussion and present
an informed view on the topic.
These are the two approaches you can use for GD content creation. This
will help you to have ample material to share in your discussion.