Free Article By Paul Glen of C2
Consulting
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What's An MBA Good For -- Really?
(This article originally appeared in
Computerworld USA.)
It seems that I get more questions about the
MBA degree than any other career development topic. It appears to hold a
uniquely prominent space in the minds of ambitious managers and would-be
managers among the IT ranks.
But the questions are usually of a rather
black-and-white nature: Should I get one? Will it be good for my career? Will it
be worth the money? Is it worth the time
away from the workplace to do it full time? Are part-time MBA programs too hard
to do while working full time? Is it worth going back for an executive MBA once
I'm already in management?
What surprises me most of all is
that among all the questions, few are about what an MBA is and
what it isn't. Most of the discussion
centers on the credential
and the cost rather than the content. Few
ask about what you learn or what it prepares you to do effectively. For
something that can cost you as much as a house (if you include lost earnings),
there is a surprising lack of consumer interest in the actual product.
But it's not just the consumers of the degree
who seem indifferent to the content of the programs. Hiring managers looking for
the credential on resumes often seem uninterested as well. They just seem to
figure that people with name-brand MBAs must be prepared for leadership
positions.
But the MBA mystique is being questioned in
certain quarters. Among some of the most prominent business-school professors in
the world, an open debate has erupted about the value of the MBA degree.
Before I upset too many of you, I should
mention that I am not anti-MBA. I have one myself from Northwestern's Kellogg
School and have taught in MBA programs at two universities, most recently the
University of Southern California's Marshall School. But I think that the
critics have some important points to make -- ones that we in the practitioner
community should note carefully.
Here are a few of the most important things the
critics of this MBA infatuation have pointed out:
MBA programs train students in business, not
management or leadership. Among those with the harshest words for MBA programs
is McGill University professor Henry Mintzberg, one of the most celebrated
thinkers and writers on business today. His perspective: "It is time to
recognize conventional MBA programs for what they are - or else to close them
down. They are specialized training in the functions of business, not general
education in the practice of managing."
Most programs are structured around the
functions of business, such as finance, marketing, strategy, human resource
management and general management. And the courses emphasize technical
understanding of these functional areas. However, an understanding of the
general architecture of a business is not sufficient preparation to lead the
people who inhabit it.
MBA programs overemphasize analytical skills.
Many of the criticisms of the MBA are not new. Writing in the Harvard Business
Review in 1971, J. Sterling Livingston, a Harvard Business School professor,
offered this observation: "Formal management education programs typically
emphasize the development of problem solving and decision making skills, for
instance, but give little attention to the development of skills required to
find the problems that need to be solved, to plan for the attainment of desired
results or to carry out operating plans once they are made."
MBA programs don't prepare students for the
human element of management. In overemphasizing analytical skills, they give
short shrift to the softer skills that are more critical to the practice of
management.
Edgar Schein, who is now an emeritus professor
at the MIT Sloan School of Management, conducted interviews with alumni of the
program and noted that "at an emotional level, ex-students resent the human
emotions that make a company untidy. ... [Few] can accept without pain the
reality of the organization's human side. Most try to wish it away, rather than
work in and around it."
So do you need an MBA? To answer that question
cogently for yourself or others, I think it's time to start thinking about the
value of the education in addition to the value of the credential. It has its
place but isn't the end-all in pursuit of a fulfilling and lucrative career.
© Copyright 2006 by Computerworld Inc., One Speen Street, Framingham, MA, 01701. Reprinted by permission of
Computerworld. All Rights Reserved.
