Are MBAs the Problem?
blogs.harvardbusiness.org
Are MBAs the Problem?
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#2is there any degree or program nowadays that actually instructs a person on how to start their own small business and run/grow it? thats not really what MBAs do anymore. or is it just so easy that you can buy a book on amazon and make it happen?
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#3Every MBA I know is in consulting... presumably trying to fix the problem.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#4Every MBA I know is in consulting... presumably trying to fix the problem.
Perhaps they might find http://despair.com/consulting.html appropriate.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#5I started my business many years ago with no formal business training and no business experience. I've learned a lot along the way. I am now completing an MBA, and my experience is very different than what the article's author describes. I'm going to school while running my own company (read working 12-16 hours a day), attending business and tech events, speaking, and trying to spend time with my family. My experience with the MBA program I am in is that it has made me a better business person from the standpoint of knowing what to look at and measure with my business. I didn't understand nor pay attention to any of that the first go round and the company did horribly. Having said that, anyone that comes out of business school expecting to know everything, and acting like it, is sorely mistaken. That's not how anything in the real world works. As with anything, you need experience, and that takes time. An MBA gives you a fundamental business education, not experience.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#6is there any degree or program nowadays that actually instructs a person on how to start their own small business and run/grow it? thats not really what MBAs do anymore. or is it just so easy that you can buy a book on amazon and make it happen?
This depends entirely on the program you are enrolled in, and the electives you choose to take. I have an MBA from Babson and every elective I took dealt with entrepreneurship. Some of the professors were better than others, but at least 1/4 of my total courses were taught by people who started their companies from the ground up. Real entrepreneurs that made money, cashed out, and are teaching because they want to help others; these were the people I found worth listening to.
These courses were by far the most valuable, and they absolutely focused on how to run and grow both small businesses and enterprises. I even started my first (failed) company and got independent study credit for it.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#7is there any degree or program nowadays that actually instructs a person on how to start their own small business and run/grow it? thats not really what MBAs do anymore. or is it just so easy that you can buy a book on amazon and make it happen?
This depends entirely on the program you are enrolled in, and the electives you choose to take. I have an MBA from Babson and every elective I took dealt with entrepreneurship. Some of the professors were better than others, but at least 1/4 of my total courses were taught by people who started their companies from the ground up. Real entrepreneurs that made money, cashed out, and are teaching because they want to he…
Babson looks pretty good -- i'd not heard of it before. although, i've not looked, either, admittedly.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#8I started my business many years ago with no formal business training and no business experience. I've learned a lot along the way. I am now completing an MBA, and my experience is very different than what the article's author describes. I'm going to school while running my own company (read working 12-16 hours a day), attending business and tech events, speaking, and trying to spend time with my family. My experienc…
I think anyone who comes out of any school thinking they know it all is wrong. But that's more a personality flaw.
On the article I think the author is off-base here and I think you as a person are exactly the reason why. Staying in school 2 more years is not a "high risk/high return" situation at all (as the author claims). It's a no risk/guaranteed return situation (MBA's make more in the workplace, that's been proven by countless studies)
The real high risk/high return folks are the ones who go out and start a business or join a startup. That's truely a risk.
Anyway, once you've disproven the idea that an MBA is a high risk action the rest of the author's thesis falls apart.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#9First order answer: No, douchebags are. It just so happens that douchebags gravitate disproportionately to MBA programs (although the majority of MBA students and business people I know are not douches).
To present an undergraduate analogue: in elite colleges, which invariably and intentionally lack business programs, economics programs have a large number of douchebags in them who see "econ" (they never call it "economics") as a pathway to investment banking. Real economics students hate sharing classes with them.
In colleges with business programs, the douches tend to gravitate toward the business degrees, and leave the economics students alone. Just as with economics, which has many serious students, there are non-douchebags who also pursue business degrees and MBAs, obviously, and I'm sure they hate sharing classes with the power-seeking douchebags as well. A lot of really good people go through MBA programs into management. But douchebags also also follow that track, because they follow money and status; it's how douchebags operate.
However, it's not even accurate to say that douchebags are the problem, since there are about as many of them (give or take) as in any other point in history. The difference is that the post-1980s mainstream corporate environment favors and promotes those prone to overtalk, power-play, and "hunger" (corporate euphemism for greed)-- in other words, douchebags. Douchebags thrive in environments of superficiality, conformity, hierarchy, and opacity of contribution. So now you have a system where, despite the best efforts of business-inclined and talented non-douchebags to pursue MBA programs and management tracks, they cannot ascend in the majority of corporate hierarchies, because most companies have filled their upper ranks with douchebags.
MBA programs don't cause this problem. The money and status they offer attracts douchebags, but I've seen absolutely no evidence that they encourage more people to become such. Moreover, the problem isn't that there are more douchebags alive than there were, say, 30 years ago. The fundamental problem is that large, hierarchical corporations now select in favor of douchebags rather than against them. What degrees the douchebags have has nothing to do with this.
Re: Are MBAs the Problem?
#10First order answer: No, douchebags are. It just so happens that douchebags gravitate disproportionately to MBA programs (although the majority of MBA students and business people I know are not douches). To present an undergraduate analogue: in elite colleges, which invariably and intentionally lack business programs, economics programs have a large number of douchebags in them who see "econ" (they never call it "eco…
You've provided a funny answer instead of a substantial one.
I'm not quite sure who you consider a "douchebag" here. It carries the connotation of a mean, shallow person. Yet you also use it to denote people who seek status or money.
However, from my own personal experience, many of the people interested in pursuing status and money are competent, capable, curious people who are always looking to do a favor for others (you never know when the good karma from those favors will come back to you!). My investment banking peers were some of the most outstanding people I've ever met.
"Douchebags" seldom get anywhere in business unless they're related to someone important, contrary to what Hollywood directors might have told you.