Aug 20 2011
Business People, Working People & Fresh Graduates in MBA – Part 2 of 3 (Original Version)
This is the original version of my article sent to be published in MBA Edge Quarterly magazine October 2010 issue. The edited version published in magazine might be a little different. Your feedback is much welcome.
The personal stories of Dato’ Muni, Lisa and Rocky tell us why people choose to embark on an MBA journey. The reasons people buy this brand called MBA appear to be very diverse, depending on whether they are business people, working people, or fresh graduates. Even within these same category of students, one may not assume all others take MBA having the same reason he or she has. We all have different motives in doing the same thing.
For business people like Dato’ Muni, they do not need MBA for the purpose of getting a job. Having been in business, they know a paper qualification does not speak of the whole person, if it speaks anything about the person at all. They want to excel in their study in MBA but are not too obsessed with getting A for all subjects. To them, they know the difference between grade A and grade B is not significant. What they value most are the practical knowledge learned, useful insights gained, ideas inspired, skills acquired, character developed, teamwork and leadership training undergone, and friends made during their MBA study. But they can become disinterested when the subject matter gets too academic and theoretical that they do not see practical value in learning it.
For working people like Lisa, MBA offers a solution to their career advancement. Many of them face dilemma whether to invest money in MBA education, or buying a house or a new car. Many of them need to choose between devoting quality time to their spouse and family, or spending endless hours everyday going through reading materials, doing assignments, attending group discussion, and preparing for presentation. But for those who decide to forgo valuable time and money for an MBA are likely to have strong utilitarian view of the course and expect high payoffs in future. To quote a few business jargons, they must have, though unknowingly, gone through benefit-cost analysis, calculated the returns on investment (ROI), checked the net present value (NPV), and justified spending one or two years going through taxing schedules with high enough consumer utility in taking the course.
For fresh graduates like Rocky, an MBA is likely another course of study same as those they have gone through in the past 15 years or so. For some of them, for the first time in life they have a real choice to study a course they are really interested in. For others, they study MBA because they have heard it is a good qualification for job market, or their close friends are doing it. To be frank, not all of them know why they are in the course. They may not really know what they might get out of the course, and what to expect after they graduate from MBA.
Because of the different reasons and motives people choose to study MBA course, the values they regard highly also differ from one another. It follows that their expectations and behaviours are also quite different. A business person values most in learning, knowledge, practicality, self-development, training, experience, sharing, discussion, brainstorming, networking, recognition and even the self-actualization they may get out of the course.
I personally know of customers who were already successful in business but studied MBA for the sake of challenging their potentials. Sometimes their behaviours can be quite strange to the rest of us. For example, it is OK for them to take longer than normal duration to finish the course in order to learn as much as they can from each subject. They may self-study a subject more than what is covered for the sake of learning. They may purposely choose to take up assignments and research areas according to their interest, no matter how tough and challenging they may be. They may write up an assignment much more than what is expected by lecturer. They may be the most outspoken ones in class asking questions and sharing ideas, though some areas are not directly related to what will come out in exam.
Whereas, a working person values most in utility, payoffs, speed, effectiveness and efficiency. Most of them have to juggle life between work, family and studies. For them, the years spent in MBA could be the most hectic years they will ever have in life. As such, they cannot afford to study a subject as extensively and leisurely as do the business people. They need to finish the whole course in the fastest time at the lowest costs in terms of time and effort. They can do very well and pass the course with flying colors. But they are not likely to spend too much effort in any one thing that they work on.
For the fresh graduates, doing an one-year MBA course is like doing one extra year in university after their final year as undergraduates. They are likely to use the same study methods they been trained in to tackle an MBA course. Due to the very exam-oriented culture in our education system, these students are very exam-oriented too in MBA study. They value tips for exam questions more than learning a new thing in business. They value studying more than learning, memorizing points more than appreciating business concepts.
Due to lack of working experience, they might know what is being taught without really understanding it, or they might understand it without really appreciating it or knowing how to apply it for practical use. Anyway, these do not matter. What matters most is that they get good grade in examination, something they have been trained well as professional students. For them, examination is a time they cram everything into their head for the big test. But after examination, it is a time of unlearning and releasing all that in the head, so that they may have space to put in another subject or other more entertaining things in life. Some of them may not be really interested in what they study. To them, MBA is just one final stage they need to finish up before being freed from study life into working life, thinking it is a better world out there working than studying. As such, some of them can consider MBA quite a waste of time.
Of course, we cannot stereotype all business people, working people and fresh graduates as having all the same characteristics respectively as above. There are many exceptions. For example, in my own MBA course, the best presenter I have seen so far happens to be a fresh graduate. However, examining more closely, this classmate actually has some working experience as a part-time DJ, whose job has trained him to do well in presentations . Therefore, not all fresh graduates are totally fresh as we may think.
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