Aug 21 2011
Business People, Working People & Fresh Graduates in MBA – Part 3 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.
Understanding these diverse backgrounds of students, together with the values and behaviors that they bring to an MBA course could help us to understand and work with one other more harmoniously in our MBA study. Not appreciating these differences might bring to culture shock and even conflicts for certain students. Imagine Rocky attends an executive MBA class consisting of senior managers and business people. He can get bored and lost following their discussion on obviously topics unrelated to exam. Now imagine Dato’ Muni joins a class of fresh graduates. He can easily get disillusioned by the lack of culture for learning and sharing.
Talking about learning, a learning-oriented student should have no problem identifying and appreciating the practical value of what is being learned in the course, especially if he or she has had some working experience. Take the theory of constraints in operations management. Dato’ Muni should be able to apply immediately in his business to identify the bottlenecks limiting the sales of his company, and so do something about it.
Also, consider the Big Five personality trait theory, career-minded Lisa can immediately use it to assess her own personality in terms of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism to discover her strengths and weaknesses, and the kind of work most suitable for her, in order to chart a career strategy for herself.
As for Rocky, studying the marketing concept can immediately unravel the secret of finding his love. Consider what Peter Drucker says about marketing,
“There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.”
Consider applying this in Rocky’s situation,
“There will always, one can assume, be need for some courting. But the aim of marketing is to make courting superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the guy/girl so well that you fit the target and sell yourself. Ideally, marketing should result in a target who is ready to accept your proposal. All that should be needed then is to make you available!”
Trust me, in MBA, there is just SOo much to learn!
About The Author
Ricky Soo consists of both a business person and a working person inside. He thinks that no matter what our aim for MBA is, by no means go for it in full force. There will be heavy workloads and peer pressure to sway us away from our desire. But let’s not be transformed by the pattern of the crowd, but keep reminding and motivating our self to strain forward towards our goal post. Ricky can be followed at http://www.rickysoo.com
Read related posts
Be updated about this blog by email or in your feed reader (RSS)!
