MBA GUIDE 2011: Mastering the times

MBA GUIDE 2011

New technologies may influence the way it is delivered, but the MBA continues to be the benchmark degree for people with business ambition. Steve Hart reports.

Having to travel to classrooms to take part in MBA lectures could soon be a thing of the past. Instead of driving miles to attend classes, students will sit at their computer and watch videos of lecturers online – be they at home or at work.
That’s just one of the blue sky thoughts offered by Andrew Barney, businessman, mountaineer and director of MBA programmes at Massey University.
“Changes in technology are not only causing us to alter the content of MBA programmes, it is causing us to question the method in which we deliver them,” he says.
“For example, at Massey we are considering giving future MBA students eBook readers instead of having to ship out physical books to them. That would be easier and cheaper.
“We are constantly looking at what we are doing, and a part of that is looking at technology in education. Technology is disruptive, but if we can offer streaming video of lectures and online interactive whiteboard exercises, you just wonder what could be done. Voice-over-IP and Skype just scratch the surface of what’s possible.
“What I find exciting is the notion that we could deliver much of what we do online at a fraction of the cost when compared with the current ‘bricks and mortar’ model. People seem happy to download movies…”
However, while teaching MBAs remotely may be an option, Barney is keen to stress that MBAs are much more than the sum of lectures. They are perfect places for networking.
“There is no substitute for sitting in a room full of motivated people sharing ideas and working on challenges together,” he says. “And that should always be a part of the MBA process – perhaps more so in the future.
“The networking opportunities and the relationships that form in the classroom means there will increasingly be a greater emphasis on those values. What I can see, looking ahead, is that people will use the MBA as an opportunity to make meaningful business relationships.
“The classroom in itself can be a socially dead environment if you are not careful – people can rock in, sit there and rock home again. MBA providers have actually got to do things that create opportunities for students.”
Barney says group assignments will become increasingly important along with volunteer work, taking part in outreach activities and orientation weeks where everyone is brought together to bond.
“My emphasis is in the value add, beyond what one can pick up from the information provided on the course,” he says.
Barney says MBAs also have to change, if only to address the criticism they have received, with some media commentators blaming the values MBA students are taught for contributing to the global financial crisis and the lack of strong decision-making skills by those in positions of leadership.
“MBAs have been at the forefront of criticism relating to the economic meltdown of financial institutions,” he says. “And the MBA degree has been vilified, particularly in the US media, for teaching students to follow economic models which are complex and that have been used as the basis for the financial decision-making within some institutions.
“The allegation has been that we have been teaching them maths without teaching the soul. In other words, people have been so locked up in their numbers that they haven’t been able to see – what everyone else in every day life sees – as common sense.
“There is a drive to rethink what it is we are teaching people on MBA programmes, although I would say that MBAs in the States are different to what we teach here. We tend to follow the European model.”
Barney says staff at Massey are now looking at tweaking its MBA courses to include stronger aspects of ethical decision-making, social responsibility and take account of what, he says, are the “unintended consequences of business and financial models”.

High value decision-making
Peter Withers, director of academic programmes at the University of Auckland Business School, agrees that MBAs need to focus on developing people’s decision-making skills because managers are increasingly operating at an international level.
“The trend is to move away from training analysts and to focus on applied skills and increased decision-making,” he says. “An MBA is not about careers, it is not about entrepreneurial success and it is not about leadership, because that is too hard to define. If it is about anything it is about enhancing a person’s capability to make a high value decision, implement that decision – and to correct it when they get it wrong; because they will.”
Withers says the change in focus to improve people’s decision-making skills is down to companies now having to operate on a global stage – even though they may be relatively small firms working remotely from their target markets and customers.
“What’s really going on is that up until the 1990s the world was a rather simpler place,” he says. “Most thinking was linear, most business decisions were quantitatively based – you had to make the numbers – and decisions only covered the short term so that companies kept the stockmarket happy every quarter and managers got their bonuses.
“What we have seen in the last decade though is that the world has become far more inter-connected and hence, far more complex. Short-term linear decisions are no longer valid.
“MBAs being taught today are helping people think in a longer framework and to think in complex environments. The people who are succeeding at that level are those who are comfortable at a more intuitive level of decision-making than at a quantitative driven linear level.
“Intuitive decision-making is based on informed experience and we have people in our classrooms such as Kevin Roberts (Saatchi & Saatchi) and Owen Glenn (NACA Logistics) who come in and spend a lot of time with our students. And these are people who exemplify that level of decision-making.”
Withers says MBAs have changed so much that even those who completed the course in the 1990s should consider going through it again.
“Would you go to a doctor who hasn’t done any in-service training since they left medical school?” asks Withers.
“The business world changes continuously. We are working in a global arena, and because of that, it is far more competitive. You need to be able to speak the same language that the people you are doing business with are speaking.”

The globalising of the MBA
Olga Meglinskaya, manager MBA at the University of Otago, says its MBA courses have moved with the times and now cover sustainability, business ethics and corporate social responsibility.
“Of course we still cover accounting, finance, marketing, leadership and human resource management etc – and these have all been brought up to date,” she says.
“The MBA of today is more globalised than before as it caters for a more internationalised workforce who may be travelling more and communicating across international boundaries during the course of their day-to-day work.
“For example, with our course at Otago, every paper would look at the international aspects of running a business. It is important that New Zealand students are exposed to current international business practices. Not just from lectures, but from their classmates.”
One thing Withers has seen is that MBA graduates will typically move up the ranks within their company or leave their firm altogether – perhaps heading to jobs offshore.
“Once someone completes an MBA they are thinking much differently than their colleagues and even their boards,” he says. “And what we see is that they move on to more important and responsible jobs, particularly international jobs. They are leaving the country or being pushed upward in multinational organisations.
“They can suddenly find they don’t fit in any more because they are considering things at an entirely different level – they have grown and need to branch out – sometimes with their own business ventures.”
So do companies that pay for staff to do an MBA risk funding their exit from the firm?
“Not necessarily,” says Withers. “It all depends on the culture of the company and how that company is being managed. By definition, when you see people in their 40s doing programmes like these they are often people who are in a degree of transition in both their personal and professional lives.
“They are high achievers, they are sitting at or near the top of their organisation and they have reached that point of maturity where they no longer need to compete mano-a-mano with the people around them. They know who they are, they don’t feel threatened – they are no less competitive but they have a high degree of maturity.”
With MBA graduates working at a high level, being more efficient and thinking longer-term, one would think that there must be a strong cost-benefit analysis for companies to pay for staff to complete these courses – or for people to fund their own training. Not so, says Meglinskaya.
“It is difficult to put a figure on the business case for companies to sponsor employees to complete an MBA course,” she says. “But certainly when a company invests money in a member of staff it shows that the company is committed to developing them and that leads to the staff member becoming more motivated.
“And when they study and work they are able to take what they learn from the classroom straight to the workplace. Employers frequently comment that they can see some behavioural change in the workplace as MBA students become more efficient, more aware and more knowledgeable. But it is difficult to measure in pure monetary terms.”
While Meglinskaya is unable to justify a hard-nosed business case for funding an MBA, it seems clear from what Withers says – and the former students we have spoken with – that people who have completed their studies have gone on to great things. And they’ve made some equally influential friends at the same time.
“It is no accident that recruitment firms and head-hunting specialists look for people with MBAs,” says Withers.
Steve Hart is an Auckland based writer and editor. Email [email protected]

Which MBA is right for you?

There are three distinct categories of MBA, says Peter Withers of Auckland University.
1) The full time MBA, often taught to people in their 20s with five years work experience. These MBAs will be heavily conceptual, and heavily focused on critical analysis.
2) Fully employed MBAs (Fembas). These are aimed at working professionals who are aged between their mid-20s to mid-30s. These people will have full time jobs and will be managers, rather than executives.
3) Executive MBAs. These are for people aged 35 and upwards and who are working in executive roles making executive decisions.
“So you have three different clusters of people at three very different stages of their careers, with three very different levels of experience and clearly different responsibilities and aptitudes when it comes to decision making,” says Withers.

How an MBA can help you

• Improve your communication skills.
• Work better in groups and lead teams.
• Develop relationships.
• Become a critical thinker.
• Know when to lead and when to follow.
• Know how to research and access information.
• Understand major business concepts, theory and models.
• Become an agent of change.
• Operate at a global scale.
• Develop strong business ethics.
• Sacrifice short-term gain for long-term business relationships

The graduates

Name: Jorit Nühs
Job title: Consultant
Age: 35
Employer: AbacusBio Ltd
What qualifications do you have apart from the MBA?
Bachelor of Business Informatics, University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany.
Which university did you get your MBA from? University of Otago
When did you complete your MBA? May 2008
Who paid for your course? Me
Why did you do an MBA?
I co-owned an IT company in Berlin (8hertz technologies GmbH) specialising in speech recognition. When we reached 25 staff within two years we ran into all sorts of trouble as we didn’t have the right structures in place to deal with the growth (HR, accounting, strategy, marketing, to name just a few). I decided that I needed to up-skill on a wide range of business skills to prevent similar problems in the future and in the end decided that an MBA program would be the best fit. The second reason was the challenge of the MBA itself.
What stretched you the most during your studies?
Time management. We needed to spend a lot of time studying for the MBA but I also wanted to spend time with my family, do some sports and enjoy the unique lifestyle New Zealand and Dunedin has to offer.
How much time did you spend on your studies?
Varied but overall around 40 hours (weekly).
What impact did an MBA have on your career?
I immediately got a job in Dunedin in an area I wanted to be in after finishing the MBA. Secondly, I use many tools and methods and reflect on discussions during the MBA. I was fortunate to study with a bunch of high calibre international students. Last, but not least, the MBA has a strong alumni network.
What’s the biggest single thing you got from the course?
A wider view when looking at issues.
Would you recommend others do an MBA?
An MBA is definitely not right for everybody. In our year a few people left after the first few months. You have to be sure that you want to commit 100 percent to it. But if you want to take a step forward in your career and future-proof your options later on, yes!

Name: Corinna Hirschmann
Job title: Senior IT Consultant
Age: 33
Employer: CIBER Limited ANZ
What qualifications do you have apart from the MBA?
Bachelor’s Degree in European Business Studies from the University of Lincoln, UK.
Which university did you get your MBA from? University of Otago
When did you complete your MBA? December 2008
Who paid for the course? Me
Why did you do an MBA?
I was at a dead end in my job but did not possess the formal qualifications to move into other positions that I was interested in. I also realised that I was becoming too specialised in my field and knew it would be advantageous to take a step back and grasp the big picture.
What stretched you the most during your studies?
Aside from going from a well-paid job back to living on a student’s budget, the most challenging thing was the amount of effort and work that was expected. The Otago MBA places a lot of focus on group work, which was challenging at times, but I believe that was part of what made the experience very valuable for me.
How much time did you spend on your studies?
Between classes, group work and home studies, more than 70 hours a week.
What impact did an MBA have on your career?
I did not pursue an MBA to advance into a managerial position – but for the insights I have gained, both on the academic level as well as on a personal level, in how I approach new challenges. These have made me better at the career that I have chosen.
Having the MBA qualification provides me the credentials for customers to accept my input and reconsider their stance on some aspects of their business, which is very satisfying considering that these structures may have been in place for decades.
What’s the biggest single thing you got from the course?
The biggest achievement for me was to learn more about how I approach problem solving, absorbing and applying new information in a stressful environment and transferring these skills.
I have a lot more confidence in my abilities even if I am not an absolute expert. I have rediscovered my curiosity to learn about a wide variety of topics and since I now have a wider knowledge base, I have been able to move into other areas that will ultimately help me advance my career.
Would you recommend others do an MBA?
I would definitely recommend doing an MBA, but would advocate that people think about it quite a bit in advance so as to avoid disappointment.
Doing an MBA is a considerable investment of both time and money, and people should be aware of what their motivation is for undertaking it – it is not for everybody.
I do not believe that an MBA will automatically guarantee a jump in salary or a higher position, which was a belief held by most people around the time I was researching MBA schools.
I would also advise friends who consider doing an MBA that the most valuable impact this degree can bring will be determined largely not by the classes taught, but by the input from oneself and the learning experience as a whole.

Name: Thibaut Caplain
Job title: Software development manager
Age: 35
Employer: BCS Group
What qualifications do you have apart from the MBA?
MSc Electronics and Telecommunications
Which university did you get your MBA from?
University of Otago
When did you complete your MBA? Feb 2006
Who paid for the course? Self funded
Why did you do an MBA? I had this in mind for a few years, then talked to many friends who have done an MBA. 30-31 years old seems a good age, before having children. When my wife and I decided to move from Europe to New Zealand, it was the ideal moment to do it between jobs.
What stretched you the most during your studies?
Dissertations in English, having to work in groups with very different people.
How many hours a week on average did you study at home?
Probably 3-4 hours a day during the week, then 12 over the weekend, so about 32 hours on top of the lectures. It’s basically like being very busy at work, including weekend, for a year.
What impact did an MBA have on your career?
It probably helped me find a job, although I can’t be sure. But it very quickly allowed me to show some different skills at work and get opportunities to do different things within the company. Things that I wouldn’t have been able to do before the MBA: business development, project accounting, people management etc.
What’s the biggest single thing you got from the course?
Understand what drives a company. I no longer just work for a company, I understand the main drivers, what the management is trying to achieve, what it means for the shareholders and how to change it.
Would you recommend others do an MBA?
I’d definitely recommend it, but only if the person is doing it for him/herself. I believe an MBA doesn’t guarantee a management job directly anymore.