Share this article on...
Contact Us
- Report errors or inaccuracies topmba@qsnetwork.com
- Contribute articles contribute@qsnetwork.com
- Advertise advertise@qsnetwork.com
Masters of the Universe?
Twenty years ago the average business school graduate conformed to a fairly narrow template. Young, fiercely ambitious and, more often than not, male, these ‘Masters of the Universe’ used their MBA degrees as a career accelerator, which allowed them to move from highly paid jobs in consultancies or investment banks to even more highly paid jobs in consultancies or investment banks. In the intervening years however, as the requirement for and interest in management education has mushroomed, the MBA qualification has escaped from these narrow confines.
MBAs now hold responsible positions in commerce and industry, in the public sector and in government. At least one MBA, Irvine Welsh the writer, a Scot, has become a best-selling fiction author. (There are obviously more MBAs writing about business than one could possibly count, but whether their output counts as fiction is another story.) And with the proliferation of specialist MBA courses covering subjects as diverse as education, the health sector, sports management and the music industry, the diversity of individuals with the coveted three letters after their names seems set to grow and grow.
One of the most significant effects of this diversity among MBAs is the erosion of the elitist image that a business school education used to carry. Outside the top international schools, the qualification certainly is now open to candidates with or without first degrees, to experienced managers in their forties, fifties and beyond returning to study, and to nationals of countries where the concept of “business”, let alone business education, was anathema until a few years ago.
Brian Turner, the managing director of a small electrical engineering firm in the UK, is typical of the new breed of ‘experienced’ MBAs that have been produced by business schools in recent years. Now aged 53, well above the age range of the typical MBA candidate, he has spent the past three years working his way through the nineteen modules that make up the part-time programme at the Gloucestershire Business School in the West of England.
But what is it that motivates a seasoned manager who is already running a successful business to devote so much time and effort to gaining another qualification? “I ended up studying almost completely by chance,” says Mr Turner. “One of my staff asked if the company would let him have time off to take an MBA. I took a look at the course to see if it was worthwhile and came to the conclusion that it would be for him - and for me as well! Throughout my career I’ve learned things through experience and as I’ve developed as a manager, my original training as an electrical engineer has become less and less relevant to my day-to-day work. I saw the MBA as a way to remedy this.”
So has the course lived up to expectations? “It’s a big commitment in terms of time, and because I’ve been so busy at work, a week seldom went by when I didn’t question whether it was worth it. Some of the elements, such as strategic human resources and data management, just don’t have any relevance to a small company like mine, but overall I’m glad I did it. It’s helped me to put things into the bigger context and to take a more strategic view. I’m certainly less short-term in my thinking than I was three years ago.”
There can be few better examples of how business education has been opened up to any individual with talent and enthusiasm than Jack Barnes, a former winner of British institution, the Association of MBA’s, Student of the Year award.
A native of Arizona, USA, Mr Barnes completed the bi-lingual MBA programme at one of Europe’s leading business schools, the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid. As a native English speaker studying in Spain, he has overcome not one but two communication barriers because, since the age of eleven, Jack Barnes has been profoundly deaf. Losing his hearing as a child due to meningitis, Jack had to learn how to hear all over again after receiving a cochlea implant, which relays sound waves direct to the inner ear through electrodes. At the age of 26, he now has around 70% capability, which he supplements with lip reading and interpretation of body language. Obviously someone who believes in fighting back in the face of adversity – “I don’t believe in disabilities, and I think people who have had to face a challenge are more able to take on a challenge” – Jack Barnes tackled the MBA challenge head-on by learning not only to communicate easily in English, but also to speak fluent Spanish. “I started to learn Spanish as a way of levelling the playing field. All my classmates back home started out from the same baseline as me: not understanding a word that was being said!”
