In my professional network and among my coachees who have around 5 to 10 years of work experience, there seems to be an increased interest in going (back) to school to pursue advanced business degrees, as of late. This increased interest is likely fuelled by the pandemic effect and the recent mass layoffs in the tech industry. During the pandemic, lots of people had a chance to reflect and gain some perspective on their goals, their priorities, and their must-have's. Some decided to change careers and pivot professional goals. Some realized they need to earn more money. Others considered to move out of the city and build / become part of remote businesses from their living room. More recently, professionals who have been impacted by the layoffs directly or those who are feeling "thoughtful" about them are wanting to add to their skillsets while having some time out to build their professional resumes, experiment, and reconsider their next steps. I have found myself talking to these two constituents who are considering getting MBAs, about my reasons for and thoughts on my MBA. So I thought I would share some of them on my blog this week.
My MBA at INSEAD was one of the best years of my life, and the reasons I am so grateful for my decision to pursue it are the following:
Being interested in and focused on the knowledge and the learnings: There are many calculators that can be accessed online about the value of an MBA, most of them unsurprisingly based on salary expectations. If your post-MBA salary is x% higher than your pre-MBA salary, so much so that it also covers the cost of the MBA as well as the opportunity cost of the year(s) you spend at business school, then you can conclude it’s profitable -- so the answer is a "YES, do an MBA." While that ROI-based logic makes sense to me, I prefer to assess my MBA against the intrinsic value - that way, I can look forward to the MBA, as opposed to the time after the MBA (and perceive MBA as a sentence I have to serve or a due I have to pay to be able to achieve the post-MBA world), and can look back to the MBA year(s) and be thankful for the value and experience from those MBA moments (and not the post-MBA world achieved, thanks to the MBA) This valuation strategy takes off the pressure as well as the possible disappointment. It is also independent of outside factors. For example, the intrinsic value placed on the skills people develop in business school does not rise and fall just because the economy does.
I studied International Politics and German language in college, so for me, the theory - finance, accounting, economics, as well as the softer skills such as organizational behavior, strategy, management decision-making, etc. were very valuable. I wanted to acquire that knowledge to be able to understand the business world better and grow into a well-rounded and well-studied business leader. Additionally, I appreciated and took a lot from the experiential learning, from the entrepreneurship bootcamp weekend I partook in where we found co-founders and pitched our vision and business plan to mock investors; the first 100 days class where you build and run a company (in my case, into the ground -- oops!), learning about and discussing different business cases from product differentiation in the case of Yellow Tail, to product customization in the case of Timbuk2, from Enron’s downfall to lessons on team leadership based on a tragedy on Mount Everest. While I believe that what I learned from the classes as well as from hands-on simulations and exercises helped me be good at what I do professionally and progress in my career which led to increased status and compensation, that was never my primary goal. Being focused on “enjoying” the experience is what made the MBA worth it. Further benefits that followed were welcome and appreciated, though had I been focused on them (and even obsessed with them), I may have missed out on the opportunity to be present, learn, and enjoy.
Wanting to “take a break” from a job to contemplate and reconsider: Before business school, I spent 5 years in consulting. While I really enjoyed it (especially at the beginning), in the end, I felt like I had gotten to a place where I had saturated my learnings and was looking for my next gig. I also was not sure that the work life and culture were where I saw myself in my 30s. Consulting was an introduction to life in the fast, non-stop lane for me - and quite a glamorous one. I loved flying from city to city, country to country; running from meeting to meeting, work lunch to work afternoon tea to client dinner to team drinks. I learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people, worked on projects in various sectors, flew many different airlines (and even, private jets!). I could tell you which 5 star hotel had the best chocolates on your pillow and which airport business lounges had the best chilled champagne. While in my early 20s, consulting was not only the best school but also a great sneak peek into the life of business glamor, I was ready for something different in my 30s. Things like work-life balance, flexibility, drawing boundaries, owning my own calendar and agenda took more importance. I wanted to take a year off to take a break from the work life, experience being a student again with less responsibility (the INSEAD chateau parties checked that box for me), having a year to rethink my goals, revisit my values and priorities, and reconsider my next steps.
Looking to change industries or careers: As mentioned before, I wanted to change careers from consulting into industry. I also wanted to move countries - I was based in Istanbul, Turkey before my MBA (even though I spent most of the time on the plane and in hotels) and wanted to move abroad. I was especially interested in a couple of sectors, namely, healthcare and tech, and did not have much exposure to them during my years as a consultant. During my MBA, I not only had a chance to research these industries and go to recruitment events and presentations by companies within these industries, but I also had access to fellow MBAs who came from these sectors as well as career advisors and professors who worked in and specialized in these sectors. After much contemplation and quite a few interviews, I decided I wanted to try my hand in the tech industry which was appealing to me, because it was growing as fast as it was and increasingly becoming more relevant in everyone’s lives. I wanted to be a part of the tech revolution, I told myself. I could absolutely have made this career move without the MBA. Google did not hire me because of my MBA, my role did not require it. None of the people I worked with at the time in my first team at Google had MBAs. To be honest, tech, in general, is not a sector known for the value it attributes to MBAs. So if I used the calculators or quizzes referenced in the beginning of this article, I would have come out a fool. The confidence my time during my MBA gave me about my choices, however, was the invaluable asset for me that I carry with me to this day. In my story, for my circumstances, I needed the MBA to be able to land where I did and be content with it.
Expanding your network and relationships: It was my childhood dream to lead an international life, to have friendships and relationships across the globe, and I am lucky to have been able to achieve personal and professional relationships with a diverse group of people from different countries, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc. through my travels, education, and activities. On that same note, I am interested in international business not only professionally but also because it widens my international network. This is where I find my flow. My MBA at INSEAD, which is an international business school that requires that people speak multiple languages, has campuses in 4 different countries, has faculty and MBAs from 50+ countries was, therefore, in line with where I saw myself fit, the type of environment I enjoy. I built amazing personal and professional relationships there once again with no expectations or end goals. Some of the connections I made at INSEAD became my coachees, my coaches and mentors, my investment advisors, people whose companies I invested in, people who helped me finetune my CV, people whose business plans I edited, and the list goes on. Some of my friends co-founded companies together, some invested in companies together, some gave others jobs, and some even married each other or each other’s friends (note I am not suggesting you get into an MBA expecting that, though you might welcome it as a nice little happenstance, if it does happen :)
Considering building your own business: Business school equips you with the tools to build your own business. It also gives you the time and space to think about your business, to pitch it to fellow classmates who are like-minded as well as faculty, advisors and alumni. If you have a business plan, an idea or even just the willingness to build a start-up, some of the classes and workshops are the perfect environment to build, test and experiment with your ideas. Also, when you graduate and are ready to launch your business, you can use the network that you built to soundboard, get advice on and sometimes even seek financial backing from the MBA crowd. I was always interested in this skillset as well as the network around it, because I wanted to build my own business one day, but also because I was interested in getting to know other entrepreneurs and be inspired by their success or failures. I wanted to understand how businesses are built - some of my friends who have bootstrapped through start-ups since our MBA have been a huge source of inspiration and admiration to me - I feel lucky I got a front seat to their shows and I've learned from them and with them throughout.
Wanting to brush up leadership, communication, and collaboration skills: At INSEAD (similar to other business schools) we were assigned groups we sat with, did our hands-on experiential learning exercises with, competed with as a team in competitions against the other groups, did our homework assignments with, etc. These groups were designed to have individuals with different professional backgrounds, cultural backgrounds and personalities (we all took personality test before starting). Needless to say, there was tension, and conflicts arose. I was lucky to be in a group where despite our differences, we worked well together and there were no escalated incidents but they absolutely did happen in quite a few other groups. I treasured learning how to communicate to, lead amongst, and collaborate with colleagues (of diverse backgrounds) and getting feedback from them in a safe setting. No calculator can measure the leadership and communication (across cultures) skillset I developed and honed during my time at INSEAD, and I feel I owe a good few of the compliments and positive feedback I have gotten over the years from my reports and teams to the soft skills I expanded on during my MBA.
As you can tell at this point, I am pro-MBA (surprise surprise!). Here is the caveat though - one needs to sign up to it for the right reasons and for their own reasons (not ones someone else or a meme are imposing on them). They then can weigh and decide whether they want a 1 year or 2 year MBA, whether they want an international or more localized MBA, whether they want a full-time or a part-time MBA, etc. Generic online calculators and quizzes can be helpful for those decisions.
I have seen plenty of people be disappointed with their MBAs or being depressed after their MBAs, because they chose the business school path for the wrong reasons and with the wrong expectations. Signing up to an MBA solely because you want to boost your CV, earn more money, or because you are bored as well as because your company or your parents are paying for it (and therefore, you don’t see why not) can be detrimental to growth because you are not connected to the right purpose or personal reasons. One thing that I recommend my coachees that seems to resonate with them is doing an exercise (either with a coach or self-study) around their goals and matching them with their next steps.
As a result of this exercise, some people find that actually a masterclass on corporate finance or investing can actually satisfy the itch they are experiencing as opposed to an expensive MBA when not done right can lead to resentment instead of satisfaction. Some find that actually a Master’s degree in a different field (such as Organizational Psychology or Digital Marketing) that they are more interested in and more committed to will be more meaningful to them. And some indeed decide on going for the MBA and understand how to achieve that goal, as a result of the honest reflection time they grant themselves. Listing your goals and finding your purpose are paramount to the decision of whether an MBA is right for you.
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