Back to B-School

Who wouldn’t want to be a card carrying member of the “global business elite?” To talk the trendy talk and walk the swaggering walk of a Master of the Universe? To exit a two-year trade school with a six-figure salary at a Fortune 500 company all but guaranteed – despite the fact you may have never actually been in business for yourself?

Pretty tempting, no?

It certainly was for former London Daily Telegraph reporter Philip Delves Broughton, author of “Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School.”

The idea of attending HBS came to Broughton during an interview with Venezuelan billionaire, Gustavo Cisneros, in his plush apartment, according to a recent review. “As they sipped coffee and discussed globalization, Broughton thought, ‘If this was business, I could get used to it’.”

The reality at Harvard turned out to be not quite so genteel. He found his classmates of two varieties, “deadly serious and frat boy” with no in between — except for maybe himself. Both shared a sense of entitlement, a feeling that they had already made it, a sense that just by being accepted to HBS they deserved, high-paying, glamorous careers, if not cover appearances on Forbes and Fortune.

Broughton expresses doubts about his chosen path, afraid he’ll become one of the ice-luge gargling “thieving, treacherous, lying” frat boys or dry-as-dead-leaves bean counters he despises. “Why on earth had I put myself through Harvard Business School, of all places, an institution whose purpose was teaching people how to amass and deploy vast resources?” the New York Observer quotes Broughton as asking himself.

Obviously, business school isn’t for everyone, and HBS even less so (only 12 percent of the 8,661 people who applied for the class of 2010 were admitted). Clearly, it wasn’t really for Broughton – except maybe as fodder for a tell-all book. Evidently no one told him the Five Hard Truths about the MBA before he applied, or that the MFA is actually the new MBA. Then again, maybe Broughton would have faired better going after a green-focused MBA.

For more on “Ahead of the Curve,” see Joanna Higgins’ take in Sterling Performance.

Our Technology Management class ran over tonight — again. Two-thirds of the way through, it’s a definite trend; in fact, I think it’s run over every time I’ve been in class. At least half the time, a guest speaker has contributed at least partially to the time issue. Tonight was one such occasion.

As I tried to focus on what our guest speaker was saying about ERP implementations, I started thinking about some of the other guest speakers we’ve had since the program began. And I realized that, so far, I haven’t really learned much from them.

While contemplating the situation, I came up with three reasons to keep guest speakers out of the MBA classroom:

1. Guest speakers try to cover too broad an area in too limited of a time.
Of course, you could argue that the professor should have been more specific in his or her guidelines and expectations. (And you would be right.) However, in an accelerated MBA program like the one I’m in, time is at a premium. Our classes only meet for six sessions, and one of those is usually an exam or group projects.

And so far, our courses have been rather broad, making it a challenge for professors to fit a semester’s worth of information in six sessions. For example, tonight we had three group presentations, a lecture, a case study, and the guest speaker — all in three hours. And in his allotted hour of time, our guest speaker tried to cover the finer points of ERP systems, project management best practices, and tips for working on international teams.

2. Guest speakers often underestimate the experience of MBA students.
Every time we have a guest speaker, he or she seems to equate us with college freshmen. They assume only a few of us work, and they seem to think we’ve had little experience in the “real world.”

At 31, I’m far from the oldest student in the class, and I’ve been out of college for a decade. Some of the speakers aren’t that many years older than me. The result is a presentation catered to a different audience than we actually are — and filled with information too basic to be useful.

3. Guest speakers often fail to relate their specific experience to the broader topic at hand.
While obviously an issue that varies from speaker to speaker, it’s still been a theme in the guest speakers we’ve had so far. Far too often, they speak specifically about their industry or position instead of focusing on the more general topic of the course itself.

Our speaker tonight came the closest by offering up some project management best practices, information that can apply whether you work at a bank or an Internet company. However, the class is on technology management — while related, they’re two different disciplines — and some of the best practices got lost in the rest of the information he crammed into his presentation.

Of course, this is simply my opinion. Several classmates have apparently enjoyed our speakers. In fact, many of my classmates even voted for an executive management speaker series for one of our electives. (As you can probably guess, I wasn’t one of them.)

Fellow MBA students, what do you think? Have you had a lot of guest speakers? Have you found them useful? Has the structure of my program hurt the effectiveness of speakers, or do the same things apply in semester-long courses?

A few months ago, I wrote a post about one of the major components of our MBA program — “group learning.” Many of our classes include a group project or group homework.

At the time, I was highly optimistic about my team’s group dynamics. We all have similar situations, and we get along pretty well. In fact, we’re very much alike.

While I’m still optimistic, however, the harsh light of reality is starting to shine through. The fact is, we are really alike in personalities: We took some sort of personality measurement at the beginning of the program, and all of our results huddled together along the same part of the spectrum — mostly smack in the middle — for extroversion, dominance, patience, and formality.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with having things in common, but it can cause as much trouble as team members from all extremes. Because none of us are very extroverted, we don’t have a defined leader, and we tend to stumble along in meetings trying to find our course. Conversely, we all scored fairly high on formality, meaning we have a strong desire to stick to the rules and know expectations.

In other words, no one wants to take charge officially, but we’re all pretty adamant about how we think we should approach a project. No problem at all, right?

Most people who know me consider me to be a major control freak, and many thought of me as an overachiever when I was an undergrad. Now, however, I’m really one of the slackers in my group — not because I’ve changed, but because I’ve found myself surrounded by people just like me and yet even more intense.

It’s definitely leading to some interesting consequences, I’ll tell you. While I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve subjected my coworkers to substantial venting about my team members, I feel that these experiences could be some of the most beneficial of the entire program.

After all, who hasn’t been on a team with someone they found difficult to deal with? Working with other people is a universal — no matter where your career leads you, you’re going to be working with someone. And I’ve admitted from the beginning that this was a skill I could use a little work on.

But now that I’m here, I’m struggling. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic lesson to work with control freaks instead of being one. On the other, it’s getting to me. Most of my group members are all about working ahead; I’m a total procrastinator who waits until the last minute. Most of the members are early birds, who think meeting at 7 P.M. is too late; I think a meeting at 8 A.M. Saturday morning is criminal.

So now I’m looking for advice on handling the situation. How do you handle control freaks on your team? Do you sit back and let them do all the work without batting an eye, or do you feel guilty and paranoid that they think you’re not doing your share? Are there any fellow control freaks out there? Have you ever met your match like I apparently have?

Tonight marked the midway point in our Technology Management class. Not surprisingly — at least to me — so far, the class has focused a lot on security, but we’re not stopping there. I think we’ve finally hit on a course that’s really applicable for would-be managers — and I’m not just saying this because it’s a class I understand.

And thankfully, I understand a lot. As an editor for TechRepublic.com for almost nine years, I have more than a passing familiarity with the subject matter of the class; I’ve been editing technical content for a while now, so it’s good to know I’ve picked up some knowledge along the way. Getting lost in this class would have caused a bit of embarrassment at work, I’m sure.

That said, I’m definitely in the minority in class. Most people in my class didn’t know a DoS attack from DOS, so there’s definitely a learning curve. Hearing the multitude of questions has made me wonder if a six-week course will cut it.

Over the years, I’ve edited numerous articles about the importance of getting “nontechnical” managers to understand and support (read: fund) technology initiatives. I’m pretty familiar with the perspective from the IT side, but now I’m getting a front-row seat to the non-IT viewpoint.

Without a doubt, cramming everything you ever needed to know about IT into six sessions is an ambitious undertaking. And frankly, I don’t think it’s enough time. We’ve already rushed through security concerns and the IT aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but either subject could easily take up six sessions of its own.

One of my group members expressed similar concerns. He said that he felt the class needed to be more basic and thorough instead of presenting such a broad overview. After listening to him and other classmates, I can’t help but agree.

At this point in class, it seems like students are learning just enough to be dangerous — they’re picking up on the lingo, but they don’t really understand it. I’ve edited many an article that advised dealing with just this sort of manager.

Of course, how much technology a manager needs to be familiar with really depends on the job at hand. However, technology is only getting more prevalent in the workplace — and don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

So, what’s the right balance? How much technology do you think managers need to know? MBA students, chime in: What kind of technology classes do your programs include?

One component of our MBA Professional program is a professional development seminar, which entails all-day Saturday sessions five times a year. Each meeting covers a career-oriented topic designed to make us more well-rounded businesspeople.

In the middle of February, we met for our third session, ostensibly focusing on conflict resolution. (Our first two sessions addressed team building and business communications; the next one will be on governance and ethics.) While we usually have a guest speaker in the morning and team activities in the afternoon, this time we had an all-day guest speaker.

Her expertise was in polarity management, an approach to conflict resolution that’s about “identifying and managing unsolvable problems.” It stresses the importance of recognizing that some situations don’t have solutions — and that life doesn’t always have to be either/or.

While some issues are just problems that have a definite answer, the more challenging issues are polarities — situations in which either side has benefits and drawbacks. Our speaker gave us several examples of polarities: Activity and rest, stability and change, business unit and company, cost and quality.

The key is being able to recognize when a situation contains polarities instead of problems and to learn how to manage those situations. A key component of this process is a polarity map, which defines the strengths and weaknesses of both polarities.

Here are the six steps to the polarity management process:

1. Define the issue.
2. Include key stakeholders.
3. Build the polarity map.
4. Understand how polarities work.
5. Assess realities with this polarity.
6. Determine action steps and early warnings.

This was the first time I’ve heard of polarity management, so I’m not sure whether it’s a well-known philosophy that I just haven’t run across yet, an up-and-coming approach growing in popularity, or a niche way of thinking for a small group of managers and consultants. Are you familiar with polarity management? What do you think of its potential to help with conflict resolution and other management challenges?

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Have you taken the What’s Your B-School Background? poll yet? I’m curious to know the B-school experience of readers — please take it today if you haven’t already!

Tonight, we had our first quiz in Financial Accounting. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?

I’m pretty sure I bombed it — embarrassingly so.

I could blame it on the fact that I’ve never had accounting (never mind the fact that many people who know me thought this class would be right up my alley). I could blame it on the fact that I had the flu last week when we went over the material (never mind the fact that I had plenty of time last night to catch up when I was reading the chapter).

But let’s be honest: I bombed it because I underestimated the subject matter, and I didn’t spend enough time preparing. It’s a rookie mistake, but I think it’s one that’s fairly easy for an MBA student to make.

This class is really basic, particularly if you studied business as an undergrad. Even though I didn’t, I’ve had no problems following along. No one else seems to either; looking around the class during the lecture, you can practically see students’ eyes glazing over.

And yet, there were plenty of people still working on the quiz when I turned mine in, including my husband who’s taken accounting before. It seems I wasn’t the only rookie in the class.

Because our MBA program includes both students with business backgrounds and those without, there are inevitably some classes that are more basic than others. This accounting class is one of them. For some of us, it’s brand-new material, but for others, it’s stuff they deal with every day at work.

No matter what side of the spectrum you fall on, it can be easy to underestimate the demands of such a “basics” class. But, however basic they may be, these classes still have requirements and material to either learn or review.

I thought I’d be able to rely on my common sense and my BS abilities — not so much. Instead, I found myself struggling with a question that many others seemed to sail through.

Chalk it up to a lesson learned: You can bet that this time next week, I’ll have been much better prepared.

Have you made this rookie mistake in B-school? What class did you expect to be a piece of cake that wasn’t?

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Have you taken the What’s Your B-School Background? poll yet? I’m curious to find out about the B-school experience of readers — please take it today if you haven’t already!

I spent the last week and a half fighting the flu that just wouldn’t give up, which left me with plenty of time to lie around and think. To distract myself from missing the first day of a new session and already being behind from day one, I started thinking about the readers of this blog.

I’ve had a couple of discussions with BNET editors about the readers of this blog, but none of us could decide on the typical Back to B-School reader. Are you currently in business school or thinking about going back? Or have you already made it through?

Of course, the best way to get answers to these questions is to just ask. So, I’m putting the question to you, readers. I want to know who’s out there!

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While perusing BNET, I came across a blog post by Jessica Stillman that caught my eye: “Should Managers Study the Liberal Arts?” (Sure, it’s a couple of months old, but it posted right before the holidays, so I bet I’m not the only one who may have missed it.)

We all know there’s a lot of talk right now about the value of an MBA. Many people feel that today’s business schools just aren’t preparing students properly. Jessica’s blog post discusses an economist’s assertion that a liberal arts education is a better choice.

Seeing as how I’m currently pursuing an MBA and have a liberal arts educational background, I feel pretty invested in this debate. And I appreciate the economist’s argument that liberal arts education helps strengthen one’s judgment as well as enhance the appreciation of differing points of views. It’s hard to argue against better judgment, isn’t it?

I think the point is not that MBA programs need to stop teaching finance and economics, but that they do need to broaden their horizons. And global awareness is a good place to start.

In a couple of my classes, we’ve had really interesting discussions about navigating and respecting cultural differences. While such conversations are helpful, I think they need to be an official part of the curriculum.

We all know that our world is shrinking, but few of us know what to do with that knowledge. Learning how to work with people from different cultures, something many of us will inevitably face, would likely be more useful than learning the specific theories of leadership or principles of economics.

The university where I earned my bachelor’s degree in journalism used a liberal arts approach in its curriculum. The theory behind it was that journalists need to know a little bit about everything. So, while we had some core journalism courses such as reporting, design, and editing, we had a good deal of required courses outside the journalism school as well.

I think MBA programs need to consider a similar approach. My school, with its 28 six-week-long courses, is on the right track. But there’s still room for improvement.

What do you think? Should MBA programs expand their horizons and take a lesson from liberal arts programs? Or should they stick to their guns — and their time-tested curriculum?

Last time, I asked you about leadership and how much specific theories and approaches really matter in the long run. Today, I thought I’d take an actual poll to see which approaches are the most popular in the workplace.

It’s far from an inclusive list of leadership philosophies. Rather than listing every possibility, I just used the specific approaches we studied in my class. (Had I thought of this idea earlier, it would have been an excellent way to study for my final!)

A quick disclaimer: I did my best to sum up each approach in a sentence for those unfamiliar with a specific theory, but keep in mind that it’s just a quick summary.

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I’m very curious to learn which approaches are the most popular. If the methodology you espouse isn’t listed in the poll, share it with the rest of us by posting it in the discussion area.

Monday night, we said goodbye to our Leadership class in the form of a three-hour take-home final. It wasn’t my favorite way to wrap up a three-day weekend, that’s for sure.

But even more frustrating was the fact that I didn’t really take away too much from the class itself. Maybe it’s my journalism background, but I was hoping for some hands-on, practical advice about becoming a better leader. What I got was a bunch of theories.

As I was slogging through my essay exam, comparing and contrasting this theory with that, I started wondering, once again, how much leadership theory really matters. Do people sit around at work and decide to abandon the Situational Approach in favor of the Path-Goal Theory?

And so I thought I’d put it to you guys. After all, you’re the ones out there in the trenches, dealing with the day-to-day aspects of leadership, from performance reviews to hiring to disciplining.

Last week, I asked you about the real-world uses of Porter’s Five Forces, and I was glad to hear from you that, yes, you do use this methodology in your organization — and it does have a place in the real world. Reading your responses was very reassuring.

So, now I’m asking you another question: Those of you in leadership positions, do you rely on a specific leadership approach or theory, or do you have your own philosophy? Are leadership skills something you strive to improve, or do you focus on more tangible goals that are easier to measure?