It’s
Not Your Father’s MBA!
By
David Mesicek
You may remember
working with David Mesicek. He left Growth Management Center in 2006
to enter an MBA program at Babson College, just outside Boston, the
highest-ranked entrepreneurial MBA in our country. Now that he’s
graduated, we asked Dave to reflect on his last two years, to tell us
what’s new in business education. Here’s his report on five
prevalent themes:
The classroom was different. All 55 of us in my MBA section were used
to the Spartan classrooms of traditional higher education. But here
in our first class we sat in ergonomic office chairs, in an amphitheater-like
setting whose shape and setup encouraged dialogue. Technology was at
our fingertips, literally. We were excited to learn what was on the
leading edge of business, from entrepreneurial professors who were steeped
in the real world of successful start-ups, mid-market businesses and
large corporations.
What came out of the next two years was one of the most eye-opening
and amazing life experiences I’ve encountered. Everything from
ski races with rival business schools to crunching numbers at 2am on
a project for EMC Corporation, a $34 billion dollar business! It was
astonishing what I was shown, and more astonishing what was expected
from me.
So here’s my report on what’s new in business education:
1. Teamwork and Diversity
The differences didn’t stop with the building. To my left sat
a student who hailed from Hyderabad, India, to my right a student from
Tel Aviv, Israel. In front of me was a student from Philadelphia and
to his right a girl from Beijing, China. With over half of my 160 classmates
coming from outside the US, I was very much in the minority. You wouldn’t
know that we were in Massachusetts; it felt much more like the World
Economic Forum at Davos. Out the window I saw the Wellesley Country
Club, a classic symbol of wealth and elitism, but around me sat individuals,
some who didn’t even know what a nine-iron was, awaiting the education
and experience that would prepare them to enact great change from whatever
corner of the globe we decided to build a career.
Seventy-five percent of our MBA work was done in teams. Many of the
companies seeking MBA’s aren’t looking for spreadsheet jockeys
or PowerPoint pro’s, but individuals who can hit the ground running
in an organization and work with a team to create products and services
with sustained customer value and financial margins. Our teams had clear
assignments, plenty of facts to sift through (from case studies and
from real-world business projects), and aggressive deadlines. We worked
on several teams each week, some with short term assignments such as
case study reports, and others with semester-long projects in Boston-area
corporations.
We worked in diverse teams throughout our two years.
2. Innovation and Creativity
By comparison to the real world of business which I experienced with
Growth Management Center, my MBA program put a significantly greater
premium on innovation. Professors and fellow students expected innovative
approaches to business issues, and frankly it was easier to innovate
in this environment because there were no defenders of the status quo
present. This is not an insult to Rob’s clients, but a reminder
that the business culture and environment (set from the top) must actually
appreciate, encourage, expect and reward innovation to make it safe
for creative approaches even to be proposed.
At Babson they beat into us the importance of creativity in our thought
processes, problem solving, and final deliverables. If you wanted to
get a good grade, you had to come up with something that nobody else
had come up with before! And it had to be practical.
3. Implement-able Business Strategies
On one project, I worked closely with a partner at McKinsey, the consulting
firm known for designing “though shalt” strategies and client
presentations. Even staid McKinsey has accepted the reality that we
couldn’t just come up with a plan for how our public utility client
could more profitably service their customer base. We had to design
the plan, then ride shotgun with the utility to implement that plan,
to ensure that all stakeholders would buy into what we had proposed.
Our plan had to be immediately actionable within the current economic
environment and with current resources. (Rob taught me this same lesson
on my first day at GMC, which made me the right candidate for this Babson
project – thanks Rob!)
4. User-Assembled Solutions
Take a look at the companies around us which are growing at exponential
rates, scoffing at what we are now labeling as a “recession”.
Those companies, the like of Threadless (just written up in INC Magazine),
Facebook and YouTube are raking in profits by letting their customers,
or users, do all the work. These organizations figured out that customers
want to control their interactions with your organization. They want
to be in charge of the experience because it gives them ownership of
the product and service. It makes your product “sticky”
so that customers hang around and build your business into their lives.
Who is suffering without user-assembled solutions? Airlines, department
stores, automobile manufacturers and many, many mid-market businesses
that do not involve customers in service design. Many of these companies
are held down by massive amounts of depreciable assets and command-like
value chains which force customers into choosing A or B. The emergent
businesses (like Threadless) allow customers to tell the company what
they want and then have the company deliver on their expectations. That’s
sustainable customer value. The customer’s role in business interaction
was woven throughout two years of case discussions.
5. Creating Value, Not Managing Value
This was my biggest takeaway from business school: Managing value is
dead. If your organization isn’t in the value-creation business,
then it’s time to re-tool and figure out how to regain the momentum
that made you what you are today. Customers have more choices then they
ever had before. Advances in online services and the ability for businesses
and individuals to source product from practically anywhere in the world
has made it possible for even the smallest venture to be considered
a global enterprise.
It doesn’t matter if you are a cut-and-sew T-shirt manufacturer
in Los Angeles or Vietnam. Your customers are everywhere and you’d
better be able to sell them on the value you can create for them to
do business with you. The next time you make a purchase decision, stop
and ask yourself “how does this create value for all members of
our value chain?” I found myself asking this question for every
assignment during my two years at Babson. The answer always guided out
team’s thinking.
Should You Hire an MBA?
Have you created an environment that encourages innovation? Are you
prepared to applaud a new employee who questions the status quo? Can
your business culture adapt to fast-paced teamwork? Are your senior
managers willing to serve both as mentors for a business and industry
with it’s own “rules” while still encouraging thinking
that goes beyond the current rules? These are the characteristics that
my friends and I looked for during job interviews. We’re betting
our careers on our ability to seek out companies with these characteristics.
As it turns out, David did not join one of the 30
consulting firms that interviewed MBA’s at Babson. Following his
passion for sailing, David took a position as North American Marketing
Manager for Laser sailboats in Rhode Island. He’s up to his neck,
working in teams, sponsoring sailing events, and proposing un-thinkable
marketing strategies to his boss (who we did warn about David!) We’re
proud that he worked with us for several years and we wish him well.
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