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I'm going to talk to you about
choosing and doing an MBA.
The first thing I need to say
is that what I'm going to be telling you
is a personal view.
It's not the view of my own institution
or indeed any of the institutions I worked in.
It's a personal view based on
a substantial amount of experience,
in working on MBAs, with MBAs,
and running MBAs.
In addition I've been involved in the accreditation of MBAs
and the accreditation of business schools.
So what I'm saying to you is I think I have
a reasonable amount of credibility in being able to say
something useful to you during this session.
So I've been teaching,
I'm involved in MBAs for over 30 years,
I have been director of a graduate school of business
for over 12 years.
I have been teaching on MBAs
for a substantial amount of time.
And been supervising MBA students on MBA projects
for all of that time as well.
In addition I am at the moment and have been
a consultant to multinational organisations,
SMEs and under organisations for all of that period.
I spend probably something like a fifth of my time
as an academic working in organisations.
I have some sense of what they're looking for
and indeed have been involved in helping organisations
find the best people to take senior management posts
in their organisations.
But why should I want to tell you this?
Why am I doing this?
I guess the reason is very simple;
I see a lot of people choosing to take MBAs
that are very inexpensive from a fees point of view
but that are in my view atrocious.
If you are thinking of doing that
my advice is just don't bother at all!
An MBA is an opportunity for you to enhance
your own future and that's what we're going
to be thinking of as we go through this presentation.
Getting a job is something that requires you to display
to your future employer a number of important factors.
First of all they're interested in what experience you've got
before you undertook something like an MBA.
They're interested in an ability
to use knowledge and practice
and want some demonstration of your ability to do this.
They also want to know a little bit about
the nature of the MBA you did,
the school that you did it in,
they probably want to know a little bit about
the sort of subjects you covered,
and they might want to know about
how you specialised particularly through your MBA project.
The most significant thing perhaps though is
that you're able to display to the future employer
some unique background in yourself,
something that makes you different
from the other applicants.
And so that's again to do with
how you've used your education
how you've used your experience to build a portfolio
that is of some significance to the employer
that you're working towards.
So what does this say about doing the MBA?
It means that doing the MBA itself
is not about getting three letters;
it's about using the opportunity of doing an MBA
to learn a lot and learn a lot about how to apply
an extensive amount of multidisciplinary knowledge.
This means that actually doing the MBA is hard work
and it means taking it very seriously indeed.
It means learning everything you possibly can
that you don't know anything about already,
the stuff that you already do know something about,
it's about learning more about
how to apply that in practise.
It means not re-doing stuff that you already know very well
and have a lot of experience of doing.
Often that isn't possible;
you have to undertake some courses just in order
to get the credits for that particular course.
But what it does mean is that when you get to options
and choices in your MBA
you need to be able to make those choices sensibly
and not do things that you've already done before.
But to do the things you couldn't easily
get a chance to do elsewhere.
So that means that when you're considering
what MBA to do
consider carefully the options and electives
that are available to you
and whether those electives are going to
give you the opportunity to do things
that are unusual for you,
going to give you new experiences,
and new skills and abilities.
So of course not surprisingly what all this means
is that doing a good MBA is likely to be expensive.
To a very large extent you do get what you pay for,
certainly in bands of fees.
If you're doing a fulltime programme then remember
that it's not just the fees that are going to be
the significant element of your costs.
You're going to be probably leaving home,
you've got to settle somewhere else.
You may, and given the age profile of MBA students,
need to take a family with you as well.
So you've got significant extra expenses
often which are well above the cost
of the fees for the MBA.
In addition of course you're not in a job for a year.
So you're giving up a year of career progression
and a year of earnings.
Therefore undertaking an MBA
is a serious financial proposition for you.
So the other alternative of course is that
you could do it on a part-time basis.
And I'm certainly of the view that part-time learning
on an MBA can be very, very effective.
It gives you the opportunity to learn and think about
how to apply this learning and practice
on an almost daily, weekly basis.
That's the way in which you can learn
how to make things work in practice.
However, of course, for part-time programmes
you've still got some elements of what I talked about.
You're likely to have some family disruption.
Your family is certainly going to get fed up with you
with you having assignments to complete.
If you're taking the MBA seriously you're likely
to be spending a lot more hours on it
than you originally intended.
So your family are going to be displeased with you
on occasion and they're going to be particularly fed up
when you're using the excuse of an assignment
not to do the washing up!
So family disruption you need to take account of.
Also you're very much involved in
of course multi-tasking at a very high level.
You're juggling your job demands during the day,
and you're juggling your learning demands
often during evenings and weekends.
So multi-tasking is something that you need to feel
that you're able to cope with
and can manage reasonably successfully.
But remember what I said earlier;
a part-time programme does give you the chance
to explore the ideas, theories,
all of the learning that you're getting in the classroom
to think about how you might exploit
those ideas and theories in practice
in your own current job.
And that's something that's worth considering very carefully
as a major opportunity.
So ultimately what I'm saying is
that fees can finish up being a very small proportion
of the costs and effort that are required
to undertake a good MBA.
So that takes us to the question
about how you choose a good MBA.
And I'm going to pick on a number of factors
that are worth considering.
None of these factors should be treated
as absolute in your choice.
The first and probably the most significant though
is the accreditation profile of the business school
that you're thinking about undertaking the MBA in.
Typically there are three international accreditations
that business schools play into.
The one that is perhaps most crucial for doing an MBA
is the Association of MBAs Accreditation.
I would regard that as almost a minimum gate.
If an MBA isn't accredited by AMBA
(the Association of MBAs)
then it's probably not worth considering.
That's not to suggest that there aren't good MBAs
out there who are not accredited.
But from your point of view
this does give you a very easy gate.
However, there are two other significant accreditations,
one which is derived from the US
and the other derived from Europe.
The first is EQUIS, the European accreditation,
it comes from EFMD
(the European Foundation for Management Development).
It's a very, very thorough going accreditation
and most business schools regard it as
a seriously tough accreditation.
The other international accreditation is AACSB,
that's the American Accreditation System.
Again, a tough accreditation
done on a different basis from EQUIS,
covering different things.
Indeed it's mostly based upon the idea that you
declare what your mission is as a business school
and then they test out whether you are well-equipped
to deliver that mission.
So they're not questioning the mission.
Whereas EQUIS do have tighter views about that.
The significant thing in all of these three accreditations
is that they do demand a series of steps
that a business school would have to take.
So typically in a sense you put your hand up and say
I would like to be accredited.
The accreditation agencies at that stage
say you don't stand any chance,
I should forget it.
Or alternatively forget it for the time being,
these are the sorts of things you need to pick up on
and get better at and then we'll have a look at you.
Get through that first stage and then you're asked
to put in a very big documentary submission
about what it is that you're up to.
In other words, trying to demonstrate through evidence
that you do what you say you should do
for the accreditation.
That's the second stage and it's possible
that they may say at that stage
well, we've read what you've submitted,
we don't think it's really up to scratch at the moment,
I should have another go at a later time
when you've improved on certain areas
and come back to us.
So the third stage is probably the most important
from your point of view in choosing an MBA
and that is that the accreditation agencies
now send out a panel of people to the business school,
a panel that's selected from a range
of different business schools who are already accredited.
So you might get a panel for example that contains
a dean from a Finish business school,
another dean from an Australian business school,
another dean from an American business school
making up the panel.
They will typically spend two or three days solidly
in the business school and they'll spend that time
very thoroughly investigating the school.
They'll talk to staff, to students, Alumni, employers,
they'll look at the material that's presented,
they'll interview people in depth,
and they will try and catch you out as well
because obviously all of us
when we're trying to get accredited
will try to find ways of demonstrating that
we're doing things that we aren't doing.
So most of these people are very used to the tricks
that can be used for that.
So you can see it's a very thorough going investigation
of what the business school does.
Three accreditations.
Some business schools in the world have got
what's called triple accreditation;
they've got all three of them.
That gives you at least some solid assurance
that you're going to a business school
that is well-recognised.
That's about as far as it goes though.
But certainly you can see it's a good starting point
because what's happened there is that the business school
has been investigated from inside in detail.
So a final point about accreditations.
In some places some business schools
around the world offer their MBAs
in other different parts of the world.
It is sometimes the case that the country
in which the MBA is being offered are also
trying to imply certain standards of education
in their own country.
So they will often have local accreditation routines.
In some instances if you are doing an MBA
with a locally accredited programme
then that can offer you immediate salary increases.
So it therefore becomes important for you
to at least explore whether there are
local accreditation requirements for MBA programmes
on offer in the country you're thinking of
undertaking the MBA.
And in some countries you'll find that
there's a vast choice of MBAs.
There might be 60 different MBA programmes
of which only two of them are locally accredited.
So check that out.
Local accreditation can be important
and some of them are not easy to get through.
Some of them use AACSB and EQUIS as their model.
So they are serious accreditations
and you should take them seriously.
The final point that I find a little bit difficult
to make from a personal stance,
but I think it's important that if you're watching
this video you are aware of it.
There are a lot of unaccredited schools offering MBAs.
People can set themselves up as a business school
very easily with little regulatory control.
They can present themselves extremely well
on a website, they look very impressive.
Check out whether they are a serious business school.
Check out the staff that are there
and in particular from an accreditation point of view,
check out whether they have local
or international accreditation.
There are a lot of these about and they're growing
at a significant rate.
I'm talking about undertaking MBAs
but there are some business schools
where you can get a doctorate for very little work;
what you're doing is just paying them a very significant fee
and they'll give you a certificate.
That's doing something that is not going to change
your ability as a manager.
I've talked about accreditation,
probably one of the most significant factors
that potential applicants look at is that of rankings.
Rankings can be very, very problematic
but they are used as an easy way of you making a decision.
I would say to you take a very great deal of care
in how you use rankings.
Probably the most significant world rankings
that appears every year in January is the ranking
of fulltime MBA programmes by the Financial Times.
The Financial Times looks at typically around about
150 business schools then ranks the top 100.
But think about what I just said.
First of all,
it's an assessment only of fulltime programmes.
And the majority of people undertaking an MBA nowadays
are looking at undertaking a part-time programme.
In that case you then need to be looking at
the Financial Times' Executive MBA Rankings,
which is a ranking that looks at part-time programmes.
But the fulltime rankings tend to be used more often
because they get greater exposure.
So be aware of that.
The second thing,
the Financial Times rankings are the best known rankings
but they're based primarily upon salary
and increases in salary.
This means that those schools that focus their attention
on only selecting students who are likely to be
showing am ambition towards
going into highly paid organisations
will be chosen to undertake the MBA.
Because that will increase the rankings of the school.
If you don't want to undertake an MBA of that nature
then think very carefully about that.
Think about where the salary is in your view
the most appropriate way
of measuring the quality of an MBA.
To give you some sense of that,
in the Financial Times rankings it's about
50 per cent of the criteria that is wrapped up in salaries.
Now, they do correct that in a number of ways.
So for example they pay no attention
to public sector salaries,
recognising that those are likely to be lower.
So the Financial Times rankings
does have some good aspects to it
and perhaps the most significant aspect is
that you know exactly how they do the measuring.
If you go to the Financial Times' website
you'll see what the criteria area.
They're very carefully laid out,
they're very explicit,
you know exactly what weighting is given to each criteria.
That's good.
But you need to think very carefully about
whether you think those criteria
are the criteria that are appropriate to you.
They of course also in the rankings can only
practically take a very small sample
from the class that undertook the MBA.
So you're looking at a distorted sample.
To give you some sense about how salaries
for example can be distorted,
last year or the year before as well
if you looked at three different rankings that use salaries
as the basis of contributing to the ranking
then you'd see for the same score
three different salary levels.
Which brings into question the statistical robustness
of that as a criteria.
So that's Financial Times.
The other one that's very popular is the Economist rankings.
A little bit more difficult to get underneath
exactly how that's done.
But nevertheless it is one of the primary rankings.
It's more volatile probably than the Financial Times rankings.
But also remember I'm using all through this part
of the presentation the word rankings.
I'm not using ratings.
That's also significant when we're looking at
the Economist or the Financial Times.
There can be a very, very tiny difference between
somebody who's ranked at 50
and somebody who's ranked at 80.
So those tiny bits can account
for each of those different rankings.
So you certainly probably don't want to be paying
too much attention to whether somebody is 50 this year,
and they were 30 last year,
or whether they're 50 this year and 80 next year
or anything like that.
Typically if they're in the top 100
then pretty much all of them are likely to be
reasonably good business schools.
But think carefully about the nature of those rankings.
And think about the volatility.
I've worked in business schools
for quite a lot of my life,
not all of it;
I worked in industry before I went into business schools.
And the one thing that is absolutely sure
about a business school is that it can't change very quickly.
Now, if a ranking system shows that somebody
was 30 one year and 80 the next year
you can be absolutely certain
that they didn't change anything
that they did during that year between the 30 and the 80.
So it gives you some sense about how volatile
these rankings can be.
Think very carefully about how you use them.
Think carefully about whether accreditation
might give you a better route into quality.
So I'm now going to move on
to the nature of the programme itself,
and I think probably one of the first things to think about
is what I might call the maturity of the programme.
Some MBAs programmes have been running
for 30, 40 years.
That usually does have some impact on them
because they've grown over that time,
they've learnt a lot,
the programme will have changed and settled,
they will know what it is that needs to be done.
Others were created in the last five years.
It's unlikely that they will be as good
as the mature programmes.
Have a look at whether the programme does place
an emphasis upon putting the knowledge into practice.
Whether that's something they think is important.
There are a lot of MBAs that we would loosely call
highly academic MBAs;
they'll teach you the text book stuff,
they'll teach from text books
and the staff who teach you
will be people who have never had any experience
of putting that teaching into practice.
They'll essentially be teaching you how to pass exams.
Look very carefully at that.
One of the simplest tricks on that is to just look at
whether the staff who are going to teach you
are on their website.
Can you find out about those staff?
Can you find out about their profile?
Can you find out what their background is?
Can you find out what they've published?
Can you read something about what they've published?
Can you see what they write and research about
is related to practice?
Whether it's intended to have an impact on practice,
or is it very esoteric academic research?
Beware any business school
where you can't find out what information.
If you can't get an overview in a great sense
of just getting a sense of the whole staffing
of a business school plus the detailed material
on the background of each member of staff,
then you should seriously question that business school.
You're looking for staff then who are
putting theory into practice,
and also from a research perspective
are putting that practice into theory.
Look whether they have an engagement with organisations.
Look whether organisations have an engagement
with the business school
through executive development programmes.
Look at the research profile fairly closely,
look at what the research aims of the business school are.
See whether those aims are intended
to have an influence on practice.
Now, a lot of business schools will make these statements.
They'll say yes, we intend to influence policy,
we intend to influence practice.
But look for the evidence of that.
You'll see it in the type of publications that
the top staff are making and
the type of research they're doing.
I mentioned earlier the cohorted staff
the people that you'll spend your time with.
If you're doing a fulltime programme
you've got a year with these characters.
See what you can find out about them.
Find out about the age profile.
There are some MBAs where you'll see,
particularly part-time MBAs,
where you'll see a profile where you've got
an average age of 35 to 40 years.
Which means you've got people who've got
some significant organisation experience,
probably a reasonable level of seniority
as a manager in their own organisation.
There are other MBAs that are run specifically
for people who have just finished
an undergraduate programme.
Now, in my personal view they should be disallowed.
An MBA is for people with substantial experience.
So I would expect to see at least an average age
of around about 30 years as a minimum
in order to get a decent cohort.
Look for a mix of industry.
What you want to do is take the opportunity
to learn from people who've had experiences
in very different industries from your own industry.
Look for the type of organisation
that they've been a part of.
It's useful to have exposure to public sector workers
and not-for-profit workers
if you're coming from the private sector, and vice versa.
They bring very different things to the table
and some significant experiences in my view
and my experience.
Look for the potential for cross-cultural work as well.
Is there a reasonable international mix
amongst the group of students?
Are there opportunities on the MBA programme
for example to undertake an MBA project
in perhaps a group project where you could
actually undertake that project
with perhaps two compatriots
from different nationalities from your own,
and maybe even undertaken in a different country.
International exposure is something that employers
are very keen on.
So think about that quite carefully.
So look for an international mix.
Look for overseas opportunities,
look for the possibilities for cross-cultural projects,
and so on.
Remember that at the end of your MBA
you will have got to know very well
a group of people who will be a part of your network
for probably a decade, two decades
following the MBA programme.
They'll be very valuable to you.
But they're only valuable if they are good
and they're a good cohort.
So you don't do the MBA on your own,
as I said earlier,
you do it with other people
and they'll teach you a lot.
So finally, I hope of course that what I've said
up till now provides you with some help
in choosing an MBA that is suited to your own purposes.
Let me say again that I have given you
is a personal view,
but a personal view based upon
a significant amount of experience in the MBA world
and also a lot of involvement with MBA students
both while they're undertaking the MBA
and for a long time afterwards.
Indeed I keep in touch as most of us do
with a lot of our own Alumni
and people from other business schools as well.
So I want to just try and summarise
what I've said in three key points.
First of all pay attention to gaining knowledge
from your MBA that gives you a basis
for understanding the breadth of organisational life.
Not just finance or just marketing,
but the full breadth of it.
So you can become somebody who is
an effective general manager.
Secondly look for an MBA that is going to give you
the ability to apply that knowledge in practice.
The second and very significant point in your choice.
And thirdly think about the MBA you're choosing
from your own personal perspective,
your own ambitions.
Choose an MBA that enables you to develop
your own weaknesses into strengths,
and give you the all-round knowledge
that I talked about a moment ago.