Should You Get an MBA?

by Ed Batista | 12:00 PM September 4, 2014

Comments







At least once a month an ambitious and hard-working person in their 20s asks me, Should I get an MBA? I earned my MBA
from Stanfords Graduate School of Business in 2000, and since 2007 Ive been an Instructor and an internal coach back at the
GSB, helping hundreds of students develop their leadership and interpersonal skills. Heres how I respond to those inquiries.
First, its critical to determine whether your expectations for an MBA are aligned with what the degree will likely do for you. MBA
programs offer three different types of benefits, all of which vary tremendously from one school to another.
1. Practical leadership and management skills. Management education has changed significantly over the last few decades.
Previously it focused on quantitative analysis in areas such as finance and operations, with little emphasis on other aspects of
organizational life. As a result MBAs were often seen as bean-counters myopically focused on data and out of touch with the
challenges managers face in the real world.
MBA programs responded by expanding their offerings in areas such as strategy, organizational behavior and leadership. B-
school curricula are still intensely quantitative, but as Stanford Dean Garth Saloner told McKinsey, The [quantitative] skills of
finance and supply chain management and accounting and so on, I think those have become more standardized in
management education, have become kind of what you think of as a hygiene factor: Everybody ought to know this.
Business schools have realized that its not sufficient to provide quantitative and analytical training, because within a few years
of leaving school (or even immediately upon graduation) their alumni will add value more through their ability to lead and
manage others than through their talents as individual contributors. And effectiveness in these more senior roles requires an
entirely different interpersonal skill set. Saloner goes on to note that, the softer skill sets, the real leadership, the ability to work
with others and through others, to execute, that is still in very scarce supply.
But the ability to provide quality training in these areas is unevenly distributed across MBA programs. The best schools have
made leadership and interpersonal skills a high priorityStanford now offers twelve sections of Interpersonal Dynamics to
more than 400 students each year, making this labor-intensive course our most popular elective. Second-tier schools are
making an effort to catch up, but high-caliber programs in these fields are difficult to establish . Harvards Bill George has said,
I dont think you can teach leadership, I think you can learn about it through experiential activities that bring students together
to help them understand their strengths and limitations, provide feedback and promote self-awareness, and these activities
require a very different approach from traditional lecture methods.
Im not suggesting that the quantitative and technical skills that an MBA provides arent usefulthey absolutely are. But theyre
also increasingly available through other venues that individuals can access on their own at a much lower cost. The special
advantage of an MBA program is the opportunity to develop leadership and interpersonal skills with a group of peers in a
sequence of experiential courses informed by current research. So ask yourself:
Do the MBA programs Im considering provide practical leadership and management training?
How well-established are these courses? How much support do they have from the school? How much support do they have
from the surrounding community?
What do alumni say about their experiences in these courses? How have they benefited from this training?
And what alternative means are available to me to develop these practical skills?
2. A credential that sends a signal to the marketplace. No career paths absolutely require an MBAits an optional degree
and is nothing like a JD, an MD or the other credentials that professions such as law and medicine make mandatory. There are
many senior people in general management roles, in consulting and even in financial services who dont have an MBAso
dont assume that the credential will necessarily serve a meaningful purpose in your chosen field.
As a coach I have two different marketsmy students at Stanford and my private clients, who are primarily senior leaders,
and in both settings my degree sends a useful signal. New students feel more comfortable knowing that Ive been in their shoes
(albeit 15 years ago), and prospective clients trust that I understand the complexities of their world and the challenges they
face.
But its not a given that an MBA will have this effect. In my first job after business school I interacted with a very diverse range
of communities, and while I never misled anyone about the fact that I had an MBA, I didnt advertise it either. I knew that some
people in my field had negative impressions of MBAs, and I needed a chance to prove myself as an individual before being
stereotyped. My particular version of this experience may have been unusual, but by no means is it uniquethere are many
fields and organizations in which MBAs are viewed with skepticism and even disdain.
In addition, the nature of the signal being sent depends on the specific MBA programs reputation, and this is not simply a
matter of prestige. Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton routinely top lists of U.S. business schools, but they also have a reputation
for entitlement and arrogance. While some firms seek out graduates from elite schools, others avoid them out of a concern that
they will be difficult to work with and disruptive to the established culture. So ask yourself:
What market am I in now? What markets might I seek to enter in the future?
Whos interested in my services? How might this change if I had an MBA?
How are MBAs perceived in these markets? What signals does an MBA send in these markets? What stereotypes (both
positive and negative) might I face as an MBA?
What is the specific reputation of the MBA programs Im considering? How are these schools and their alumni viewed within
my desired markets?
And what alternative means are available to me to send the signals I desire to communicate?
3. Membership in a learning community and access to an alumni network. Business school emphasizes working in
groups, and MBA students often learn as much from their peers as they do from faculty, so its important to consider who youll
be working alongside for two years. Those same people will become your fellow alumni, and access to that network is one of
the most valuable benefits an MBA program can offer.
Of course, alumni networks arent created equal. Larger MBA programs yield larger networks. Certain networks are
concentrated in specific geographic areas or in specific industries. And some B-school experiences create networks that are
particularly active sources of mutual support.
Ive benefited tremendously from the support of my fellow GSB alumni during two major professional transitions. In my job
search after graduation and later when I began exploring executive coaching as a career path, other Stanford alumni were
extraordinarily generous with their time and insights, and theres no way I could have succeeded without their help.
All this said, theres a misperception about the importance of socializing in business school as a means of cultivating these ties.
To be sure, my students devote a substantial amount of time and energy to elaborate social activities, and I often find myself
amused at the lengths to which they go to entertain themselves. However, while its true that Im middle-aged and boring, and a
quiet night at home is my idea of a good time, I was pretty boring even as a student, and I didnt spend much time at parties or
other social events.
But I didnt need to in order to benefit from the GSB networkthe schools relatively small size and communal culture help
ensure that graduates feel a sense of obligation to help fellow alumni. And the fact that I cant pay back the many people who
helped me is motivation to pay it forward by doing as much as I can to support recent alumni seeking help from me. So ask
yourself:
What do I know about the students at the MBA programs Im considering? Are they like-minded peers? Do I see myself
learning alongside them?
What do I know about the alumni networks of these programs? How active are they? Are they concentrated in geographic
areas and professional fields of interest to me?
What support does a school provide to its alumni network and to individual alumni? Do alumni return frequently to participate
in events and activities at the school?
One final point on diversity: I have no doubt that my experience in business school was made substantially easier by the fact
that Im a straight, white, American man with an Ivy League undergraduate degree. Even as MBA programs have sought to
attract more diverse student populations in recent years, B-schools are still disproportionately filled with people like me. And
even at Stanford, which prides itself on its inclusiveness, I know that women, gays and lesbians, people of color, students from
outside the U.S., and non-native English speakers can feel isolated in business school and find the MBA experience more
difficult and stressful. I hope to encourage people from a wide range of backgrounds to consider business school as an option,
and it feels important to acknowledge this current state of affairs if anything is to change.
More blog posts by Ed Batista
More on: Business education, Career planning

ED BATISTA
Ed Batista (@edbatista) is an executive coach and an Instructor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He writes regularly on issues
related to coaching and professional development at edbatista.com, he contributed to the HBR Guide to Coaching Your Employees, and is
currently writing a book on self-coaching for HBR Press.