It’s About Who You Are, Not What You Say

I have never considered taking an MBA program, but an argument by Vivek Wadhwa made me almost wonder if I had missed the train to greater-career-ville altogether. This is his life story unveiled, centered around an MBA program.

1. A young man invests in an MBA program to increase his career potential.
2. He questions his choice after getting a programming job at his first post-degree career.
3. He nevertheless persists, and climbs up the corporate ladder step by step.
4. Along the way to the executive level, he finds out that the business skills he acquired during the MBA era are quite handy.
5. Now as a successful entrepreneur, he is convinced that getting an MBA degree was the best investment he has made.

The story doesn’t exactly offerrefreshing insights, but is nevertheless encouraging and persuasive. The secret of his persuasiveness lies not in what he says, but in how he builds his argument, highlighted by his recollection of a debate with an anti-MBA celebrity: Guy Kawasaki.

In email exchanges, Kawasaki explained that his issue with MBAs is that they are “taught that the hard part is the analysis and coming up with the insightful solution”. In other words: implementation is easy and analysis is hard. “But this is the opposite of what happens in startups. Implementation is everything in a startup.” Kawasaki believes that MBAs aren’t a good fit for startups, and engineering graduates are.

I agree that engineering degrees are important. They provide a level of technical depth and analytical capability that is invaluable in the tech-startup world. But not everyone needs to be an engineer. You need smart people coming up with creative marketing campaigns; managing finances; and selling your products. And the CEOs and CTOs need to master all domains.

It doesn’t matter whose opinion, Wadhwa’s or Kawasaki’s, is right—chances are, both are correct. After all, they both made their names following their own voices. What matters is how gracefully Wadhwa handles this topic.

• He gives proper credit to his opponent’s position and praises its merit; he does not end up in finding fault with Kawasaki’s argumen.
• He admits his success story is not applicable to everybody, and even implies that Kawasaki is right in some degree
• He understands that the whole argument should ultimately benefit the readers, not the debaters, and tries to share as many valid viewpoints as possible

While reading this article, I thought: I still don’t know the reality of getting an MBA degree, but if this guy says it is valuable, it might be*. If this article were his speech in an MBA showcase event, I would be signing up to a program afterward.

We used to spend a big chunk of our time in a decision-making process for collecting information. No more. Thanks to Google and its news aggregator service, we can get 100 opinions on a single subject in a matter of hours. Now we spend more time in finding useful information while surfing through the tsunami of texts, images, podcasts, and videos.

We are like speculators during the Gold Rush, relentlessly digging dirt in order to hit the jackpot. Guess who made the most money in that period? The tool suppliers. In the MBA degree case, it is the information filter that matters.

And what filter is more trustable than authenticity? We can find a million people saying having an MBA works and ten thousand people getting (or having gotten) MBAs either online or offline. But how many people are out there who claimthey are who they are because of an MBA? That’s authenticity. And that’s what we should all aspire to, if we want to persuade others on a big subject.

*I must confess that I felt exactly the same when I first read Guy Kawasaki’s argument against MBA programs.

Comments

[sadya]

Isao,

i hope Rishona Campbell, Meghan Skiff & BJP read this post of yours- they wud be able to tell u whether u hav missed the train or not. (they told me i dint but then i already have an undergrad business degree & objectives r a lil different). u havent mentioned why is it that u feel something is missing in ur career & why u think an MBA degree wud have filled that void if there is one.

[Kofla Olivieri]

The way I see it, if a person can afford to continue their education, why not. Knowledge is power.

[Isao]

That's an enticing offer. I thought I might have missed the train altogether also because I used to think that management is just an option attached to your main career. Now I am about to take a sort-of management role and I think differently - management might be a job description by itself. If you are considering entering a new job, taking a master's degree is a reasonable choice, after all..

[Isao]

I think Kawasaki argued that the amount of practical knowledge acquired through OJT might be greater than that acquired in an MBA degree. But as I wrote in the other comment, if you consider management an entirely different job category, things start to look differently.

[Account Deleted]

Are you familiar with the term 'Mystery Religion'? The difference you chose to single out in your article illustrates learning curves that some people 'spiritualize' as 'peak moments' or synchronicities that move them forward in life. Sounds like one may have occurred?

[Isao]

I haven't heard of that term but it makes some sence - we do feel like making a breakthrough when enough experiences/knowledge is accumulated. I had a few moments like that, in the form of "I've had enough."