Top learning outcomes of a high-quality MBA programme

The Association of MBAs and Business Graduates Association (AMBA & BGA) kindly shared some excerpts of our book titled?The MBA Compass: Finding your True North in the Maze of MBA Programs on their website. Please see below:

What are the principal skills and attributes that you should acquire from undertaking a reputable MBA? WU Vienna professor Bodo Schlegelmilch and AMBA & BGA director George Iliev present eight key outcomes, in this excerpt from The MBA Compass

Every good MBA programme defines a set of learning outcomes that students must achieve by the time they graduate. These may sound a bit abstract – and are rarely even shown to students by the programme directors – but they define the strategic priorities of the programme. While learning outcomes at the undergraduate level are primarily about knowing facts and theories, the outcomes in higher-level programmes are increasingly centred on skills and competencies, with values and attitudes added to the mix.

These key learning outcomes are the stepping stones on which graduates build their post-MBA careers. Below are the eight that feature most frequently in the leading MBA programmes around the world:

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is the questioning, or challenging, approach to processing information and making decisions. Its key constituent is the ability to identify and challenge assumptions or unspoken conclusions – a crucial skill that is universally useful, from office communication to high-level boardroom discussions.

Courses in organisational behaviour are particularly conducive to developing this skill as their focus on interpersonal and cultural differences highlight how differently we perceive the world. The ‘Analysis of an Argument’ part of the GMAT test is an exercise focused specifically on identifying assumptions, so by taking the GMAT you get to practice this even before starting your MBA. ?

Global mindset

Even local MBA programmes taught in the relevant home language aim to develop a global mindset in their students through international case studies, simulations, study trips, guest speakers and so on. If you keep a list of all the case studies you have covered in your MBA, you could impress even the most sceptical recruiter.

Strategic thinking

Not all problems require strategic thinking. Some problems can be dealt with by simply following a predetermined recipe of actions. Others can be solved by benchmarking against existing practice elsewhere. However, higher-order complex challenges require strategic thinking, which Henry Mintzberg defines as relating more to synthesis ('connecting the dots') than analysis ('finding the dots').

MBA programmes teach you, at the most practical level, how to create the right conditions for strategic thinking, by periodically cutting yourself off from mundane everyday tasks and going on a retreat, or simply by switching off all devices for a day to minimise disruptions and thus reach a state of ‘flow’. This resembles the way green pastures for grazing animals are revived: you have to close off the plot to let it recover from the hooves that have trampled on it.

Entrepreneurial spirit

London Business School compares entrepreneurship in the MBA with the swimming pool of a social club: different people use it for different purposes, from splashing around to doing fast-paced laps. Similarly, some MBA students develop their own start-ups (which may evolve into scale-ups and the occasional unicorn), while others apply principles of entrepreneurship and innovation in their corporate career (for example, the ‘lean start-up’ principles developed by Eric Ries.

Another set of metaphors captures the advantages of an entrepreneurial spirit. While a corporate career resembles the controlled flight of a plane (with the departure runway, cruising route and landing airport all being fixed as planned), an entrepreneurial venture resembles the flight of a bird (which can take off from anywhere, fly freely, and land on anything). These analogies are reinforced by a reminder to any corporate executive who falls on hard times (when their plane starts to “break down”) that they can hit the eject button and turn into a bird mid-flight by launching their own start-up.

Collaborative leadership and teamwork

Teaching leadership is like a plane seeding the clouds to produce artificial rain. If there is humidity in the atmosphere, the intervention can turn into rainmaking and the streaks of rainwater will grow into a mighty river. Similarly, once you have had some leadership experiences in your pre-MBA life, a leadership professor helps you coalesce these through self-reflection and channel them into enhancing your ability to lead organisations.

An MBA programme also develops a practical appreciation for teamwork and flat organisation through the multiple group projects that students engage in.

Effective communication

Several of the key lifelong communication skills that an MBA develops include:

·????? Appreciation for small talk as a social lubricant at all levels, including as a key component in projecting senior presence in Western cultures

·????? The STAR/SOAR storytelling methods that helps you condense any plot into four sentences

·????? The ability to structure information by distilling it into executive summaries, concise email subject lines, numbered lists (preferable to bullet points) and visualisation tools, such as metaphors and memes, that capture the essence of a situation

·????? Presentation skills, including how to manage your stage presence

·????? The ability to pass the ‘airport test’ that comes from the consulting sector – if you were stranded at an airport with a colleague, would you be able to find enough interesting topics to talk about while waiting for the next flight six hours later?

Negotiation

An MBA gives you a set of tools to use in negotiations, for example the skill to signal a strong BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated solution) without ever revealing your ‘reservation price’ (the point at which you walk away). However, even more importantly, the MBA leaves you with two key conceptual takeaways:

·????? Everything in life is negotiable to some degree. Once you know this and you have the confidence, you can engage in negotiations, whether you are negotiating a pay rise with your boss or the terms of a CEO role with an interviewing panel

·????? Success in a negotiation is correlated with the time you invest in preparation for it. Therefore, no matter what tools and frameworks you may use in advance, if you prepare and think about the issues up-front, the investment of time will pay off

Ethical decision-making and sustainability

Most good MBA programmes teach ethics and sustainability almost imperceptibly: not in the form of a standalone course but by infusing all courses, projects and

activities with ethical angles and sustainability elements. Beyond that, a good professor will reinforce the learnings through repetition of the key points. By the end of the MBA programme, you should feel confident that you have a sufficient understanding of business ethics to stand the test that Benjamin Franklin once put in a quote: “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”

A key takeaway from business ethics comes in the form of a warning: “Do not do something if you would not like to see it printed on the front page of your local newspaper.”

This is an edited excerpt from The MBA Compass: Finding Your True North in the Maze of MBA Programs by Bodo Schlegelmilch and George Iliev (published by Springer).

Bodo Schlegelmilch is the former chair of the Association of MBAs and Business Graduates Association (AMBA & BGA), as well as a professor of management and strategic marketing at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business George Iliev, MBA, is director of accreditation at AMBA & BGA