Why Your Fancy MBA Won’t Guarantee You Better Opportunities & What Will
“He is mad that he didn’t get the promotion. He feels that, because of his MBA, he should have been chosen for an upper management role. But, he hasn’t done the work or developed the leadership skills to prove that he’s fit for the role.” exclaimed Denise. She said: “He thinks his fancy MBA will guarantee him a promotion!”
Denise wasn’t happy with her young manager, who hadn’t shown any desire to improve himself but fully expected to move up based on his graduate degree. Unfortunately, your MBA won’t guarantee you better opportunities. Sadly, the expectation that higher education equals ‘automatic advancement’ is becoming more prevalent in the workplace.
It’s easy to see why, with the status decline of 4-year degrees, some college students are moving almost immediately into a graduate program in hopes to get preferential treatment when they enter the workplace. Experienced professionals might go for an MBA with the hope that it will propel their sagging career up the ladder. An MBA (and other Master’s programs) can be expensive — particularly if you obtained your degree from a well-known university.
“Attending an MBA program at a top-tier school can cost upwards of $100,000, and a shifting job market doesn’t guarantee the same stability it once did.” — Seattle Times
According to Adam Hayes, an instructor for the University of Nicosia’s MSc program: “Hiring managers also know that having the letters MBA after an applicant’s name doesn’t automatically make them an ideal hire. Some believe that people who have achieved leadership positions with the degree would also have done so without it. Furthermore, having an MBA won’t make a candidate stand out if they’re already flawed in other ways, like being obtuse, slow to adapt, or bossy.”
In short, your fancy MBA won’t guarantee you better opportunities, but personal growth and development will.
What Education Does and Doesn’t do for You
I’m all for higher education and have considered obtaining my Masters in Business Administration in the past. However, I’m also eternally thankful that I didn’t get an MBA. For one, they are expensive and two: it doesn’t guarantee results. For me, it ended up not being the direction I wanted to go in my profession. Some people get MBA’s and other graduate degrees without fully understanding the best career trajectory for them. If you do not firmly understand your strengths, skills, and interests — you may be headed for an expensive dead-end.
These are the 3 most common blunders ambitious professionals make:
1. Transitioning directly to a Master’s program immediately after obtaining your collegiate degree might not be the best idea. Unless this is expected and required for your target profession, I don’t recommend swinging right into a graduate program after college.
Because many young grads don’t necessarily have real-world experience, some waste time, energy, and financial resources to get a degree that they later regret. Some recent graduates use this as a delay tactic to avoid stepping into the workplace while piling on additional educational costs.
2. Thinking that an MBA will guarantee leadership status. Others fall into the trap of thinking that a graduate degree guarantees success. Frustrated by the lack of results they are seeing in their careers, some will invest in an MBA thinking that it will propel them up the ladder.
If you neglect your personal development — all the education in the world won’t make you leadership material. As my client so frustratedly pointed out, you won’t get promoted if you do not exhibit leadership traits, no matter how much education you have. Again: your fancy MBA won’t guarantee you better opportunities.
“One of the biggest ironies about getting an MBA is that an MBA is most useful for entrepreneurs.” — Financial Samurai
3. Getting a Master’s Degree in the ‘wrong’ area is disastrous and dangerous for your career development as well as your personal morale. The most challenging career growth coaching I do is with those who have invested years of time, energy and financial focus on graduate degrees that they later HATE.
Can you imagine how mentally draining and emotionally depressing it will feel being locked down to a career path that you loathe? Fortunately, you are never ‘locked down’ to one path. On the other hand, changing your career path takes more energy.
The good news is: achieving an MBA in addition to investing in your personal growth in your ideal career path can deliver great results! If you have clarity around your ideal career path and have done the work to establish a good foundation, a graduate degree might just be the best next step for you. There’s more to success and moving up the ladder than getting a fancy degree. Ambition and aptitude do not equal achievement.
The Graduate Degree Success Formula
If you are thinking about getting a graduate degree, there is some prep work you need to do first. Your success is not defined by how much you know, but by your ability to manage relationships and your emotional intelligence. Education and technical skills are important, but only a piece of the puzzle.
Here’s the formula for focusing wisely on the right Master’s program for you:
1. Work on your personal development (your character). Your personal growth, attitude, emotional intelligence, social skills, mental agility, and ability to manage relationships (especially with yourself) defines whether or not you will be able to reach your potential. Ignoring ‘soft’ skills will have hard consequences.
2. Get to know yourself before you grow yourself. You cannot develop something you do not understand — at least, not well. You might think you know your strengths but often I find that professionals only have 60% or less of the real picture. That 40% gap in personal awareness can be costly.
3. Develop clarity on the best career path for you. What drives you, what are your goals and why? Ask yourself hard questions and challenge long-held beliefs (particularly negative ones) about yourself. Be clear about why you want a Graduate degree and what your resulting expectations are.
4. Do your research and connect with experts. Get insider advice from those who’ve already ‘been there, done that’. There’s no reason why you should have to learn the hard way! The absolute best way to develop yourself wisely is to learn from those who have been where you want to go. Ask good questions and respect their time. Discover what lessons they learned and how their career has evolved.
5. Create a career action plan to see real results. No development happens in the absence of a goal and no goal is achieved in the absence of a plan. Sometimes professionals just get an MBA and have no plans to apply it. It’s not like getting a flu shot! You have to do something with it to see results. What’s your plan to put your degree into action?
How to Get Results from Your Fancy MBA
If you have an MBA and you are STILL frustrated and not seeing results in your career — never fear! It’s not too late to achieve your potential. Before you jump ship and take a new role somewhere else, have a candid conversation with your management. It’s valuable to understand what decisions are being made (and why) that keep you from seeing the growth you’d like.
Based on my experience with professionals that feel stuck in their careers: all true growth starts inside. Even if you already have your MBA or another graduate degree, NOW is a great time to start working on YOU.
Here’s what most professionals miss: your lack of focus on personal growth will hurt your professional growth. How you manage relationships, relate to other people, build trust, your character, empathy, communication skills, and credibility all are major factors in your professional potential.
You can have all the technical skills and degrees in the world, but you won’t be able to leverage them if you do not develop yourself FIRST.
Based on my years of experience and what works with my clients to see real results:
1. Identify the areas you want to grow.
Grow in at least 2 (no more than 4) areas. One should be an area of choice and the other an area of skill (ideally related to the choice). An area of choice is something you have complete control over right now such as a behavior or mindset. An area of skill is about refining an ability or gaining knowledge/mastery over something personal — such as public speaking or communication.
Most importantly, grow in an area that is important to YOU. If it’s not important to you, you won’t commit and you won’t be consistent.
2. Commit to intentionally grow and share it.
It’s that simple! By sharing it with others it creates a new level of accountability. A shared commitment becomes a strong commitment. During your journey, share your growth with someone. Keep in mind; if you share and receive little to no supportive feedback, move on. If they don’t want to hear it or try to drag you down — you don’t really need them in your journey. If you share and you receive positive feedback, keep sharing!
It’s also much easier to stay on the path of personal development when you have a support network. Because we like to see instant results and can become discouraged during set-backs, it’s encouraging to receive positive feedback and genuine interest in your journey. Not only does this increase your accountability to change but it also fuels true commitment over time.
3. Be Consistent.
Character growth and personal development is not a ‘quick fix’ program. There is a cycle involved in growth. First, you become aware, then you focus, you learn, you absorb, you apply, and you practice before you master. This is the learning, iterative process of preparation, practice, and reflection. You WILL reach your goals if you trust the process.
While personal methods vary, there are some best practices that yield excellent results through consistent application:
· Set aside 1 hour every day to focus on your career growth in the areas of Choice and Skill. That one hour is ideally focused on the preparation, or learning, phase. Be sure to jot down notes and create a methodology that works for you to absorb the information.
· Devote 1 hour every week to reflect and write about what you have learned. I recommend that everyone ‘jot’ before they journal. Jotting is an excellent daily practice of quickly outlining a note to yourself. By the end of the week, you have a great outline for your journaling practice.
· Be intentional about the application of what you have learned. Practice does indeed make perfect, or at least — a habit. You will be challenging old mental routines and assumptions with new information. The only way to solidify this in your consciousness is through action.
If you aren’t seeing the results you want in your career; a graduate degree isn’t always the solution. More often times than not, getting an MBA means that you are still frustrated and more in debt. However, if you have invested the time to develop yourself, understand your strengths, have career clarity, and have done your research: an MBA might just be what you need!
For those that are seeking Executive leadership roles, an MBA can be very helpful and sometimes expected. It’s important to note that not all successful Execs have an MBA. Know your industry and the culture before you make a decision to invest in additional education. Also, be wise about your decision based on your career path. You may want to focus your hard-earned money on a relevant certification that gets you closer to your goals rather than an MBA.
