I used to know a few friends who are already taking part-time MBA (that is Masters in Business Administration for those who are intelligent-challenged) courses or contemplating in taking it. The course is designed for working class who can only attend classes during night time and/or weekend.
I used to congratulate them upon hearing the news. For me, I admire those who keep “upgrading” themselves and trying to learn more to apply the knowledge in business. Unfortunately, when they explained to me the reason why they are taking those part-time courses, I always cringed. The top three reasons:
- With the certificate, they can get a promotion easier.
- They want the management to know they are taking the course so that they can get a pay increase during year end appraisal.
- If no promotion or pay increase, they can find a job easier with the certificate.
Now, that defeats the purpose of taking MBA courses at all. Taking the course is meant to learn about different things, and learn how to apply those new-found knowledge to great use and use the advance knowledge to make their work easier. Do they ever think of how the new knowledge can help the company to perform better? No, its all about promotion. If they can’t get the promotion, they will jump ship to another company and they think that the MBA certificate will put them in an advantage position.
I certainly cannot deny that they will have a certain amount of advantage over other candidates when they are looking for new job, but the thing is, the purpose of getting the damn MBA is all wrong!
Sometimes, getting an extra degree doesn’t mean that you are smart. The bosses can promote someone who doesn’t poccess a degree over you if you are not smart. Of course, some will argue that the ability to graduate with degree surely isn’t stupid, but I am not talking about book smart. I am talking about street smart. I have met with a young chap who is street smart. When the boss asked him and his other colleague, with a MBA degree, to do pricing evaluation and how they should price their new products, the MBA colleague went to his computer, crunched in shitload of numbers, scrunitized the fixed cost, labor cost, variable cost, delivery charges, and applied in a margin for themselves and their dealers. My friend just went out to the street, checked on the competitors prices, go back, studied his own product and compared it with competitions, and came up with a pricing after checking with margin and costs.
He got a good promotion from his boss, where else his colleague became the laughing stock because based on all his MBA learning, he priced his product much higher than competitors, which will not attract buyers.
I don’t need a MBA degree to prove that I know more than them. Yes, I can admit that I know more than them, maybe not on the fancy lingo/terms they like to use, but I do know more than most of them and I don’t need a fucking paper to prove that, and I apply those knowledge daily on business use.
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