To MBA or not to MBA — is it even a question?
If you’re just in it for the money, think of doing a different degree
Traditional MBAS have been around for quite some time. Back in 1949, the University of Pretoria became the first South African tertiary institution to introduce the MBA programme; 50 years later, there are more than a dozen institutions in South Africa that offer various MBA programmes. Despite these numbers, MBA applications are declining, largely due to our turbulent socioeconomic context.
But while many aspects of our lives have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, our goals and aspirations don’t have to be put on hold. Now more than ever, business education has the opportunity to craft leaders with not only a strong sense of social purpose, but a keen ability to pivot in times of chaos.
Upholding Tradition
The traditional MBA supports those who want to start their own business or gain a deeper, all-round understanding of business acumen in order to become a more effective manager. It can be argued that MBA courses are designed to favour a capitalistic model, where climbing the corporate ladder is the marker of success. While many embark on the journey purely to graduate with an MBA notch on their belt, the value of a business degree is far more nuanced than an additional accessory of letters to their name.
Phathizwe Malinga, chief executive of Squidnet — the licensed network operator for Sigfox in South Africa — echoes this sentiment. “My EMBA at UCT GSB (UCT Graduate School of Business) transformed my way of thinking and prepared me for leadership. I now feel more confident to navigate complex problems with integrity and humility. I have learned that through critical thinking, I can create my own future.”
Marc Elias, Head of Growth at Moonshot Partners, echoes this sentiment and has fond memories of his MBA degree at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in 2009. “GIBS was amazing. While the culture was very much focused on portraying and building success, it also cultivated room for discussionbased learning. It wasn’t about what was in the books, but rather what was behind the books. I completed my course straight out of university, and so, with little real-world experience, I was a sponge to absolutely everything in it.”
Their personal accounts are only reinforced by the fact that in 2020, both UCT GSB and GIBS were ranked by the UK Financial Times as Africa’s top business schools. Perhaps the reason for their continued success is determined by a strong combination of relevant course content and expert facilitators, who are skilled at creating a culture of critical thinkers. According to Elias: “GIBS provided a practical format that used core theory and coursework as a foundation from which to build skills. Not only do you develop a foundational body of knowledge about lots of different things, but you also develop the ability to use that knowledge and apply it in debate straight afterwards. Combine this with the moments shared among peers during coffee break chats and spontaneous discussions, and you have a very informative life experience.”
A culture shift
While Elias’s journey was predominantly positive — he provides an enthusiastic account of the impact that collaborative, hands-on learning had on his current success as an entrepreneur — he does have reservations for the way in which MBAS are still generally perceived and portrayed, believing this is holding them back from their relevance in a Covid19 climate. “There is a misconception that an MBA is much harder to attain than it is. An MBA is what golf is to sport: it is a privileged position to be in. And while many people play golf, it doesn’t change the fact that it is inaccessible for many more people than the ones that play it.”
While business schools need to continuously introduce relevant best practices that prepare their graduates to excel in the present and future, it may not just be course content that needs to change to achieve this. With the rise of online learning and remote work, the route to the top is no longer linear. With a decentralisation of economic and political power happening before our eyes, maintaining the value of a traditional MBA will require “new age” thinking from business schools as well as applicants.
“There needs to be a humanitarian aspect to a business degree. The classes need to be more impact driven, more diverse and reflective of our society. MBAS are still very much a ‘boy’s club’. If we keep it on the golf course, then not only will we continue to see a decline in applications, but we will lose out on supporting tremendous potential, those individuals that turn into our future leaders and innovators. That is the exact talent needed to help us thrive in the chaos we are currently living in,” says Elias.
Malinga is dreaming of a similar future: “One where there is open access, low barriers to entry and support for SMMES to enable them to operate in the digital space and gain a competitive advantage. SMMES hold the key to job creation in South Africa. I would like to help create a future where there is sharedvalue creation, and businesses co-operate rather than compete.”
The road to recovery
Both entrepreneurs’ experience highlights the need for South African business schools to reflect the society in which they exist. This not only means encouraging more women to complete an MBA degree to develop managerial and executive skills, but also thinking about the different ways to market a business degree in the first place.
“An MBA should not be used by individuals or institutions as a proxy for ambition or a measure of one’s intelligence. An MBA is a test of one’s ability to apply critical thinking skills and follow through with commitment — capabilities that are necessary to thrive in a fast-changing and unpredictable world. Those who seek to complete an MBA as a badge of honour are doing it for the wrong reasons.”
Adding to this is the misconception that completing an MBA will come with a degree of certainty of what one’s professional life will look like post-graduation — that it guarantees a person the “right” job, or that they’ll make executive manager, and that success will play out in the desired course. According to Elias, this couldn’t be further from the truth. “I’m only really experiencing the latent benefits of my MBA now, partly because of maturity, partly because of my accumulated experience. I have had time to build many more layers of knowledge on top of the foundation that GIBS gave me. If you are doing it because you think that you’re going to make money out of it, then I would advise you to consider an alternative path.”
Perhaps the future of the MBA lies in how it can better serve us as a society. If business schools can provide courses that reflect society’s changing views, perceptions and needs, then new qualifications will emerge, enabling graduates to approach business with a social lens that doesn’t focus on a fixed model, but rather one that learns and unlearns how to break and rebuild as the world changes.