Proving futile, as always, I look up only to find array of binders stacked on my bookshelf, not neatly as you may think. Moments later, I was reflecting deeply on what I have learned so far. It’s only been about six months into this MBA program, but the courses say that I have got what it takes to be a leader, at least in theory. What have we not learned? Almost everything under the sun – despite hardly seeing the sun in Denmark. It is not by chance that most of the course names are suffixed with the word “management.” There is some serious management stuff in the course. For instance, Marketing Management, Human Resource Management, Change Management, Operations Management and Strategic Management all have “management” proudly tagged in the title. Yet, the word management hasn’t found a place in MBA, literally. It would have been apt to call Master of Business Management, instead. I ask to myself, is management a part of administration or is it the other way round. After some thought, I decide not to spiral around yet another chicken-and-egg analogy. After all, what’s in a name?
William Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” The MBA by any other name would smell as sweet. If not for sweet, it would definitely smell sweaty, for we sweat a lot as a fulltime-MBA’ians. Not only has the title of the program, but the course also has some fuzzy names. Even before I could familiarize myself with the name of one course, the course was already gone and the binder had found a place on my shelf. It is none other than the Supply Chain Management a.k.a Multinational Operations a.k.a Operations Management. In Buddhism, the reincarnates come in three forms; mind, body and speech. This subject for sure has come in all of the three forms.
With the increasing popularity of the MBA worldwide, it has also been notoriously expanded by some as a “Master of Bad Activities,” “Most Bossy Attitude,” “Married But Available,” and so on. Behind the sheepish smiles, most people would agree on this, if not all. Whatsoever be it, the MBA is a globally sought-after degree and for this, we have all the more reason to be happy about being onboard. Come what may, in about six months from now, we shall all be graduating. It shall finally find a place in our CV’s. Theories and models would then be put into practice, a live test in essence.
However, when someone asked me sometime back, would you be able to implement in your career what you learned in MBA? I smiled and gave the smart MBA answer- “It depends”.
It surely depends.
P.S: This is a reproduction from my post in the CBS, MBA Dairy (Copenhagen, Denmark)