Grasping the Big Picture

Employers today are increasingly looking for managers who understand the big picture as well as specialties. Although companies love to find candidates who excel in a specialty, such as finance, marketing, project management, information technology or public administration, tomorrow’s MBA must have a top-level, system-wide and global approach to business.

Research has found that senior executive success frequently depends upon the ability to cross functional lines. Tomorrow’s MBA will demonstrate a cross-functional adaptability and top-drawer communication skills that will benefit not only the organization’s productivity but also his or her own career goals.

They will also exhibit a winning mix of technical skills with the all-important people skills. What works inside an organization is a microcosm of what works in the world at large.

Cultural fluidity is the third leg of this big picture skill-set. A broad point of view and a willingness to cross cultures will lengthen the reach of business to marketplaces and partners in Europe, Asia, Africa and China.

Future MBAs will be trained in combined disciplines. Businesses are increasingly seeking a computer scientist who understands marketing, for example. These merged MBAs are marked by a critical skill set: the ability to communicate across disciplines, cultures and time zones to enhance collaboration.

An Extreme Makeover for the MBA

The Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2006 Global MBA Graduate Survey found that 63 percent of MBA alumni described the value of their degree as “outstanding” or “excellent.” This may be due in part to a new trend in the way MBA programs are taught.

Executive training is being “reinvented” at more than 50 business schools nationwide, according to G. Jeffrey MacDonald who first wrote about the changes in USA Today in 2005. The new idea finds little room for mastering management theory or honing generic specialties. Instead, tomorrow’s MBA will carry a passion and commitment to apply specialized skills to one industry.

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International predicts that over the next three years, 300 business schools will add academic programs or substantially revise their curricula in order to provide employers with a more broadly-developed and better business manager.
Online training is another trend that has proved to be not only valuable and convenient, but accepted and respected. Enrollments in online MBA programs have risen from zero a decade ago to 125,000 students today. This change occurred even as applications to traditional business schools dropped. And in the meantime, respect for online degrees has increased dramatically.

“Our perception is that an online education from a reputable college or university is as valuable as the degree offered on-ground,” said Alan Fisher, manager of corporate extended education at Intel, in the Business 2.0 article. The company pays for employees to earn MBAs through various Web-based programs. “We don’t differentiate between the two,” online or on-ground MBAs, he indicated.

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