Why Should I Do an MBA?

There are a million blogs on why you should not do an MBA. After all, some of the world’s best known, most enduring organisations were set up by people with almost no formal education, leave aside an MBA. One of my colleagues, who isan MBA, dismisses MBA as a qualification that’s only meant to pander to your “dark” inner desire to achieve Mastery in Bossing Around! How creative!

I have always believed that in the absence of a meatier logic underlying your decision, your expensive MBA might actually become a dreg in a wine glass! And that’s exactly something I never wanted to happen to me and my MBA, and I needed a recipe to avoid this disaster. I wanted to find out if I really needed an MBA from an Ivy League institute, or is there a better alternative? And that led me to some more fundamental questions. Though I don’t think I have space in this column for discussing all of them, I would certainly like to share their essence here.
First, I realisedthat since all great MBA programmes focus on leadership development (with the rest of the studies being just supportive – and in executive MBA – even incidental!), I should do an MBA when I feel the need to add new dimensions to my understanding and skills of leadership. When I reflected on this, I was amazed, that I had been doing many things apart from my profession that demanded strong leadership skills. I realised, how great leadership can prepone success and accelerate results. Second, after going through the content of dozens of the best MBA programmes, I realised that if we are really perceptive, we can also emerge as better human beings – because almost every great MBA programme accentuates development and refinement of citizenship values and abilities, and a more inclusive global perspective of life and business. This point really resonated with me and I knew that I had to do an MBA and do it now! Finally, some of the things Robert Pirsig said in his masterpiece, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” resonated with me. Pirsig stressed that the journey is often more satisfying than the feeling of having reached your destination. I started looking forward to my ISB MBA journey.

A year hence, as I write now, we all know how mesmerising this experience has been for us – and more importantly because of things we did, learnt and enjoyed – most of them, outside classes. The most touching of these has been the joys of seeing others succeed; realising how your colleagues alone can actually help you write a Bible on management and leadership. Now, I stand convinced that what my mentors said, and what I always thought, is true: a great MBA has to be done because you love people and you want your life to be enriched through others succeeding. Once we do this, we give “tag-along rights” to career growth, renown and riches. Without this, an MBA is reduced to a sheer piece of paper that one needs to flash to prove one’s Mastery in Bossing Around.
Hope this resonates with you.

- Rajiv Gupta, PGPMAX Class of 2012