Youngme Moon teaches a case on Ikea at PEEK
Harvard Business School is synonymous with its case method teaching style. The case method presents students with a case where they place themselves in the shoes of the decision-maker to identify the problem and solution.
Like many business schools, Harvard has its own unique teaching style. Many MBA programs have employed the case method in classrooms to provide real-life examples of business dilemmas. For applicants, choosing the right teaching method can equate to the right business school. Ilana Kowarski, a reporter at U.S. News, recently discussed five points applicants should know when comparing teaching methods at various business schools.
“Certainly, the balance of case study vs. non-case study is an obvious first question,” Ryan Barba, general manager of admissions consulting at the Ready4 consulting firm in Boston, tells U.S. News. “But also, how much work is typically done independently vs. in group settings? How common are group projects, in other words?”
Learning style differs for everyone
Everyone thrives in different environments. At Harvard Business School, the case method revolves around heavy student participation.
“Class participation is so important to the learning model at HBS that 50 percent of a student’s grade in many courses is based on the quality of class participation,” according to Harvard Business School’s website. “This requires students and faculty to work closely together—another hallmark of the HBS experience.”
For applicants, Kowarski says, it’s important to understand which learning environment they will be successful in.
“Experts say outgoing students often thrive in case method courses and may be easily bored by lecture courses where they don’t have the option to participate,” she says. “On the flip side, experts say introverted students may dislike the pressure to talk in case method courses.”
Understand the skills required to achieve your career goals
Many MBA applicants choose to attend business school to make a career switch.
Scott Rostan
Scott Rostan is founder and CEO of Training The Street Inc., a company that provides technical job training to recent MBA grads. Rostan tells U.S. News that it’s important applicants find an MBA program that will train them in the skills lacking on their resumes.
For example, corporations in the U.S. seek salesmanship skills and insight — skills often taught in case method courses. Karthik Kannan is a professor of management and academic director for MBA programs at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. Kannan tells U.S. News that soft skills are often prioritized by U.S. corporations and applicants should understand these skills if they hope to become executives for U.S. companies.
Introductory courses vs. advanced courses
Each MBA program will have introductory courses and advanced courses available to students. For applicants, it’s important to consider class variety.
David Schein is director of graduate programs and associate professor at the University of St. Thomas – Houston’s Cameron School of Business. Schein tells U.S. News that introductory courses and advanced courses differ in the learning opportunities available to students.
“For early classes, straight lecture may be the best way to get students up to speed,” Schein says. “For more advanced classes, having the opportunity to work on real world cases and work in teams on projects provides a more in-depth learning experience.”
Data analytics & courses that go beyond the basics
Data is revolutionizing how industries operate and perform. Kannan tells U.S. News that it’s important for applicants to ask how a business school is incorporating data analytics in its courses.
Kannan says MBA students should take courses that teach data analytics through consulting projects for real companies. Ultimately, students should understand how to analyze large sets of data.
Look at what courses are unique to each business school
Each school will have a variety of professors from diverse fields. Kannan tells U.S. News that applicants should determine which schools have unique courses that differentiate them from other schools. Understanding what differentiates course work from each school, Kannan says, can help applicants determine which school will be the right fit to applicants’ goals.
Lyneir Richardson is a professor of entrepreneurship at Rutgers Business School and executive director of the Rutgers University Center for Urban Entrepreneurship. Richardson tells U.S. News that applicants should seek out faculty with real-world business experience.
“Professors who have battle scars and war wounds bring color commentary to the reading and assignments and are invaluable to students,” he says.
Sources: U.S. News, Harvard Business School
MBAs Still Offers Great Return On Investment
MBA students can expect to pay a hefty amount for an MBA education. Yet, for many students, an MBA is a means to increasing their salary. And, as recent data shows, many students can expect a solid return on investment.
Laurent Ortmans, a business education statistician at Financial Times, recently analyzed how an MBA still offers tremendous financial reward.
“Students tell us that the main reason they study for an MBA qualification is to increase their salary,” Ortmans says. “Personal development, interpersonal skills and ethics matter to them, but students still expect a return on investment.”
2017 saw largest salary growth for MBAs
Average MBA alumni salary in 2017, according to Financial Times, was $142,000. That’s a 12% increase from 2014. Across three-quarters of schools, average alumni salaries have seen increases year after year. In 2008, MBA salaries saw a minor hiccup due to the financial crisis. According to Financial Times, between 2008 and 2014, the average MBA salary three years after graduation increased by merely 4% to $127,000. Tuition costs of two-year MBAs also increased by 44% to $104,000.
Despite the minor increase from 2008 to 2014, average salaries in 2017 increased by $7,000 — the largest increase in more than 12 years. Financial Times reports that the healthcare and industrial industries saw the biggest year-on-year increase, both up by 10% at an annual average salary of $143,000.
However, it’s also important to consider how early career pay influences long term pay. According to the 2016-2017 College Salary Report from PayScale, students who specialize in strategy earned the highest early career pay after graduation at $96,200. Poets & Quants found that strategy grads also reported the highest earnings at the mid-point of their career, with a median pay of $149,000.
Chicago Booth grads hold record for highest salary jump
Financial Times also records salary increases over pre-MBA levels.
Graduates from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business had the biggest jump in annual salary from pre-MBA levels. According to Financial Times, Booth MBAs witnessed a 252% salary increase over the 2002 ranking.
Financial Times reports that, since 2014, MBAs have at least doubled their pre-MBA salaries within three years of graduation.
“The global average salary increase moved back above 100 per cent again in 2017,” Ortmans says. “Just over half of all ranked schools had salary increases greater than 100 per cent. In 2018, almost two-thirds of alumni cohorts more than doubled their salaries.”
Sources: Financial Times, Poets & Quants, PayScale
Business Education & The Smart Machine Age
Machine learning and automation are quickly re-shaping a number of industries.
Since the 1990’s, industrial robots have been implemented into many local labor markets. According to estimates provided by The Atlantic, there are now more than 1.5 million automated machines operating in the U.S. and Europe industrial markets. That number is expected to exceed 4 million in less than a decade.
Ed Hess is a professor of business administration and Batten executive-in-residence at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. In a recent Financial Times article, Hess discussed how machines and automation will inevitably affect the business world and how business education should adapt in the new age. He calls it the Smart Machine Age (SMA).
“Technology led by artificial intelligence, smart robots, nanotechnology, the internet of things, increased global connectivity and computing power, biotechnology and genetic engineering, will redefine work and transform how businesses are staffed, operated, and managed,” Hess says.
Smart tech is moving beyond manufacturing & into service industries
Industries such as medicine, finance, accounting, management consulting, and law are already being influenced by smart technology. As smart technology increasingly influences these professions, Hess says humans will only be needed for jobs that require innately-human skills such as “higher order critical, creative, and innovative thinking and/or emotional and social intelligence.”
Business students will need to learn how to un-learn & re-learn
How will the SMA affect business education? Hess says students will need to redefine what “smart” means. Rather than be defined by the quantity of what they know, students will need to be measured by the quality of their skills. Hess calls it the “new smart.”
“Smart can no longer be defined by how much one knows, because machines will always be able to know more,” Hess says. “Probably the most important skill students need to develop is how to learn iteratively: that is to un-learn and re-learn. As technology continues to advance, students will need to quickly adapt in order to define and solve problems, and learn through trial and error.” And that means skills like “learning, thinking, listening, emotional engagement and collaboration” will be highly valued.
Learning through trial & error
Trial and error learning, Hess says, will be important for students to adapt in the SMA. Curiosity and open-mindedness will be essential for success. But how will business schools set students up to learn through trial and error?
Darden’s Ed Hess
“Experiential learning — or learning by doing — is the most effective way: putting students in real-life, challenging situations that are designed to build learning mindsets and enhance cognitive and emotional skills,” Hess says. “These projects or experiences — different from the usual classroom-based case studies — take students out of their comfort zones and put them in situations designed for them to learn from failure and build resilience.”
Claus Benkert, former lead of McKinsey’s Munich office, and Nick van Dam, Global Chief Learning Officer at McKinsey, say experiential learning is the most effective means to acquire skills.
“It is an essential component in the functioning of society and in economic well-being — as the ubiquity of internships, apprenticeship programs, and on-the-job training shows, they say. “When it comes to the systematic acquisition of the knowledge and skills needed to support business transformations, success depends on a combination of intellectual comprehension and hands-on experience.”
Overcoming the fear of failure
Experiential learning requires trial and error and Hess says business students will need to embrace humility in order to do the following:
- Manage their fears and emotional defensiveness
- Overcome their reflexive ways of thinking
- Reflectively listen
- Connect, relate and emotionally engage with others
- Learn from failure
- Work effectively in diverse teams and in environments characterized by volatility, complexity and uncertainty
For business students, taking courses across a variety of studies will be beneficial. Hess suggests students to consider areas such as “psychology, philosophy, creative arts, systems engineering, design thinking, data science.”
In addition, Hess says, business schools will need to expand their course selection to include more courses in areas like design thinking and data science.
“The business school of the future will need to excel at customized individual development,” he says.
Emotional and social intelligence will be highly valued in the SMA, Hess says. When they complete their business education, business students will need to have the “new smart,” but also the capacity to expand on emotional and social intelligence.
“They ought to have emotional and social intelligence; the ability to collaborate and to know how to learn and develop their cognitive and emotional capabilities,” Hess says.
Sources: Financial Times, The Atlantic, McKinsey
The University of Washington Foster School of Business. Courtesy photo
What This MBA Student Learned About Business In His First 10 Weeks
By the end of their two years, MBA students can expect to have learned a great deal of information. For Jeff Rechler, an MBA student at University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, it only took his first 10 weeks to gain some substantial insight about the business world.
Here are a few of the lessons he took away in his first 10 weeks:
Unfairness is universally loathed, even among animals
Fairness is an important lesson Rechler says he learned in his first 10 weeks. He cites a famous study by biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal in which Capuchin monkeys rejected unequal pay reward. In the study, monkeys were placed in side-by-side cages and asked to complete a task in exchange for a cucumber reward. All goes well until the experimenters begin giving one monkey grapes as a reward as the other monkey continues to receive cucumbers.
“Apply this lesson to business and it’s clear how real or perceived unfairness in the workplace can have lasting and damaging consequences,” Rechler says.
Conspicuous conservation is the new conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous conservation, according to Investopedia, is the “purchase of goods or services for the specific purpose of displaying one’s wealth. Conspicuous consumption is a means to show one’s social status, especially when the goods and services publicly displayed are too expensive for other members of a person’s class.”
In 2011, economists Alison and Steve Sexton discussed the idea of “conspicuous conservation.”
“The Sextons concluded that the Toyota Prius’ unique styling accounted for an additional 21-33% increase in market share in Colorado compared to competitors whose hybrid vehicles were indistinguishable from non-hybrid models,” Rechler says.
Foster’s Jeff Rechler
Companies really do rely on supply & demand curves
According to Rechler, Alaska Airlines offers 1,200 flights a day and sells tickets 330 days in advance at 20 different price points. And it all has to do with supply and demand.
“It’s a complicated operation but ultimately the company’s strategic pricing decisions boil down to an analysis of supply and demand based on data from hundreds of thousands of flights,” Rechler says. “While every flight is different, customers really do have the best chance of scoring a good deal when purchasing more than 60 days in advance. As for the day of the year when it is cheapest to fly: Halloween.”
Market leaders benefit the most from increased market demand
Competition is good, especially when it brings more demand. Rechler says he learned this after speaking with a Tesla manager who was disappointed by Chevy Bolt’s low production numbers. According to Rechler, the Tesla manager felt more competition would be good for the electric car industry.
“His comments are consistent with our marketing lesson about stimulating primary demand: when overall demand grows, competitors typically share that new demand in proportions roughly equal to their existing market shares,” Rechler says. “In other words, as the electric vehicle pie gets bigger, Tesla would expect to capture a larger slice of pie proportional to its already dominant market share.”
Leading brands have had some embarrassing product flops
All companies learn through failure. Even the leading brands. Rechler says he learned about leading brand failures — such as Google Glass and Amazon’s Fire Phone — in a marketing class, where he analyzed failures from a company, customer, and competitor lens. In studying these failures, Rechler says he realized there were several instances where notable companies made huge product flops. The lesson?
“Stick to your core competencies and actually talk with customers before launching a product intended for them,” Rechler says. “And if you’re going to fail, fail fast before investing heavily in a product rollout.”
Sources: LinkedIn, Investopedia
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