The Rumors of MBA Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

June 23, 2005 · Filed Under Coaching, Marketing 

Dave Buck from Coachville announced today in their newsletter than the MBA is dead and invited everyone  to a wake at his new blog The MBA is Dead .Huh? B-Schools may not get coaching as he asserts but concluding that because of this, the MBA is dead is completely illogical and simply not true. Full disclosure: I have an MBA and I am not a certified coach. Having said that, I have no idea what he is talking about. He states "unleashing the greatness in people is the fast track to success." Well, I don’t necessarily disagree with the importance of unleashing the greatness in people…in fact I support it. Again, I fail to see his logic in getting from his point A which I believe is unleashing the greatness in people is the fast track to success, to his point B, which is I believe is become a coach instead of getting an MBA. As I think I learned in Kindergarten, apples and oranges.

He writes, "When think about what I learned in
business school: marketing, accounting, finance, how to manage factorys
full of union laborers, how to plan a TV advertising campaign with
direct mail follow up, UGH!  Even if the schools have upgraded the
curriculum since then, it’s still the same basic stuff."

OK,  we will ignore for a moment the comment about managing the factory full of icky union laborers…well I guess I didn’t ignore it. I also have an MSW and that comment really grated on my social worker side. But, with all due respect, Mr. Buck you might need just a wee little bit of B-school to learn the marketing, accounting, and finance skills to get that big executive job you talk about…it won’t do much good to be telling your staff how to stay focused on what to do next if you don’t know what to tell them to do next.

And BTW, you might take a look at the curriculum in MBA programs today….I think you might be surprised both in terms of style and content.


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