T he MBA qualification remains one of the most widely sought‑after graduate-level business degrees in the world. Starting with legacy programmes at US institutions such as Wharton, Dartmouth and Harvard from the late 19th century onwards, the number of MBA programmes has grown to in excess of 2,300, with thousands of hopefuls applying every year to courses that have a wide variety of formats (in person, hybrid, online) and lengths, ie 12, 18 or 24 months. Granted, applications have showed signs of waning recently but, in the grand scheme of things, the MBA programme continues to be a powerful degree. The MBA was initially designed to educate future senior executives in business – executives who are able to manage, lead and guide the whole organisation. To this end, MBA programmes have re-engineered their content over the years to move from the major business functions of finance, marketing, operations and human resources to specialisations that fill the evolving needs of an ever-changing, technology-driven world – these include digital leadership, innovation and sustainability. MBAs provide hopeful candidates not only with broad business acumen, but also specific competencies designed to get the “I am so honoured to announce” post-MBA role. A job to make both their mother and the business school dean proud, one guaranteed to put them on that senior executive track. If only it were that easy…. Until we think more expansively about both the purpose and design of the MBA, we will continue to fall short in truly educating and ‘onboarding’ future senior executives. We need to induct our MBA participants into not only the senior executive’s task-and- knowledge base via specific courses and technical information, but also introduce them to the social side of holding that kind of position, through industry forays and professional networks. entrants, so why shouldn’t an MBA programme? Years of research from bodies such as the American Psychological Association teaches us that successful onboarding includes task mastery (that is, knowing your stuff) plus social integration – knowing how to engage in the role, as well as with the people that surround your ‘stuff’. US-based technology behemoth Google is famous for its onboarding process, in which a Noogler (ie a new employee) not only learns the tasks associated with their job but all the social ‘ins and outs’ of their role, the team and the organisation in order to move from being a Noogler to a Googler. Mastering the art of onboarding Organisations and occupations actively onboard their new
In the same vein, MBA programmes will be successful when they not only focus on task mastery – via curriculum design – but also integration via signature experiences that allow their participants to become socialised in the ways of a senior executive. So, what would these two elements look like in an MBA programme? Within the Essec global MBA it is found in both the programme itself and the ‘programme beyond the programme’. We continue to focus on and improve the quality of our courses and the way they match the needs of the executive labour market. This has resulted in three strong concentrations spanning digital leadership, strategic sustainability and innovation/ entrepreneurship. In short, we allow the task mastery to be handled by the experts – our research-producing faculty. That said, new employee onboarding research provides additional insight into how we can innovate within the programme to assure increased task mastery. Task mastery is built more rapidly when the newcomer is able to work on a project that spans the organisation, providing a panoramic view of the strategy, culture and competencies within. Indeed, in my article co-authored with Spencer Harrison in the Academy of Management journal, we elaborate on how we found that newcomer projects provide not only cultural acuity, but also significantly useful new ideas for the organisation. Within the Essec global MBA, we have inaugurated a project called Sustainability for Good . The MBA teams work on grand challenges for a client such as Oxfam or Chamonix that are multi‑disciplinary and multi-functional. This project spans two terms, so it is not housed in any one core MBA course. The participants, as future senior executives, build competence in broad strategic thinking, stakeholder management and transformations – all key task mastery competencies for senior executives.
Proactive partnerships There is a mountain of evidence that realistic job previews reduce surprises for newcomers, thereby future-proofing them for enhanced job performance. Most MBA programmes, via their career services, bring in successful alumni to give talks. These are, many times and in many programmes, missed opportunities to provide a proper snapshot of what it’s like to be a senior executive. We ask our alumni speakers to allow themselves to be vulnerable and share not only big successes but big failures – and what they learned from them. Research has found that proactive and curious newcomers perform better and ‘take charge’ of their role. Similarly, senior executives don’t just sit back and let things happen. Almost all MBA programmes have a built-in ‘proactivity instigator’ – the job search process. Career services can do a lot to promote proactivity; at Essec we focus on ‘partnering’ rather than ‘providing’ during the job search process.
34 | Ambition | MAY 2024
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