Managing Leadership^®

Graduate degree and certification programs for working adults remain a growing industry. Many corporations make such programs available to employees as a part of their overall employee- and career-development programs. Students undertake them at least as often to enhance their future at a particular job as to groom themselves for re-entry into the job hunting market. Which type of program is best for students? Which type of graduate should hiring corporations look for?

The focused programs are generally superior, because they make no bones about what they are actually doing, which is to create a highly skilled and informed technical expert who can apply theory in the real world. Finance, accounting, even business administration, fit the bill here.

In contrast to these, unfortunately, an MBA is a conglomeration of introductory training in a variety of technical skills, combined with a smattering of overviews of the “softer” sciences in management. The degree generally produces a “jack of all trades/master of none” type of graduate who has been told he or she is now trained as a manager, but who is actually imperfectly prepared to fill various functional roles. The smarter organizations are learning this, and discovering that generalist managers who can flexibly adjust their thinking from theoretical perspective to practical focus as appropriate are more likely found among liberal arts graduates.

Project management, however, deserves special mention. As information, and even organizations, become more diffusely spread around the world, the ability to conceptualize and manage work in the form of projects of all sizes is of increasing importance. This is an area of growing importance for organizations and educators.

In general, the more focused degrees (including project management) provide hard, measurable skills that enable both the student and the employer (whether underwriting the student or hiring the graduate) to know what they’re getting. MBAs are increasingly becoming a commodity of questionable content and value. Consequently, I think the more focused degrees serve the long-term interests of underwriting companies and of graduates far better. Project management deserves special mention here as both a hard skill and one that, via its disciplined approach to integrating details into a general plan, also helps develop people who can move into senior generalist managerial positions.

As for instructors: in my opinion, let students learn theory from academics who have written textbooks, but take their coursework’s classroom presentations from practicing managers. This is the best way for students to learn how theory becomes productive practice, and a really excellent way for them to leave the training program with not just a batch of books, notes, and hazily organized theory stuck in their heads, but also with an important form of expanded personal experience gained through the stories and practical examples of their teachers.

—

Thanks for stopping by, today! Why not take a moment to let your friends and colleagues know about this post? Click on the “Share this” icon, just below.

Similar Posts:

• Moving away from the MBA
• Random Day 2: Students and the school of hard knocks
• Make believe world
• Learning to walk the walk
• Cockney or Count? Learning to Direct

Technorati Tags: Graduate degree, Finance, accounting, business administration, MBA, liberal arts, Project management