Managing Leadership^®

Hi Jim,

I worked up through the ranks in a variety of opportunities and industries – and I have an MBA. I see the requirement of organizations to have their managers be newly-minted MBAs as a simple culling method.

Organizations such as the military are built on an ‘up or out’ structure. I couldn’t join the Marines right now and come in as a colonel. In business, I could move into a senior position at a company without having worked up through the ranks of that organization. This difference in structure requires some vetting mechanism. Businesses appear to have chosen the MBA.

I don’t necessarily agree that either organization has the ideal process. The best organizations, IMHO, find the blend of internal and external hires into management that best forward the mission at hand.

Great article! I have worked my way up without an MBA but its certainly been something I’ve considered. I continue to find stats and people without it and that attracts me since going back to school doesn’t fit to me. I find it very interesting to see the different styles and techniques of managers who have and haven’t come from MBA backgrounds. Personally, I prefer the ones who haven’t come at it with an MBA and instead a real passion to manage.

Hi Joe,

I have advanced business degrees also. My point here isn’t to denigrate them, but to suggest that we ought not place undue expectations in them, either. It is a peculiar truth that people still think of an MBA as a substitute for experience – and even a generator of everything from judgment to line credibility. It is none of those things; it is merely education.

Education, of course, is important, and a legitimate requirement – perhaps even in the form of an MBA – for many jobs. This post, though, was written partly as a reaction to the BW article group which plainly suggested that non-MBAs are inherently unqualified for management positions in civilian business regardless of what else may be in their educational or work backgrounds.

I offer the non-profit organizations and military examples as two areas that bracket – and often exceed, some would say routinely – much of the business management development practice in general application today, especially that which is centered on the MBA.

As you point out, an MBA is an obvious way to filter the large number of applications a firm will get. And it is by no means entirely unfair to presume that a candidate’s possession of one indicates some degree of knowledge and initiative. But I think there is a real cost in the unthinkingly mechanical, and often exaggerated, faith placed in its value.

I agree with your observation about internal/external hires, also. But especially with external hires at mid- to upper-levels, for which there are often numerous legitimately vital organizational reasons, a firm would do well to avoid formulaic approaches to meeting its needs. That’s a topic worth addressing separately.

But there may be a call for another post on this topic – I appreciate your taking me to task, here, for failing to place my point in sufficient perspective.

Thanks, as always, for your visit, your thought-provoking comments, and for your own work and writing!

Hello Mike,

Thanks for your visit and your kind comments.

In every industry – and every broadly defined category of management practice – government, military, not-for-profit, or commercial – there are discriminators such as you point out between MBAs and non-MBAs (although that’s a main one). In the military it may be between officers who are grads of the various service academies and those who aren’t, or between officers with or without non-commissioned (enlisted) experience. In government service, there may be those who attended certain schools (common in some countries), or who took certain degrees, and everyone else.

Even in some large commercial organizations, there may be some who attended the in-house university, and those who for one reason or another didn’t – or, as Joe alluded to, some who were promoted from within and others who were hired in at higher levels straight from school or some other pipeline. This is a good point you bring in to the discussion, I think; deserving of study.

But your reference to the key issue of rising due to the discovery of a love for managing – that’s good. I would guess that as long as you have that, an MBA isn’t likely to do any harm!

Thanks for stopping by and for bringing up this interesting angle on the subject – and thanks for your own writing, as well!

I love the way you flipped the logic around. The question isn’t, “Should members of the military pursue MBAs,” but “Should MBAs and potential MBAs seek military experience.”

A lot of people in business mistakenly believe people go into the military as an option of last resort. Even in wartime, I’ve observed this often isn’t the case — particularly among officer candidates I met at Quantico about a year and a half ago.

These men were highly motivated, intelligent people, capable of heroically handling high-stress environments, who believed in their mission and the Corps, and who would make themselves subservient to them.

I couldn’t think of a group of people I’d trust more with my life — or my business. MBA optional.

Actually, Cam, I hadn’t thought of it with quite that edge, but I wish I had.

I was only trying to refute the presumption that civilian sources are the only viable ones – or at least the putative gold standard – for good management, by making the point that the military (and the non-profit field) has a lot to teach civilian business about management.

But that’s a really good way to look at it. Joe talked about how the MBA is a logical tool for businesses to cull all the candidates they are vetting for hire or promotion. But if they can learn to appreciate that an MBA is only teaching, and not training, and thus does not equate to management training or development of managerial judgment and experience, perhaps they will be prepared to look farther afield.

In fact, if they are beginning to recognize the value of a military background, then perhaps they should screen for that – as you say, with MBA or not. Those with only MBAs and no military experience would fall into the second tier.

Since there are so few with military experience, these days, there would be plenty of demand left for those in that second tier.

This is good stuff. Thanks, Cam, for stopping by with that!

I really enjoyed, by the way, your post today on in-your-face free market thinking; I’m looking forward to seeing how the series develops.

Thanks again!

Jim – Thank you.

Now that I’ve started it, I am wondering if I can keep it going until April 15, and use the opportunity to discuss the fatal flaws of either the income tax or social security.

I should probably map it out, but I suppose all the articles don’t have to appear consecutively. I can always put them together in a PDF for consolidation.

Well, Cam, there is certainly plenty to talk about in both of those subjects – what a great anchor. Especially for concluding a series on the operation of the free market in the real, everyday world – and the interjection of moral hazard.

Looking forward to it as it happens (not going to wait for the PDF!)!