*****Assessing Whether Entrepreneurs Should Get M.B.A.’s
ByCLIFF OXFORD December 30, 2013
Have you noticed how many universities are rushing to create entrepreneurship programs as part of their M.B.A. offerings? As The Wall Street Journal
recently noted, the answer is quite a few. One might say better late than never — or even think that the traditional M.B.A. program is finally gaining some relevance and teaching people how to build a business. Think again.
In reality, many of the changes are window dressing with schools just trying to keep their cash cow M.B.A. programs alive by attempting to ride the entrepreneurial fever breaking out across the country. The truth is you have a better chance of getting the Tea Party to embrace the Affordable Care Act than getting traditional business schools to teach real-world, hard-knocks entrepreneurship.
Here is why: traditional M.B.A. programs are classroom-centric. They give students little real access to business leaders or to the places where business is done. And as best I can tell, many academics want to keep it that way. Their big idea has been to bring in retired entrepreneurs to teach in the classroom. This is like putting a catfish in a bathtub and calling it a river.
Entrepreneurs generally don’t do well outside their preferred environment (the real world), and the students don’t get any real sense of how fast the business world moves. I think we may even have reached the point where some M.B.A.’s actually damage up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Go sit in a classroom, then go work in a fast-growth company. Talk about the difference between night and day! You will see why the classroom is a dangerous place from which to view the business world.
For example, Gianine Abdallah, an entrepreneur based in Atlanta, recently started an online apparel company that was profitable in its first week. Like most fast-growth entrepreneurs, she wants to move fast. So when she asked me if I thought getting a classroom M.B.A. would be helpful, I responded that I did not think it made much sense for her, logistically or academically. Does she really have the time to drive across town to sit in a class or to spend hours with an online program that doesn’t give her real-world business experience?
What she needs, I think, is not years of studying business theory out of a textbook, but exposure and access to business leaders and partners that can help her now. She needs to connect and have her real-time questions answered by someone like Susan Nethero, who built and sold a lingerie company,
Intimacy.
Yes, of course, Ms. Abdallah and all other entrepreneurial students could use some accounting and finance, but why not take them online? In past years this may have been a poor option, but technology and online teaching methods have improved so much that
one study for the Department of Education found that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
When I got my M.B.A. from Emory in 1994, I was already an information technology leader at .U.P.S, and I was consumed with climbing the corporate ladder – just like most of my fellow students from other big companies. But today, many M.B.A. students want to do their own thing and start their own companies.
My general management M.B.A. was worthwhile for me while I was at U.P.S. because it gave me exposure to other disciplines beyond information technology, like marketing and strategy. The accounting and strategy courses were useful even when I was building my business.
But here is the biggest difference 20 years makes and why I think many M.B.A.’s haven’t been relevant since the ’90s: When I started my company, STI Knowledge, we had about three years to stay ahead of the competition. With today’s technology, entrepreneurs tell me they have about three months. Data that used to take days or even months to acquire can now be obtained in real time. With the new speed of business, the traditional M.B.A. and the classroom have been left in the dust.
After I sold STI Knowledge, I decided I wanted to address these changes by helping to create a new kind of M.B.A. I gave my alma mater money to transform its executive M.B.A. program into an entrepreneurial M.B.A. program. People at the school called me an educational visionary and gladly took my money. I was bright-eyed and big-headed — but totally naïve to think I could persuade a university to offer an entrepreneurship program that gets students out of the classroom. Talk about stirring up a hornet’s nest!
I kept saying, “O.K. guys, let’s get going.” But their feet were in academic cement, and they would not move. And here is why: Most business schools have labor unions, known as tenured faculty, that keep the curriculum the way they want to teach it, when they want to teach it and how they want to teach it. They really did not want to hear me tell them that my M.B.A. had been largely irrelevant in helping me push my company into the 21st century — or that what I had learned from my M.B.A. no longer applied.
You might ask where the academic leadership is. In every case where business schools have changed their M.B.A. programs to reflect the real world, you will find a strong dean whose vision and conviction have triumphed over academic entitlements. These deans could be successful entrepreneur themselves. But we are talking about the exceptions — most act more like union stewards than entrepreneurs. This why you have to get the entrepreneur out of the classroom.
Eventually, I began to offer my ideas to other institutions. What I got was a lot of interest and a lot of partners (22 universities), but little action. My vision of an entrepreneurial M.B.A. kept getting clobbered. Then, this past September, I partnered with Brenau University in Gainesville, Ga., to offer an accredited entrepreneurial M.B.A. Here’s what it took: a nontenured faculty, forward-thinking deans and an entrepreneurial president of the college.
We put all of the academics online and worked tirelessly to integrate students into the local business community. Students attend board meetings, commerce dinners and C.E.O. round tables to get to know business leaders and their businesses. M.B.A. apprentices spend three months working side by side with a chief executive, reporting only to them. So it is possible.
And now, when entrepreneurs ask me whether they should go get an M.B.A., here’s what I tell them: If you get in to Stanford, go. Stanford offers exceptional access to Silicon Valley, the best fast-growth ecosystem in the universe. The school’s work-study program hits the all-important three Rs: rigorous, relevant, and real-world. In many cases, Stanford students end up helping a Silicon Valley company grow while getting their M.B.A. at the same time.
And if you get into Harvard’s business school, go. It has been proved over and over that it can help you build a business, although I’m not convinced it has anything to do with the school’s well-known “case study” business curriculum. For my taste, the case study remains a classroom-centric model that has little to do with entrepreneurs trying to build a business today. But go to Harvard anyway — if only for the Harvard alumni network. The contacts you make during and after the program are worth the price of admission.
Beyond Stanford and Harvard, I would say this: Go only if you find a program that offers real-world experience, working alongside someone who is building a business. Otherwise, while I wouldn’t say the current traditional M.B.A. is useless, it is pretty much like having athletes studying game film but never practicing on the field.
讀MBA究竟有沒有用？
商學院CLIFF OXFORD2013年12月30日
你是否有注意到，有多少大學正急着將創業項目作為M.B.A.項目中的選擇之一？就像《華爾街日報》(The Wall Street Journal)
最近報道的，這其中原因有很多。有人可能會說，遲到總比缺席好——甚至會覺得，傳統的M.B.A. 項目終於與時代有了一點相關性，終於開始教人們如何創立一份事業了。請再思量一下吧。
在現實生活中，有許多此類變革其實只是裝點門面而已，學校們想要讓 M.B.A.項目這棵搖錢樹保持活力，於是就趁着全國颳起的這一股創業風潮來趕時髦。事實是，讓傳統的商學院教在真實世界中艱難前行的創業方法，還不如讓 茶黨(Tea Party)接受平價醫療法案(Affordable Care Act)的可能性大。
理由如下：傳統的M.B.A.項目是以課堂教學為主的。他們很少為學生提供真切接觸商業領袖或者商業場合的機會。據我所知，許多學院想要保持這種方式。他們的偉大創意是請退休的企業家來教室中上課。這就像是把一條鯰魚放到浴缸里，然後聲稱這是一條河。
在企業家們所偏愛的環境（也就是現實世界）之外，他們往往表現得不 好，學生們也沒辦法真切感受到商業世界運轉得有多快速。我覺得我們可能甚至已經抵達了一個問題的核心：為什麼事實上有些M.B.A.反而毀掉了一些前途大 好的創業家。你可以去坐在一間教室里，然後再試試去在一個飛速發展的公司里工作。這樣的差異就跟白天和黑夜一樣巨大！你會把教室視為一個危險的、無法看清 商業世界的地方。
舉例來說，吉阿妮·阿卜杜拉(Gianine Abdallah)是一位主要在亞特蘭大發展的創業者，她最近創立了一家在線服裝公司，在第一周就實現了盈利。像其他快速發展的企業家一樣，她想要飛快地 前進。所以當她問我去上M.B.A.的課會不會有幫助時，我的回答是我不覺得它對她來說有太多意義，不管是在邏輯上還是學術上。她是不是真的有時間開車穿 過城市去上課，或者把時間花在一個無法給予她真實世界商業經驗的在線課程上？
她所需要的，我覺得，不是花時間在教科書中學習商業理論，在商業領袖與合伙人前亮相或者與其接觸的機會才是現在能幫助到她的。她需要建立人脈，讓她在現實世界中遇到的問題能由像蘇珊·內瑟羅(Susan Nethero)這樣建立以及售出一家女性內衣公司
Intimacy的人來解答。
是的，當然了，阿卜杜拉和其他創業的學生可以用得上一些會計與金融的知識，但為什麼不在網上學習呢？在過去，這可能算不上一個好選擇，但科技與在線教學技術現在已經進步了許多，美國教育部(Department of Education)的
一個研究發現，「平均來說，在線學習的學生比那些接受面對面教學的學生要表現得更好。」
當我在1994年在埃默里大學 (Emory University)拿到M.B.A.學位時，我已經是UPS快遞的信息技術負責人了，滿心想的都是要繼續在公司內部往上攀登——就像絕 大多數來自其他大公司的同學們一樣。但現在，許多M.B.A.學生想要做自己的事，開創他們自己的公司。
對於當時還在UPS的我來說，綜合管理M.B.A.的學習已經夠用了，因為它給我機會接觸信息技術以外的其他領域，比如市場以及戰略。會計課和戰略課非常有用，即使在我創業的時候也還能用到這些知識。
但20年光陰帶來的不同之處以及我認為在上世紀90年代之後許多 M.B.A.項目有些跟不上時代的原因是：當我創立我的公司STI Knowledge的時候，我們在投入競爭拼殺之前有三年時間。而創業者們告訴我，以如今的技術發展水平，他們擁有的時間只有三個月。以前需要幾天甚至幾 個月來獲取的數據現在可以即時獲得。商業世界的新速度如此之快，傳統的M.B.A.與教室教學已經被遠遠地拋在了塵土之中。
在我出售了STI Knowledge之後，我決定，我要把這些改變公之於眾，創建一種新型的M.B.A.。我為我的母校捐錢，以將他們的執行管理M.B.A.項目改進為一 個創業型的M.B.A.項目。學校里的那些人說我教育方面具有遠見卓識，高興地收下了我的錢。我的確很有眼光，也很聰明——但我太天真地以為，我可以說服 一所大學提供一個讓學生走出教室的創業項目。還不如去捅馬蜂窩呢！
我一直在說，「好了，大伙兒，讓我們前進吧。」但他們的腳一直被粘 在學術的地板上，不願意移動。原因是這樣的：大多數商學院都有工會，也就是終身教職員工組織，這使得課程一直保持着他們想要教授的形式、時間以及方法。他 們真的不想聽到我告訴他們，我上的M.B.A.課程對於將我的公司帶入21世紀沒有什麼幫助——或者我在M.B.A.課程中學到的東西再也不實用了。
你也許會問，學術界的領袖們都到哪兒去了。每一次有商學院把他們的 M.B.A.項目修改得更符合現實，你都會發現一個強勢的院長，他或她的視野與信念能夠超越學校的既得利益。這些院長們可能本身就是成功的企業家。但是我 們現在所談的是期望——現實是他們往往更像工會代表，而非企業家。這就是你必須讓企業家走出教室的原因。
最後，我開始向其他機構傳達我的想法。我所得到的是很多感興趣的回 應以及很多合伙人（22所大學），但真正的行動卻很少。我對於創業型M.B.A.的設想仍然舉步維艱。然後，就在剛過去的9月，我與位於格魯吉亞州蓋恩斯 維爾的布里諾大學(Brenau University)達成了合作，提供一個受承認的創業型M.B.A.項目。這個目標能達成，主要得益於這些因素：非終身制的教職工集體、高瞻遠矚的院 系領導以及一個有創業精神的校長。
我們把所有的課程都放到網上，不厭其煩地組織學生融入當地的商業圈 子。學生們參加董事會議、商業晚餐以及C.E.O. 圓桌會議，以便認識了解商業領袖們以及他們的事業。
M.B.A.學生們用3個月的時間跟隨在一位執行副總身邊工作，直接向他報告工作。所以這一切都是可能 達到的。
現在，當企業家問我是否應該去讀一個M.B.A.的時候，我會這樣 告訴他們：如果你能去斯坦福大學，那就去吧。斯坦福能提供獨一無二的接觸硅谷的機會，而硅谷是全球發展最快的經濟生態圈。它的商學院的半工半讀項目符合三個最重要的R：嚴格(rigorous)，緊跟時代(relevant)以及現實(real-world)。在很多例子里，斯坦福的學生都能一邊幫助一家 硅谷公司發展，一邊為他們的M.B.A.學位學習。
如果你能去哈佛大學的商學院，那也去吧。它一直都在證明，它可以幫 助你創建一份事業，儘管我並不認為這與該學院著名的「案例教學」商業課程有關。在我看來，案例教學仍然是一個以教室為中心的教學模型，與如今創業家們試圖 建立的事業並沒有什麼關係。但是不管如何，還是去哈佛吧——哪怕只是為了哈佛的校友人脈網。僅憑在項目之中以及之後你所認識的人，你入學時交的學費就已經 值了。
在斯坦福與哈佛之外，我會這麼建議：只有在你找到一個能夠提供現實經驗、與正在創業的人士接觸的機會的項目的M.B.A.項目的時候，再去讀。否則，雖然我不會說現在的傳統M.B.A.完全沒有用，不過它着實就像是讓運動員去觀看比賽錄像，卻從來不讓他們上賽場實戰一樣。
克里夫·奧克斯福德(Cliff Oxford)是
牛津創業中心(Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs)的創立者。你可以在
Twitter上關注他。
本文最初發表於2013年12月10日。
翻譯：吳靜
