A Semester Later

Four months ago I predicted that I may be able to normalize my posting schedule. Apparently my skills as a forecaster are dubious at best. More pressing matters have consumed my attention; furthermore, the "MBA advice" aim of this blog has run its course. Everything I posted earlier on this blog contains the most pertinent material for those who are considering getting their MBA by traditional means. Therefore, my subsequent posts will focus more on just relating the balancing act that takes place during the closing months of the program.

That act includes my post-MBA career efforts and research, - in an economy as dubious as my commitment to this blog - my interest in the presidential race, my firstborn starting school, my current job, my class schedule, my self-directed education efforts and my brother's summer wedding. The takeaway is that the end is getting more difficult and compressed, not easier. Albeit, the classes I'm taking are much more attuned to my interests, so I am more eager to do the necessary work; however, that just adds more time spent for school.

I'm also finding my interest diverging and competition for my attention is increasing. This race is of particular interest to me and I find myself reading accounts on it instead of my bedside textbooks. Paired with the challenge of exploring new career opportunities in this suspect economy and my time is well allotted.

At the bottom of the list is this blog and the aforementioned reason in particular: this blog has served its purpose. There is no further reason for me to continue adding comments that add no relevant value to the reader or myself. If you stumble across this blog, I encourage you go back to the first handful of posts and glean the material there. The later posts are the Long Tail of this blog and only applicable to a small niche of readers.

With that, I promise to make one more post to this blog and will do so at the conclusion of my MBA program at SMU. I will wait a couple weeks, maybe a month after graduation, to make the post so I can internalize the whole episode; and the post will be geared at passing judgment on m experience through a traditional part-time MBA program, specifically at SMU.

So, until then.

The Countdown Continued

(Continued from previous post)

In summary, I still see the value of the traditional MBA for myself and for a significant portion of other MBA candidates and holders. The network I am building, the forced effort I am exerting to study, test and develop skills, and the salary bump all make the value of my MBA have a high NPV.

The Horizon Value

The next eleven months spell the culmination of my graduate work. I will be working on my concentration coursework in Finance and Strategy, evaluating my career path, talking with industry leaders in target employment sectors and balancing work and family time. Additionally, I've bought a number of supplementary reading materials to augment my studies at school. All of this is geared toward maximizing my growth potential in the outer years, as I get farther away from my degree award date.

I expect a large bump to come once I switch positions with my current company or transition to a new employer and industry. The large bump will take care of the my MBA investment, but the sustainable returns will be based on growing my compensation five, 10 and 20 years from now. I will have the benefit of coming out of the program as an experienced professional since I've been working full-time as well. The best indicator for future career growth is a history of increasing responsibility and challenge. The same litmus test can be applied to MBA programs.

A number of MBA candidates struggle through their core requirement classes, which constitutes 50% of the program, with a singular focus: "I can't wait to get to my concentration work, because then it all becomes much easier." This is disconcerting. This degrades the value of the MBA. This shortchanges candidates on their growth potential in the outer years.

While it does take some time for most candidates to readjust to the challenge of the classroom setting and time management, coursework needs to be increasing in difficulty, challenge and content. To choose otherwise does not maximize the value of the investment. Our goal as MBA students is to develop the tools that accelerate and sustain growth: that only occurs when chosen courses are increasingly more challenging and dense.

This is what separates the Movers and Shakers from the Riders. When I sit down to interview candidates, I am interested in someone that has routinely demonstrated the ability to set higher standards for herself. I expect nothing less of myself. I'm excited for the challenges this year's coursework will bring.

The Countdown Begins: Eleven Months

Using the posting frequency of late, that means I've only got five more posts left before the end of school. That's with a simple average. If I degrade my posting frequency at the same rate that has taken place over the last six months, it's more likely I'll post only three more times. I'll make that my goal. Under promise, over deliver.

Since the last post I have completed another two classes and gone through the final significant break before the mad dash to the finish. I resume coursework tomorrow.

A summary is in order, and in the spirit of the new year, I'll look back and provide a glimpse of the future.

The Past Year

The Value of the MBA, Revisited

The score was about six to four in my favor: 66.6% of the classes were well worth the funds, time and energy while 33.3% could not fill a 50-page "how-to" tome. I have reasonable expectations that this average will improve over the next 12 courses because I am in charge of the classes and professors with which I complete my degree. I'd lay odds that the ending tally with be at least a 75-25 split.

The question then becomes "Is it worth it?" This is a question that is explored ad nauseum - see my friend Josh Kaufman's website the Personal MBA for additional information - and it is popular to disparage the MBA's value. When you consider that a Harvard MBA will run about $75,000 for tuition, books and fees (excluding opportunity costs, room & board, etc.), the MBA student declares that she is okay with the $18,750 going toward the sup-par 25%. Most opponents of the MBA argue that the last sentence is beside the point: instead, why pay $75,000 in the first place for a degree that has dubious results?

Now keep in mind that I have the confirmation bias present because I am personally invested in the success of the MBA; however, I'm going to attempt to present a cogent argument in support of the MBA with the qualification that my argument only supports 20% of the current MBA candidate and graduate population. MBA dilution has occurred due to the presence of the other 80%.

I'm going to divide the percentiles above into two groups: The 20-percenters I will call "Movers and Shakers" and the 80-percenters will be called "Riders." Rather than focus specifically on the Movers and Shakers group in the context of the MBA realm alone, let's expand this group to be 20% of industry professionals and leaders. The remaining 80% finds itself standing on the shoulders of the Movers and Shakers.

The strata within the Movers and Shakers is diverse. Some individuals have doctorates while others are college or, even worse, high school drop outs. There are visionaries, managers, creatives, quants and all types represented. Different learning styles are represented and different foibles play vice to members. At the end of the day, a single template does not apply to the entire group.

Riders on the other hand, capitalize on the Movers and Shakers work. Schools of thought are dispersed by Riders once introduced by Movers and Shakers. It's the symbiotic relationship of the alpha and beta group dynamic: alpha members innovate while beta members propagate.

Group members choose their own path and at times they create it. And once a path is forged there will be followers. The path that enabled one person to be successful with enable others. As more and more people tread the path, its value will decrease, scarcity being what it is.

I need to summarize before this metaphor gets out of hand. For the longest time, getting a high school diploma was a mark of success. Then government mandated education came along through the 12th grade and scarcity shifted to the undergraduate degree in higher education. Undergraduate work is still a market indicator for employment but not as scarce. Less than 20% of the working population has a graduate degree and it is the scarcer for resource. It is the stronger market indicator. And people naturally see it as more valuable.

The graduate degree is not nearly as valuable as it once was, but it is valuable nonetheless. But it is not valuable to everyone. In the same way that it made more sense for Mr. Gates to drop out of Harvard because the opportunity costs were too high to stay in school, the opportunity costs with the MBA are too great for a certain strata of Movers and Shakers. But that doesn't disparage the value of the MBA for the entire population. For some people, the MBA makes absolute sense because of yields on a scale that are negligible to others.

And I absolutely agree that the value of the MBA will continue to decrease as long as supply continues to come on the market. That is beside the point. The MBA still holds value today. The time value of money may indicate that it is the optimum choice.

Take Student A who saddles the fence between being a Mover and Shaker and being a Rider. This person is content to settle somewhere in middle management. They are currently making a respectable salary and they know that they will eventually get to a higher salary. If they can append the salary to a sooner date, however, they stand the chance of a better life earlier.

Student A is going to work part-time and thinks that she can accelerate her career five years. Her initial investment will be a lump sum of $75,000. At graduation she will jump her salary $25,000. We'll assume a discount rate of 10% on the money she could have invested. So here is the breakdown:

Lump Sum: $-75,000
Discount Rate: 10%
Payment Periods: 7 (2 years in school)
FCF, Years 3-7: $25,000

The Net Present Value of this decision comes out to +$3,020.

Pursuing her MBA makes sense for Student A, UNLESS she can increase her opportunity cost of capital, or find a project that yields a higher net present value. But for a large proportion of the population, they can't. A select few can. Many just aren't in a position to do so because they either don't know how, have other personal circumstances, can't commit unless their money is on the line or a myriad of other reasons. The MBA is a viable vehicle and it works and makes sense for them.

I have my reasons for why I started my program. Thus far they have panned out. When I have the benefit to employ some hindsight bias, I may question whether the MBA really bumped my career/salary as much as I hoped it would. For a segment of people, it will bump their salary and they will have a positive NPV. I hope to be one of those.

(Reflection continued in next post)

No Promises

Two months. That's eight Friday's of clicking the "Dismiss" button on my Outlook Alert instructing me to "Post to Blog." It's a matter of priorities and waxing philosophical about my MBA efforts has not been one of them.

I'm now half way through the program and I've started working on my concentration coursework.

Sidebar: I didn't fully explain the concentration option at SMU in previous posts. Many business schools have a set curriculum for the MBA programs they offer. SMU allows its MBA candidates to focus on the specific disciplines after completing the core coursework. The program is 48 credits in length, 20 of which are dedicated to core coursework. The remaining 28 credits can be allocated as the student deems. My concentrations are Finance (14 credits required) and Strategy (14 credits required). So every one of my remaining courses will be either Finance or Strategy.

The ability to choose concentrations is a big selling point for SMU and was key for me. My undergraduate work was in liberal arts and appealed to the more qualitative side of business. Returning to school was partially motivated by the desire to bulk up on the quantitative skills. I can focus on that at SMU.

END SIDEBAR

Within my Strategy work I'm focusing on the more quantitative courses as well, specifically in Mergers & Acquisitions, Game Theory and Private Equity & Venture Capital. My Finance concentration courses will lean toward more of the Corporate Finance and Valuation side of the discipline.

This week has been spent going over my Spring '08 courses. I am applying for a course SMU offers through the Strategy department called the Venture Capital Practicum. When evaluating programs, be sure to research the types of Practicums (self-study/portfolio experience) they offer. This type of course is the laboratory for the classroom material. In my case, I will be assigned to a VC firm and manage a proposal and recommendation from a business seeking funding. I will perform the due diligence, evaluation, etc. and do so under the tutelage of the VC firm partners. Very valuable. I hope my application is competitive enough to be chosen.

This Fall semester also marks the beginning of a program that SMU offers that is virtually exclusive to the school: the Associate Board program. The name is misleading; the program is a mentoring program where SMU assigns area business leaders -- all senior executives -- with students interested in the industry/business in which the mentor works. I received the mentor I chose and have begun the process.

During the course of the mentor/mentee relationship, I can expect to build my industry contacts by 15-20 persons, learn hard skills for the industry, focus my resume for the industry, and on and on. This program is more valuable to me than my degree when it comes to securing a position in the industry and with the company I want to work. The degree is valuable, however, my mentor will help me lay the groundwork for post-Grad employment quicker than the degree.

This is a quick summary of some of the things going on. I make no promises that I will post more frequently, but hope to do so again in a few weeks.

It's Fall in Dallas. And it's 104 Degrees F.

I have a sinking feeling that the posting frequency is going to stay like this for a while. It's been three weeks since my last post and it feels much longer.

I am now through the second week of the Fall semester, Mod A (25% complete). This semester is quickly shaping up to be the most onerous thus far. Between work, school, family and referee assignments my schedule is full. At least it's the best season of the year.

* * * * *

I wrapped up the summer semester the first week in August leaving a healthy two week break before the next round of classes began. It wasn't that healthy.

These breaks can be your death knell. For many of us, after pushing for a long period without coming up for air, when the break does finally come, not only do you mentally check out, your body takes a break also. Your immune system goes AWOL. The slightest strain of anything in the air attacks you and sets you back for the entire break.

Of course, you have enough time to recover; however, this time I spent so much time physically recovering, I left no time for mental recovery. The most difficult thing after a break like this is getting motivated again. You see the same cases you have during undergraduate. You're still going over your core coursework that most likely is not all that interesting to you. And it's still nice outside. Again, for those of you who look down on the MBA, people that overcome this alone should develop at least some level of respect.

Bottom line: Avoid breaks if you can. Just suffocate yourself for two years. At least, that's what I'd prefer.

* * * * *

This semester's first module presents the final two core courses of the program; it's all electives and concentration coursework after this.

My schedule includes:

• Strategic Management; and
• Operations Management.

Both classes are decent capstones to the core coursework, but not remarkable. The assigned reading for Ops Management is "The Goal," which is required reading for nearly every undergraduate business student. I'm reading it for the fourth time. Still good, but basic.

The Ops course covers the following:

• Process Analysis and Improvement
• System Design
• Project Management
• Queue Management

This course will be common to every MBA program.

The Strategy course covers the usual as well:

• Industry Analysis (Porter's Five)
• Competitive Advantage
• The Value Chain
• Competitive Intelligence

Both courses are a good way to round out the first stage of the program. I'm just anxious to get them done.

Summer Semester, Module B Summary

I'm in the middle of my seventh and eighth program courses. Where does the time go? As a side note, those of you who are putting off joining a program because you don't have the time, reconsider. Time accelerates and compresses so much, you don't have the opportunity to consider what you've gotten yourself into. Just get started.

This module marks the first two classes that represent what I wanted to get out of this program:

• Marketing Management & Strategy; and
• Corporate Finance

Both professors are exceptional and leaders in their fields.

A word on course methodology: When deciding which school to attend, I implore you to dig deep about teaching style. I've had two professors that claim to use the case method thus far: one thought he used the method and the other actually uses the method. Case studies are - hands down - the best way to go through B-School. I can prove this empirically - ask me for the digression. Make sure that whatever school you choose, this is the primary methodology.

I will touch on material covered in each course in future posts.

An MBA's Satisfaction

I had an intense feeling of satisfaction yesterday. It had nothing to do with the fact that the day marked the end of the worst course thus far. It had nothing to with the fact that I am no longer required to take any accounting courses. I out thought Excel. Nothing more.

If you're considering starting your MBA you need to be aware of one critical aspect of your education: you're going to learn a lot about Excel and you're going to pay a lot to learn it. Solver. Sumproduct. Reference cells. If this is making sense to you, consider trying to have a number of your courses waived.

Because if you don't, be prepared to be extremely unsatisfied by the material presented in many of your courses. Prepare to resign yourself to the fact that your triumphs will not be based on conquering a challenging subject or developing competitive transferable skills; No, your triumphs will be over the inanimate screen in front of you. This program will subtly condition you to curse it when you see the word "infeasible." A moment later you will prostrate yourself before its gaze, basking in the warming glow of the words "solution found." With these words you experience great satisfaction.

Just be careful not to consider that you learned how to use Excel for $500 an hour.

Newfound Respect

I was sitting in class last night and reflecting on the latest module. It's been rough. Every week has been a struggle to get in the car and drive 20 miles to campus for another three and a half hours of core coursework. I've had to re-evaluate whether I'm wasting my time and money. I have a number of respected colleagues and friends that appraise the MBA as a money pit: You can get all that information and development through self education, they argue.

And they're right. You can get all the education you need from self-education. It may take more time and it will take a lot of discipline. And it's the latter that is the sticking point for most self-education proponents. I have long sought after fellow self-ed enthusiasts to dedicate their time to discussion, research and reflection and I have found only a few - unfortunately thousands of miles separate me from them.

So I found that the only way to find committed people was through an organized, accredited institution. The "free" tag of self-ed is not compulsive enough for most people to participate because there is no commitment. I've been witness to this effect with different online efforts to form communities of self-taught business professionals. Getting people to commit is tremendously difficult.

The people that do commit to something financially and with their time speak volumes. I didn't full grasp this until last night. I looked around the room at people who may not be the smartest people on paper, but they exhibit committment and all that that implies. It's no wonder that people are willing to pay more for an MBA. Many people disparage its value, but it does a fantastic job of identifying people who are willing to make a decision and tough it out. Deciding to stick with a program after a full days work in the office, sitting in traffic to get to campus for a 6:00 to 9:30 PM class represents characteristics of someone I would like to work with and can move business forward.

On Making Decisions

Decisions - crucial or minor - are a facet of business that every employee faces. My decision making method is probably different than my colleague. Maybe I intuit the decision with sparse information. I might run vigorous analysis of available data instead. The point is that there is little uniformity in most business offices when it comes to decision making.

The operations course I am taking now is common across all MBA programs: Decision Modeling. The course posits that decision making can be augmented toward greater success with the educated employment of models. The three primary models available to business men and women are as follows:

• Decision Trees
• Linear Programming
• Integer Programming

I'm enjoying the projects we have in this course. It's fun drawing decision nodes and evaluating what is in and out of my control in the decision process. The fun I'm having, however, is not translating to practicality for many of my peers. The recurring grievance orbits the theory versus reality argument: this is fun to do in a lab setting, but do you have the time or patience to use it outside of this vacuum?

This leads to an underlying issue with MBA programs: I am being exposed to a number of great practices, but will I ever use them again? The problem is that processes like decision making modeling require practice - in spades. Once you get past this class, your focus moves either to the next core requisite or to your concentration courses. Not all concentrations employ decision trees equally. So for many, this class is the last time they will see decision modeling and that seems like a waste of time and money.

I need to point out something about this course that is more of a subtext than the headline. Whether you incorporate the models learned into your decision making repertoire or not, this class exposes you to a methodical, tested means to evaluating decisions. It does not substitute intuition with modeling. It incorporates the two. This course exposes the student to thinking about decision from an unnatural perspective: do not make the decision that "feels" right immediately.

If anything, this is the big takeaway from the course.

Some More Catching Up: Part-Time MBA Format

There were a lot of factors that I used to evaluate what school I would choose when I decided I would go back for my graduate work: rankings, location, cost, curriculum and faculty. Now that I've started, however, I've learned about a couple other factors that should be included in the decision process.

SMU uses a scheduling format different than the semester format I was used to during my undergraduate work. It is not the quarter format either, but similar. SMU employs the modular format. We still have 16 week semesters, but each course does not span the full 16 weeks. Instead, each course is eight weeks long and meets once each week for a three hour session.

This compact format is rigorous and intense. I prefer it. My undergraduate classes had two things that left foul tastes in my mouth: very long and very shallow. First, the courses were spread out of an entire 16 weeks, usually with one or two additional weeks thrown in for breaks. Courses were still three to four hours long each week -- depending on the credit award -- but professors rarely kept us the whole time and spent the better part of an hour at the beginning of each class reviewing what had been covered the week previous. This left room for lots of wasted time.

Second, the material presented was often a top line survey of the subject matter. This is surprising considering the amount of time available in 16 weeks to tackle subjects and the depth to which they can be explored. Unfortunately, I felt undergraduate academia felt compelled to present to the least common denominator in a class instead of challenging as I would have liked (*Side note: Not all professors at my Alma Mater took the shallow approach. Those that did challenge me were my favorite).

My first seven weeks at SMU have been altogether different and fantastic. My first class of each course was spent jumping immediately into the material and spending three hours covering a tremendous amount of material. There is no going over the syllabus line by line to make sure every student is clear about expectations. I was expected to be familiar with the syllabus day one. In fact, I had three hours of homework to be completed before my first accounting course.

There are great benefits to this format. First and foremost is the rapid exposure to a large volume of material. There isn't any review from class to class so the time is spent delving deeper into each lecture. Second is the retention benefit: I have been hard pressed to forget what was covered just six weeks ago. As an undergrad I can recall flipping through notes I'd assembled three or four months prior. Trying to remember the nuances of some topic was brutal. With an eight week course, I've had little opportunity to forget that information.

So after evaluating the scheduling format of a specific program, you should also evaluate the accountability structure.

The week before our classes were scheduled to begin, my Part-time MBA candidate class was required to attend a two day orientation. I was assigned to a group of four peers on the second day. We were tasked with coming up with a group name and charter. We called ourselves K2 and developed the following charter:

Article I: Summary

K2 is the second largest mountain in the world and bears the nickname “the Savage Mountain.” As of August 2004, only 246 people have completed the ascent compared with 2,238 individuals who have ascended the more popular target of Everest. The mountain represents our resolve and desire to ascend higher and reach greater heights than our peers, to tread where few have dared set foot and to pull each other to the summit.

Article II: Meeting Axioms

1. Benchmark every group project according to:
1. Mandatory Meeting Timeline;
2. Roles and Responsibilities; and
3. Project Milestones
   

2. Every meeting must be preceded by an agenda prepared and accepted one week prior to scheduled date:
1. Agenda preparation should take no longer than 15 minutes;
2. Individual responsibilities and meeting roles will be clearly defined; and
3. Expected time allotments should be noted.
   

3. Every meeting must have clearly defined objectives and be results focused.
   

Article III: Accountability Axioms

1. Respect group member’s time constraints.
   

2. Be honest about accepted responsibilities and voice concerns if conflicts surface.
   

3. Notify fellow group members of coursework struggles and assist when able to shore up each other’s acumen and discipline understanding.
   

4. Opinion based decisions that cannot be resolved through normal conflict resolution will be decided by simple majority vote.

Some people shake their head at the group structure and binding themselves to a charter like this. The argument being "I work more efficiently and effectively on my own." But that's pretty much everybody's sentiment in a part-time program. Working in teams is valuable for more important reasons than just learning how to work in a group. As business leaders, we need to develop skills on how to lead people: people we don't like, don't respect or can't stand. When someone is falling behind, we need to learn how to pick them back up, not forage ahead without them.

But not every program has this structure. When evaluating programs, you simply need to be aware that different programs treat team-building differently. Make sure its a factor you evaluate.

Should you get an MBA?

I evaluated this question for two years prior to beginning at SMU. My thoughts and research led to a Business Week article about the Personal MBA: the PMBA is the offspring of Josh Kaufman and Seth Godin, though Kaufman put the idea into practice. The PMBA espouses the following:

"The Personal MBA is an experiment in educational entrepreneurism. Instead of dropping $100,000 on a traditional MBA program, PMBA members believe it's possible to get a great education by reading good business books and discussing them with each other."

The "Instead of..." portion no longer applies to me since I am now dropping said coinage on said education. I have not, however, abandoned the PMBA because I still see great value in its application.

Thus, I am beginning this journal to follow my synthesis of self-directed study and the more formal MBA program.