Josh Kaufman explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, and why he finds the degree totally unnecessary.
By Richard Pachter
The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. Josh Kaufman. Portfolio/Penguin. 416 pages
.
No disrespect intended to any person or institution, but is an MBA really necessary? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak never got theirs and many, many other successful business people (and book reviewers) lack that degree and seem none the worse for it.
In his new book, author and consultant Josh Kaufman not only explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, but does a rather masterful job of eviscerating the program in general and, more specifically, the reasons people seek it and why they needn’t and shouldn’t; in his not-so-humble opinion: Money.
Spending around $250,000 or more, says Kaufman, to get an MBA from a top business school is a lousy investment and completely unnecessary. In fact, the whole biz school deal is essentially a money-making enterprise for educational institutions who profit mightily from teaching mostly ancient, arcane, academic approaches to business that track very little with the actual world and the ways it really operates. Further, says Kaufman, there’s no assurance that the instructors are qualified beyond possessing the skills required to teach (if that) and are usually bereft of the experience and achievements that would confirm the efficacy of their instruction.
Young Kaufman had an undergrad degree and a great job at Procter & Gamble when he was urged to continue his education, which meant going after the inevitable MBA. Instead, he did a quick cost-benefit analysis and decided to read and study on his own. He blogged about his decision and posted a preliminary reading list, which was subsequently picked up by inveterate anti-MBA advocate and über-blogger Seth Godin. From there, it spread. This book continues Kaufman’s mission.
He’s canny enough to know that just reading this book in a linear fashion — one chapter after another — is not necessarily the best way to go, so he encourages browsing, skimming and skipping around. I’d add, in fact, that reading it sequentially is downright boring, so after about 125 pages, I abandoned the effort and skipped around, as suggested. Kaufman isn’t a horrible writer, so that wasn’t the problem. I’d decided that the abrupt shift after a couple of pages on each subject might have been intended to accommodate our increasingly short attention spans, but it wasn’t working for me. True, each little chapter had an online component, but when I’m reading a book I don’t necessarily want to bounce on and off the Net to enlarge the experience or whatever the intended effect was supposed to be. Sometimes, a little concentrated depth is where it’s at.
Still, I think Kaufman is a very smart guy and maybe his collective nuggets would resonate more with other audiences though it didn’t quite make it with me. A few years back, I read and reviewed a thick tome called MBA In A Box and liked that quite a bit. Its more expansive approach worked for me. Still, in all fairness, I think I’ll hold onto Josh Kaufman’s book and keep it handy as a reference, since he really covers just about every aspect of business in an intelligent and no-nonsense way.
.No disrespect intended to any person or institution, but is an MBA really necessary? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak never got theirs and many, many other successful business people (and book reviewers) lack that degree and seem none the worse for it.
In his new book, author and consultant Josh Kaufman not only explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, but does a rather masterful job of eviscerating the program in general and, more specifically, the reasons people seek it and why they needn’t and shouldn’t; in his not-so-humble opinion: Money.
Spending around $250,000 or more, says Kaufman, to get an MBA from a top business school is a lousy investment and completely unnecessary. In fact, the whole biz school deal is essentially a money-making enterprise for educational institutions who profit mightily from teaching mostly ancient, arcane, academic approaches to business that track very little with the actual world and the ways it really operates. Further, says Kaufman, there’s no assurance that the instructors are qualified beyond possessing the skills required to teach (if that) and are usually bereft of the experience and achievements that would confirm the efficacy of their instruction.
Young Kaufman had an undergrad degree and a great job at Procter & Gamble when he was urged to continue his education, which meant going after the inevitable MBA. Instead, he did a quick cost-benefit analysis and decided to read and study on his own. He blogged about his decision and posted a preliminary reading list, which was subsequently picked up by inveterate anti-MBA advocate and über-blogger Seth Godin. From there, it spread. This book continues Kaufman’s mission.
He’s canny enough to know that just reading this book in a linear fashion — one chapter after another — is not necessarily the best way to go, so he encourages browsing, skimming and skipping around. I’d add, in fact, that reading it sequentially is downright boring, so after about 125 pages, I abandoned the effort and skipped around, as suggested. Kaufman isn’t a horrible writer, so that wasn’t the problem. I’d decided that the abrupt shift after a couple of pages on each subject might have been intended to accommodate our increasingly short attention spans, but it wasn’t working for me. True, each little chapter had an online component, but when I’m reading a book I don’t necessarily want to bounce on and off the Net to enlarge the experience or whatever the intended effect was supposed to be. Sometimes, a little concentrated depth is where it’s at.
Still, I think Kaufman is a very smart guy and maybe his collective nuggets would resonate more with other audiences though it didn’t quite make it with me. A few years back, I read and reviewed a thick tome called MBA In A Box and liked that quite a bit. Its more expansive approach worked for me. Still, in all fairness, I think I’ll hold onto Josh Kaufman’s book and keep it handy as a reference, since he really covers just about every aspect of business in an intelligent and no-nonsense way.
Originally published in The Miami Herald
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment