Educated Managers Tantamount to Competitiveness

Organizations must look beyond pricing, product offerings and the selling proposition. Another competitive strategy is called for – that strategy is one that provides long-term returns to an organization’s investment. This long-term benefit to the organization, one that can help increase its competitiveness is education of the workforce.

For many years, US organizations have offered employees educational benefits; benefits often without parameters for use or they could be accompanied with the loose descriptor “work related.” Educational benefits are not traditionally viewed as a competitive strategy; however, the time has come for the examination of this benefit from the larger perspective, as part of the corporate competitive strategy.

Based on thousands of entrance interviews and applications submitted by perspective MBA candidates over the past nine years, the College of Business at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado finds that nearly 80% of the applicants do not have undergraduate degrees in a business related discipline. Not only do they not have degrees in a business discipline but neither do they work in one of the four functional areas of business (accounting, finance, marketing, and computer information systems). The industries largely represented by this group are technology, science related, government/military, and manufacturing. Upon further examination of their backgrounds it was found that many of these individuals worked as supervisors or managers in their area of discipline without additional training or education beyond that earned in their respective disciplines.

The foregoing information becomes relevant to companies when they send their Manager of Product Development to Malaysia for a new product introduction or the Production Manager travels to Beijing to introduce a new manufacturing process or the Purchasing Manager faces off on contract negotiations in Bangladesh. Can the manager discuss revenue projections factoring in the exchange rate impact over time, worker motivation ideas for a particular culture, and value-chain issues unique to the multi-national partners with the same adeptness as s/he would if discussing their particular area of expertise? Would they be able to craft a communiqué that could be understood and accepted by various levels of managers and directors across different companies and cultures? On a finer point, would the manager have the wherewithal to write the same communication in a format for the line-worker, one for middle managers and one for the leaders of a company? This type of broad-based business acumen can make the difference between a successful interface with an international partner or a potential disaster. Even if there is no impending disaster, can the manager extract the most from an encounter thereby setting up the company for a better competitive stance?

Do managers require a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) to be successful in their positions and for their companies? No, probably not.

Is there a more compact means of learning the concepts and theories implicit with this type of degree and to ability to be fully engaged in an environment within which to apply it? Maybe not.

Will a comprehensive MBA program provide managers with the foundation of the functional areas of business and show how these areas work together to create a successful organization? Most certainly.

How do graduate school concepts and theories really help the manager juggling project management duties, trying to keep up on the endless email demands from the home office for reported information, and keep his/her mind on projecting the proper image of the organization while meeting with dignitaries? A course like Leadership, Ethics, and Motivation provides an individual insight into the gap between how they perceive themselves as a manager and leader, how others view their managerial/leadership style, and how they want to be seen. All of this is projected against a background of what makes a good leader/manager based on those great leaders found in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. The study could look at Jack Welch, Mother Theresa, Golda Meir, Winston Churchill and/or Lech Walesa – what made these people great, what are the specific traits that were most admired, what are the lessons learned from their careers and lives, and over what obstacles did they persevere to rise to the positions they attained?

Would a supply chain manager or a software development engineer find value in Business Economics in World Market or International Business? The benefit of a class in basic economics across world markets is the outcome; the fact that students are able to analyze and interpret economic trends and indicators and to utilize basic economic principles to analyze business problems and issues. A manager with the understanding of the determinants of supply and demand, price elasticity, the European Monetary Union, costs of production, and the accompanying regulatory environments is much better suited to business negotiations, new business development discussions and the evaluation of proposals than those without, regardless of their educational background.

International Business provides the framework and concepts for understanding socio-political and techno-economic environments of business operations outside the United States. Introducing “nation-state strategy” and the related potential effects of supra-national organizations on corporations’ strategies and performance would be covered in such a class. As a student in International Business, the manager would analyze topics in corporate and product-market levels as well as those areas within their own industry and company.

However, a course like this brings additional benefits not apparent to the reader. For example: when dealing with China, do managers understand the difference between the “centrally controlled” economic issues versus those that are “market forces?” Is there an understanding of how to conduct business differently in the north of China versus the south or between the urban and rural regions? What are the implications to a company regarding the impending revaluing or “floating” of the Chinese currency? Knowledge of the nuances of these issues could be very important to a company’s dealings with this new economic influence.

Educating managers to successfully represent companies in the various world markets has been managed through on-campus programs, hybrid programs requiring some presence on the campus with the remainder in a virtual, remote or distance environment, online course work or a pure distance classroom. Sending a manager to a classroom environment for a 12-, 18- or 24-month program could be detrimental to that manager as it takes them out of industry for that period of time. Even with the hybrid programs, momentum is lost as is productivity when managers shift gears from industry work to school work for even a couple of weeks.

The introduction of the online/distance courses of study were and continue to be a boon to organizations who recognize the importance of continued education for their managers but also need their managers’ presence in the organization on a daily basis – in the US or somewhere around the globe. However, all online and distance degree programs are not created equal. The cluttered marketplace of program offerings is confusing to human resource managers, chief learning officers and other decision makers. On what basis should the evaluation be made? The common determinant of academic integrity is the accreditation of the institution and the program itself.

An educational institution earns its accreditation from an organization such as the Higher Learning Commission that is recognized by the US Department of Education and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). While this accreditation assures a level of academic integrity for the institution it does not address the individual schools or colleges (college of business) so look for the accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). When you evaluate MBA programs, the AACSB accreditation is the benchmark for schools/colleges of business and for the individual graduate programs within that school/college. This prestigious accreditation assures a company that the educational benefits paid are being invested in an academically sound program that is taught by faculty whose credentials have met strenuous qualifying criteria and the program itself has approved outcomes. With the competitive cost of online/distant programs, it makes perfect sense for company decision makers and influencers to be discriminating in the choice of programs that a company accepts or endorses.

Even if a company does not contribute to the cost of education within their benefit package, it is still to the company’s benefit to recommend AACSB accredited Colleges of Business and the accredited individual MBA program. Company’s should consider the benefits back to the organization of a well educated leadership team; the savvy business acumen demonstrated in various environments, the ability of the team to go beyond the expertise of their specific discipline as well as the confidence exuded from the team during negotiations, sales presentations, program management sessions, training venues, and other similar situations. The return on the investment of the education dollar can be increased with advanced education and lost productivity experienced as time away from the work environment can be minimized when a well-rounded and well-educated management team has the tools to succeed. Furthermore, the company as a whole experiences a huge return on their human assets when business is conducted more efficiently with more advantageous outcomes and the image of the organization is bolstered because of the impression made by these managers.