MBA School

So I received an email this week from the WP Carey MBA Program at Arizona State University and thought it would be a good idea to attend a free preview that they were providing on Saturday morning. I was glad that I attended. Not only did I gain info in regards to attending graduate school I learned about myself and others. I have pages of notes from a simple morning meeting, with many great thoughts and impressions.

My initial thought that I wrote down was that everyone is essentially here (MBA Introduction) for a common goal - helping others. They may be gaining skills that through their own efforts they help others. They may be aiding a business. Or largely they are gaining skills that they will apply directly. I think I can safely say that all of the attendees wanted to be there to expand their knowledge, and that has a trickle down effect of helping everyone around them. I really wanted to believe that those that end their education early, short everyone around them by not continuing to evolve so that their efforts do not become stagnant, but this is to much of a blanket accusation. We simply can't label those that do not seek to progress a burden on those that do.

I decided to go to this MBA introduction because I have an agenda that I want to follow. I was fearing that there would be a limited amount of support that would allow me to develop my agenda, and to gain knowledge that would allow me to fully flush out what it is I desire from it. I was also fearing that the curriculum would be heavy on statistics, or other information outside my agenda as well. I found however that the desires of the school were far from traditional. Although many companies are not desiring a heavy emphasis on team learning anymore, they are starting to seek thought leadership.

I found that Thought Leadership was an interesting concept. My own agenda could leverage from this concept. My own agenda is to look at a sociology aspect to business management, and to leverage proper synergy in the workplace to advance it. Thought Leadership in a Information Technology field where workers are their own islands would be an interesting bridge to emphasize a need for workers to leverage their co-workers knowledge to heighten productivity. What led me down this path is the word genius.

I have taken almost all of the curriculum that is part of a teacher certification program. We have dealt with special needs children, gifted children, emotionally problematic children and many other categories. While many focused on the difficulties, what struck me is that very few if anyone wanted to capitalize on the strengths that are found in everyone. We want to fix the negatives. I came to the conclusion that there is genius in everyone.

Now, driving down the freeway you would swear this isnt true, that person that cut you off is certainly not a genius. Perhaps sarcastically they are. But my thought is that no matter what or who you are, there is a hidden or not so hidden genius that is there. We may only find one thing, or multiple. However, there is always something there, something that we can say that we perform better than others. As teachers it should be our effort to find that genius, and embrace it, to cultivate it and to leverage it to make a person a stronger more confident pupil.

By getting an MBA we want to have a competitive advantage. To be more marketable. If we focus on what we are good at, what we are a genius at, we too are more marketable. In the workplace, a group of geniuses can do great things. In school, or in society a group of geniuses can also do great things. Perhaps the best lesson anyone can learn is to unleash that genius and make it work for us.