Having lived the EMBA experience, the main piece of advice I would give Executive MBA candidates is to put themselves in the right frame of mind: success inspires success. The results of pursuing an EMBA can be spectacular, but the journey itself is exhilarating and life-changing. Most of all, you come out of the program richer, not only in terms of knowledge and skills, but also because of the unique moments you will share with the people who will become part of your close network for years to come. Take the plunge – it’s worth it!
Invest in yourself…
It’s a question of setting off the right signals. By being prepared, in your mid-thirties or forties, to sacrifice your evenings and weekends to develop your skills and broaden your horizons, you are showing those around you that you believe in yourself and that you are gearing up for success. As Emilio Veiga-Gil, Director of Marketing for Latin America and the Caribbean at Moneygram and a University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumnus (Class of 2011) puts it: “I think of a Chicago [E]MBA as a signalling device: it conveys to current/prospective employers something about your intellectual ability and your capacity for commitment.”
It’s easy when you are in a comfortable position to get stuck in a routine. Whilst some employees are lucky enough to have a flight plan for their career mapped out within their organizations or as entrepreneurs, others find themselves stuck in roles that offer little evolution, positive challenges and intellectual stimulation. You sometimes have to break your own glass ceiling and pave your own path to success. The Executive MBA could be your ticket.
Benoît Larade, an ESCP Europe Executive MBA alumnus (Class of 2010) illustrates. Larade left his job three months before the end of the program because of lack of support from his employer at the time, upon the suggestion of a classmate, to fill a vacancy in his classmate’s company. “The [E]MBA confirmed my vision of ‘freedom’ vis-à-vis my job/employer. Always keep ‘a degree of freedom’ (a concept in physics to safeguard a whole system or construction), which means: always have alternative solutions, Larade advises. “Do not put yourself in a position where you cannot be ‘free’. For example, people who are reluctant to change jobs because they have a lot of personal debt asking themselves: “What if I do not have the same salary, what if my new boss is an imbecile?” The [E]MBA has been an additional means of increasing my level of freedom,” says Larade, who now works at TÜV SÜD.
… and in your network
The Executive MBA is an exciting journey not only because you are back in the classroom revisiting business fundamentals and picking up new skills, but also because you are constantly working on group assignments and case studies with participants from diverse cultures, backgrounds, industries and job functions. All at once, you learn to work with people who are marketers, engineers, financiers, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, mid-managers, senior executives, directors, VPs, CEOs, members of boards; talented young executives on the fasttrack as well as more mature classmates in their fifties.
Ryan Bogan, alum of TRIUM Global Executive MBA (an alliance between New York Stern School of Business (NYU Stern), the London School of Economics (LSE) and HEC School of Management, Paris (HEC Paris)) and chief operating officer of LMI Aerospace explains that his EMBA experience was a transformational one. “My cohort consisted of 67 senior business leaders, representing over 35 different countries, each one of whom had lessons to teach, not only about becoming a more effective business leader, but also about being a more thoughtful, focused and globally aware individual,” says Bogan.
EMBA graduates report that one of the aspects they most cherish is their experience with the people they meet whilst on the program. Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business Assistant Dean and Director of Executive Programs, Francis Petit, explains that, the value of an EMBA experience is all derived from the people. “These people include classmates, faculty and staff from a specific school. I tell students they will learn more from their classmates than they will from the faculty. That is the way it is when you put together a dynamic and professionally diverse group with a great spirit.”
Gain confidence
It’s all about the soft skills – which aren’t actually so soft. If you’ve ever been in a class on effective communications or improving your presentation skills, you’ll know that it’s hard work. Somehow, though, as you go through the program, you get used to standing up in front of an entire classroom full of people to present your case studies and group assignments. You also get more comfortable voicing your opinions, even if this is something you are not used to doing, because that’s the only way to participate in class and group discussions. Moreover, you learn to do this more and more diplomatically, especially because you know you have to work with your classmates throughout the entire program.
Rediscover yourself
Most EMBA programs focus on leadership to enable participants to better assess not only their environments, but also themselves. At W.P. Carey School of Business (Arizona State University, US), for example, EMBA participants attend workshops on subjects such as ethical leadership, conflict management, dealing with failure, team effectiveness, influence and persuasion. “Students can enrol in this ‘leadership experience’ and can choose to make leadership an area of emphasis explains Jennifer Shenfield, Assistant Director for MBA Recruitment. They are immersed in a 360 degree peer review process. The goal is to involve self-reflection and to assess what the students are gaining from the beginning to the end of the program for use in their careers.”
INSEAD Global Executive MBA offers, as part of the curr iculum, a Leadership Development program where participants in peer groups are led by a coach throughout the course of the degree. As Charles Galunic, professor of organizational behaviour and former Dean of the program underlines, “Sometimes, there is no one better to help you understand and develop than a peer who may be going through the same, or similar experience. This process increases self-awareness and creates personal action plans which can be transformational.”
Take the helicopter seat
For professionals with a sound number of years of experience, it’s refreshing to be back in a learning environment where you are encouraged to leap into a helicopter to look at the world from a different perspective: the big picture view. Understanding the dynamics of general management and the responsibility that goes with it, the political framework of a corporation, as well as the fundamentals of corporate finance and financial accounting, gives you the tool kit you need to be able to manage, lead and innovate.
Moreover, Executive MBA participants tend to get more out of their MBA learning because they are able to look back at their experiences and decisions made in their companies, and analyse the outcomes with a different pair of shades. “I wanted to enhance my skills to better deal with complex business in a broader perspective. I knew that the EMBA would provide me a lot of opportunities to experience many business cases in a short period [of time]; otherwise I would have had to go through many trials and errors in real life, which would have taken [me] a long time,” says Hye-Min Seo, INSEAD Global Executive MBA alumna (Class of 2008) and group product manager for Beiersdorf Thailand, in charge of marketing NIVEA in South East Asia. “Also, I liked the fact that I didn’t need to stop working while doing my EMBA, so that I could apply the learnings from the class to the daily business in real time,” adds Seo. In effect, past work experience and immediately applicable knowledge – experiential learning – give the Executive MBA an extra edge compared to full-time MBA programs. From learning how to assess an investment decision or prioritise key projects, to reading a company’s annual report, or implementing change in your organization, the Executive MBA is a polyvalent advanced degree.
Fordham’s Petit explains to prospective students that if they are looking for specific high-level content in a graduate program, they should pursue a specialized Masters in that area. “I tell them the EMBA is a generalist degree. A simple metaphor illustrating this is jumping out of an airplane, activating your parachute and landing. [Where you land and] the contents in your backpack are your ‘Business/Management Survival Kit’. Your career will go in many different directions, however you will always be prepared because of this “survival kit” that is part of you. That is what the EMBA is all about.” Are you ready to take the plunge?