As a Business School Executive, Leadership and Career Transition Coach with nearly ten years’ experience working with MBA students across top Business Schools I often come across MBA students or alumni on a quest to derive the maximum ROI from their MBA education. This is to be expected considering the significant investment involved.
It is therefore against this background that I suggest an intentional rigorous post MBA Action Planning exercise to set both short-term and long-term goals for yourself based on your newfound skills, knowledge and network. Remember, ‘what you don’t use, you lose’.
First, you want to make out time for a post MBA reflection and repositioning exercise. During this exercise you want to consider your journey to date, identifying the key learnings, and then considering how they might be useful for you post MBA. Remember, ‘we don’t learn from experience but by reflecting on experience’. Then you want to set initial goals for the next 30, 60, 90 and 120 days and document these in a post-MBA Action Plan (PAP).
Again, according to Mark Victor Hansen, author of The One Minute Millionaire “By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be….” .
Consider including the following in your ‘PAP’?:
1. Optimising your new skills and knowledge: An MBA program furnishes you with a broad range of skills across multiple disciplines such as finance, marketing, and operations. These are very useful cross-functional capabilities that may be leveraged to collaborate with colleagues in different departments and contribute to company-wide initiatives. For example, a marketing professional with an MBA can work with the finance team to develop financial projections for a new product launch. How will you apply the new skills and knowledge you have acquired to your current job, industry, community or society at large? Is it worth exploring new career opportunities perhaps starting as a side hustle and eventually a portfolio of careers?
2. Nurturing and harnessing your Professional Network: One of the most valuable aspects of an MBA program is the opportunity to build a network of professionals from diverse industries and backgrounds. How will you leverage these connections by staying in touch with their classmates, attending alumni events, and networking with other professionals in your field?
3. Refreshing your Personal Brand: It goes without saying that your personal brand has changed. How are you going to communicate and leverage this? How are you going to stand out from the crowd? How are you going to show up, and what will you show up as?
4. Communicating your global perspective: In today's interconnected business environment, having a global mind-set is crucial. Investment in an MBA education is also an investment in mind-set transformation. How far have you progressed on this journey? How can you communicate the value of your international experiences or global immersion trips to your organisation? What about the insights into different business and industry practices you gleaned from interactions with classmates from diverse cultural backgrounds? How can you convert this new knowledge capital to competitive advantage for your business or organisation?
5. Sharing your knowledge: One of the best ways of retaining and honing your knowledge and skills is to share it with others. Could you volunteer for a mini-project at work, or serve on the Board of a local Charity? Could you engage with the broader business community to share your expertise and build your professional network further? What about participating at industry events, writing articles or blog posts, or giving presentations to industry groups. Sharing your knowledge gives you the opportunity to retain your understanding, sharpen your points of view and increase your visibility.
6. Seeking and leveraging feedback: Did you take a psychometric assessment during your MBA, time to revisit it and review how far you have progressed in your journey of becoming the best version of yourself. Whether you did or didn’t this could also be an opportunity to seek feedback from your colleagues, managers, colleagues, and mentors to help identify areas where you can continue to develop your skills and knowledge. This feedback can also help to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and provide insights into areas they may need to focus on to further develop their career.
7. Continue learning: After an extended period of rigorous academic learning, the temptation is to swing to the other extreme end of the pendulum by taking an exceptionally long sabbatical off learning. You want to avoid this. It’s okay to take some brief time off to rest and relax but very soon continue to seek out opportunities to learn and grow in your field or consolidate the momentum or hunger you have gained in new areas of interest by attending conferences, taking additional courses, or pursuing certifications. This ongoing learning will you stay up-to-date with industry trends and best practices.
8. Becoming a Change Agent: The world you knew pre-MBA has changed. BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible) is the new VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) . A.I. is fast becoming mainstream. Rapid change is here to stay. How will you use your newfound knowledge and skills to drive change within your organization, community or larger society? One of the questions I love to ask those seeking to find their forte and live a meaningful life is ‘ What would you like to be different in the world as a result of having lived? What can you do about it now?
9. Leveraging your self-efficacy: Pursuing an MBA can be very daunting. Whether, you undertook yours full time, over the weekends, online or in block periods, it required focus, grit and resilience. For a number of graduates it was evidence they ‘could do it’, in other words it provided them with evidence to believe in themselves, that they can overcome very daunting challenges and fulfil aspirations they have held for some time. Now that is power which needs to be channelled to fulfil other dreams you have. This renewed self-belief has to be channelled.
10. Executive Coaching. Executive Coaching offers a myriad of benefits for MBAs including increased Self-awareness and personal growth; Improved leadership skills; Enhanced self-management and work-life balance. Other benefits include Goal setting and accountability; Career Strategy and Transition; and Onboarding support when taking up new roles. Strategic thinking and decision-making; Increased confidence and resilience are additional benefits. Lastly, Executive Coaches can help make a Positive impact and realise increased business outcomes.
Evidently, Executive Coaching brings everything together and can amplify the benefits you derive from all the previous nine, so I am going to ask, if you have considered engaging a personal Executive Coach to help you maximise your MBA?
By implementing the above, you are well on your way to maximizing the value of your degree and advancing your career.
To your continued success!
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