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Critical thinking is perhaps the most important skill of a competent MBA. The accounting, finance, economics, marketing, and strategy that we are so familiar with will fall flat without utilizing critical analytical thinking for their appropriation and application.

In other words, without critical analytical thinking capabilities, you’re not an MBA, or at least not much of one.

So what is critical analytical thinking? In short, it is the ability to think about how you think. When done well, it enables the processes of the mind to be disciplined and reordered to achieve superior analytical outcomes. Applied to specific situations it opens the space to discover new problems, solutions, and consequences. Continue Reading…

Photo By: Michael Wade

I ran into my marketing professor the other day, and wanting to know if he had succeeded or not, he enquired of me what I remembered from his class, which I barely survived about a year ago. My first thoughts went toward the importance of having the absolute best people on a team, as it was very much a team oriented class, and secondly the importance of making solid decisions that match up both with the data and strategy of the company.

There was some disappointment with this response, attempting to draw out the truth he knew that was in me, he pushed back, “That’s too general! Everybody know that! What’s important for marketing?” So I started rehearsing what we had gone over in my mind and it quickly dawned on me that there was only one thing that stood out, know your customer. Continue Reading…

If you haven’t read Kenichi Ohmae, you’re not an MBA. That’s right, I said it. It’s all right though; I wouldn’t have read him either if not for a passing mention of this master strategist. But why read this guy? Because without reading and appropriating Ohmae you won’t win against giants or help in building a fuller prosperity.

How does a small guy win against a giant? One word: strategy. Strategy is not about responses or tactics but about orienting the way you think and operate to win. Continue Reading…

Pretty much everyone is reading Rework these days and then they have to talk about reading Rework, because that’s what one does . .  so I am going to do it too (just another MBA clone here). What’s the hoopla about? Really it’s quite simple, it’s about making Business sexy again, in the same way Žižek makes studying Philosophy sexy again, or at least intriguing. In other words, it offers a parallax, another door to walk through when approaching business that doesn’t involve the absurdities of most corporate environments.

In many respects, Rework is the voice calling in the wilderness, ‘make straight the roads of the office!’  Or perhaps, put more simply, it’s about doing the right work well and properly the first time, leaving the distractions behind, and going about focusing on the things that truly matter to your customers. Continue Reading…

Every year there are hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe who enter and graduate from Master of Business Administration programs. Not all that long ago I was on the entering side of the program but now I am rapidly approaching the other end. Yet rather than being a super awesome business master, the MBA has exposed me to be far too mediocre but arrogant far too much of the time with lots of learning and work remaining. This site is one aspect of overcoming that shortfall and filling in the gaps in what I expect will be the journey of a lifetime.

The basic question is the same for us all: What are you doing with your bSchool/MBA?