| By:
Rise
Few days back one of my friends, who is working as a consultant in a software firm, was contemplating on whether he should do MBA or not. He is still undecided. Anyone in his shoes would be. You have to give atleast two years and thousands of dollars to get an MBA. Is it really worth? Can you compete and progress without an MBA? I had no answers to his questions.
So, I looked around to find some information that could help my friend. And I found a wonderful ebook ‘When you can’t earn an MBA’ by Rajesh Setty that talks about getting ahead in your career without MBA. According to him, if for some reasons you cannot do MBA, you can still get ahead of others following an alternate plan. I’ll list down his suggestions with my two cents in addition.
- Check your attitude: Greatest of human freedom is to be able to choose one’s attitude. You can choose either to feel as a victim of the circumstances for not being able to do MBA or to take positive actions to do something about it. Your choice will either let you be where you are or allow you to move forward towards your goal.
- Design an alternate plan: While the formal MBA provides you with a structured plan, learning by yourself will take you to develop your own plan to check your progress. This requires you to come up with metric to measure your growth from time to time.
- Acquire knowledge at a breathtaking speed: Learn as much as you can from books, blogs, magazines, newsletters, websites etc. Today knowledge is accessible very easily but to avoid information overload you have to create a long term structured plan of knowledge-acquisition.
- Belong to powerful networks: As Rajesh puts it, “It’s not what you know but who you know. And it’s just not who you know, but how you know who you know”. You can join professional organizations in your field, non-profits, alumni associations, etc. Building a network will always help you in long run. But it is a two-way road. Be ready to offer something valuable to others. Networks rely on trust, so be trustworthy.
- Build great long term relationships: From your networks, you will know many influential and powerful people. Build good one-to-one relationships with some of them. But as for networks, this relationship is also a two-way road. You should be giving something of value to them and receiving something valuable in return.
- Volunteer for engagements of higher value: Other than just doing your work efficiently, try to look for opportunities to participate in higher value enagagements. People do notice people who add higher value to the organization.
- Lead a volunteer effort: Create opportunities to develop and demonstrate your leadership skills by taking initiative in volunteer efforts. Start on small scale in your group, department or organization. Do something where others can join you volunteerily.
- Work with a startup for free: Identify a startup company and offer your services that are of interest to that startup. Use your networks to find such startups. Startup size is generally small, so they are always looking for people who can take more responsibilities and are well-experienced in one or two areas.
- Make others win: Help others to achieve their goals, and you will find yourself moving forward towards your goals. If you help others, you will find no troubles in getting help from others.
- Get a good mentor: Finding a good mentor is not that easy. You need to find someone who cares for you and your goals and is able to provide answers to your questions. But again, it is a two-way road. You won’t get a mentor unless you are of some value to him/her, because they would be investing their time and expertise in you.
Rajesh also lists 10 things that you have but the people doing MBA won’t have. In essence, you’ll have more time, money and experience than others to build on your strengths. Download the complete ebook.
Filed in: Personal Development, Graduate School, Education & Learning
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| By:
Rise
Few days back one of my friends, who is working as a consultant in a software firm, was contemplating on whether he should do MBA or not. He is still undecided. Anyone in his shoes would be. You have to give atleast two years and thousands of dollars to get an MBA. Is it really worth? Can you compete and progress without an MBA? I had no answers to his questions.
So, I looked around to find some information that could help my friend. And I found a wonderful ebook ‘When you can’t earn an MBA’ by Rajesh Setty that talks about getting ahead in your career without MBA. According to him, if for some reasons you cannot do MBA, you can still get ahead of others following an alternate plan. I’ll list down his suggestions with my two cents in addition.
- Check your attitude: Greatest of human freedom is to be able to choose one’s attitude. You can choose either to feel as a victim of the circumstances for not being able to do MBA or to take positive actions to do something about it. Your choice will either let you be where you are or allow you to move forward towards your goal.
- Design an alternate plan: While the formal MBA provides you with a structured plan, learning by yourself will take you to develop your own plan to check your progress. This requires you to come up with metric to measure your growth from time to time.
- Acquire knowledge at a breathtaking speed: Learn as much as you can from books, blogs, magazines, newsletters, websites etc. Today knowledge is accessible very easily but to avoid information overload you have to create a long term structured plan of knowledge-acquisition.
- Belong to powerful networks: As Rajesh puts it, “It’s not what you know but who you know. And it’s just not who you know, but how you know who you know”. You can join professional organizations in your field, non-profits, alumni associations, etc. Building a network will always help you in long run. But it is a two-way road. Be ready to offer something valuable to others. Networks rely on trust, so be trustworthy.
- Build great long term relationships: From your networks, you will know many influential and powerful people. Build good one-to-one relationships with some of them. But as for networks, this relationship is also a two-way road. You should be giving something of value to them and receiving something valuable in return.
- Volunteer for engagements of higher value: Other than just doing your work efficiently, try to look for opportunities to participate in higher value enagagements. People do notice people who add higher value to the organization.
- Lead a volunteer effort: Create opportunities to develop and demonstrate your leadership skills by taking initiative in volunteer efforts. Start on small scale in your group, department or organization. Do something where others can join you volunteerily.
- Work with a startup for free: Identify a startup company and offer your services that are of interest to that startup. Use your networks to find such startups. Startup size is generally small, so they are always looking for people who can take more responsibilities and are well-experienced in one or two areas.
- Make others win: Help others to achieve their goals, and you will find yourself moving forward towards your goals. If you help others, you will find no troubles in getting help from others.
- Get a good mentor: Finding a good mentor is not that easy. You need to find someone who cares for you and your goals and is able to provide answers to your questions. But again, it is a two-way road. You won’t get a mentor unless you are of some value to him/her, because they would be investing their time and expertise in you.
Rajesh also lists 10 things that you have but the people doing MBA won’t have. In essence, you’ll have more time, money and experience than others to build on your strengths. Download the complete ebook.
Filed in: Personal Development, Graduate School, Education & Learning
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[…] Finally I have learned the importance of what my advisor always says, ‘Just bite the bullet and do it’. You’ll always regret the time wasted in over-analysis. One of my friends is contemplating on what career path he should choose. He discussed with me in lengths if he should do MBA or not. That led me to write a post on ‘Getting ahead without MBA‘, which he found very helpful. But still he has not made any concrete decision. He doesn’t want to choose a wrong path and then regret the time wasted on it. But my argument is if he doesn’t make a decision soon, he is going to waste his time analyzing the options and regret anyway. […]
Good one. Thanks for this wonderful article.
Through this blog, I came to know about mentioned article by Rajesh Setty.A very helpful resource to understand about the alternate plans ,if not planned for an MBA.