The MBA, formerly considered a gold ticket to succeed, may no longer carry the weight it has once made.
It is at least the point of view of Seema Raghunath, a chro, who wrote on LinkedIn: “MBA is the story”.
In his article, Raghunath wonders if the MBAs always add real value to today’s workplaces, arguing that many graduates are commonplace and lack critical thinking necessary to stand out.
She reminds readers that MBA dates back to 1908 as a “master’s degree in administration”, created to prepare people for general management roles when industries needed office managers, not leaders.
“Harvard had an idea to qualify those who have no real qualities – who can do the general management of anything,” she writes. Over time, she says, which started as a basic course turned into an expensive product – “boring khichdi” renamed in biryani chicken, mughlai, dalcha and turkey – often cost “a kidney or a lung”.
But despite the increase in costs, Raghunath argues that without a 125+ IQ or a creative genius, the MBA is “toilet paper”.
She is particularly critical of MBA in HR. “If an MBA could not inject common sense and natural intellect during the worst time of the world – pandemic – it failed.”
For the future, Raghunath thinks that companies are concentrating. Instead of collecting diplomas, they are now looking for “real blue intellectuals” – people of human science, philosophy, psychology, history, sociology and politics.
“Intelligence is independent of stamps. Welcome to the new world, ”she concludes – a world where references alone no longer impress.
