A recent Harvard Research study revealed that MBA programs are on the decline due to a gap in knowing
versus doing. Recruiters are skeptical of what the program produces. A business education system that has emphasized analytical expertise along with an understanding of models and statistics has also left the student lacking in the following arenas:
1. Self Awareness--"The more an MBA understands his or her impact on others and vice-versa, the more effective he or she will be."
2. Practical Skills--"how to run a meeting, make a presentation, and give performance feedback."
3. Mobilization--"MBAs need to understand how to work "through" people, how to motivate and inspire."
4. Cultural Intelligence--Students are not developing a global mindset in the increasingly globalized marketplace.
What if it is not the MBA programs that have failed here but the failure of providing such an avenue of developing these skill sets BEFORE arriving in such a graduate program?
I believe these 4 issues demonstrate how knowledge WITHOUT real life experience leads to a stale outcome. You can not expect someone to develop any of these qualities without getting out of their comfort zone (and out of their suburb, college campus, even country!) and wrestling in a context that will flex these much needed social muscles.
Too many students are blowing their way through higher education without ever tasting life outside the classroom. They enter their graduate work without really knowing who they are as a person and what the world around them really looks like. This is the reason we see a growing need for a Gap Year experience.
This September we will be taking our first group of KIVU Gap Year students on a "Vocational Discovery in a Global Community". In urban America, a developing African nation, and the Philippine Islands, students will rub shoulders with the margins of society as they discover a world far outside of what is familiar. They will wrestle with their own selves as they see a world that is not America.
The internships will sharpen their self-awareness.
The global travel and cultural immersion will enable them to acquire cultural intelligence.
They will gain very practical social skills as they learn how to better interact and lead others.
They will learn how organizations are mobilizing those around them to make a better world.
As they flex these muscles, they will then head to the University in order to balance that experience with the knowledge and instruction a college classroom can provided. All this achieved prior to entering their undergraduate work.
Perhaps MBA programs will not produce a more balanced student until the students entering the program have already tasted enough bumps and bruises to develop the qualities so evidently lacking.














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