If you are investing in an MBA education, your objectives are clear. You are looking for a successful management career. You want to use this training to progress faster in your organization. Your investment also shows that you are an ambitious professional, who wants to make high impact and succeed in your career.
An MBA is Not Enough
Although an MBA is an excellent education that sets you on a path to a successful managerial career, it is not sufficient. What you need is to get some critical management skills that will allow you to do what most others cannot do. It will help you stand out versus the crowd at various points in your career. It will help you get hired for good roles and will help you get important roles over time.
A Critical Skill in High Demand
One such critical skill that is in high demand today is the ability to manage disruption. Business leaders are most afraid of seeing their business get disrupted.
We are living in the age of disruption. Today, more disruptive events are taking place in more industries, at a faster pace. These events make business leaders especially worried. Nobody wants to the be the next Kodak.
Disruption is Hard to Manage
Although we are in the age of disruption where it is an imperative for businesses to handle disruption systematically, it is a tall order. Time to respond to disruptive events is getting shorter. The solutions to disruptive forces remain obscure as ever.
At the same time, organizations lack disruption management skills. They lack these skills because managers have little experience in handling disruption. This pace of disruptive forces is new, and thus managers have had limited experience with them.
A Missing Piece in Business Schools
At the same time, business schools are not teaching it. Disruption management is a much broader area than just disruptive innovations. Courses in finance, strategy, marketing and operations do not equip you to manage distortion. Even advanced electives in strategy and innovation fall short.
Disruption management is a much broader area than just disruptive innovations
The reason is simple. Business schools need significant data and materials to offer a course in that area. We just don’t have enough of this material now. In future, business schools will start teaching this area. But by then, you would already be in your second or third assignment. You would have missed a critical opportunity to pick this skill.
Disruption An Opportunity for Every MBA Student
If you can learn disruption today, you will be able to stand out in your job interviews. You will also get opportunities to get into roles where you will use this skill.
If you can learn disruption today, you will be able to stand out in your job interviews
If you have an understanding of disruptive threats in the industry you are interviewing, it can provide you with an advantage. Being seen as a disruption expert will also help you take on strategic roles early on.
How to Learn About Disruption Fast?
I have spent the last ten years studying displacement of firms. But you don’t need to do that. You can just read my latest book “A Sixty Minute Guide to Disruption” to get a quick understanding of this phenomenon.
The good news is that, for a limited time, I am giving away a pre-release copy of the book for free. You can download it at http://ankushchopra.com/60-minutes/
In fact, you can download it today and read it in the next day or two. It will also point you to many disruption resources one my website that will benefit you.
Don’t wait too long. Download the book now.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, or off-topic. If in doubt, read my Comments Policy.