subject: Manage People, Money, and Time with an MBA [print this page] Manage People, Money, and Time with an MBA
A Masters of Business Administration degree is a great way to advance one's professional career. It can prepare good employees to become great leaders, able to guide their companies into a profitable and successful future, by teaching them to manage three vital things: people, money, and time.
People
MBA coursework teaches students to manage people, a company's most valuable resource, by focusing on understanding behavior and using appropriate motivational tools. This is probably an MBA's most important dimension, as the day-to-day operations of an MBA deals, in large part, with interacting with employees. MBA students learn about successful employee management through behavior modification strategies such as positive reinforcement and punishment, negative reinforcement, extinction, reinforcement schedules, and classical conditioning. They also learn about other motivational philosophies such as the expectancy theory (how individuals make certain decisions when presented with a variety of decision choices), principal/agent alignment, advancement competition, job design, equity theories, reward systems, efficiency wages, rationalizing behavior, the dangers of groupthink, and individual versus group performance. This is important because in order to be an effective manager, one must understand one's employees as much as possible in order to motivate them properly, reduce problematic behavior, increase production, and keep morale high.
Money
Managing a company's money is the second largest focus of an MBA program. Great managers know how to keep costs low and increase the company's profit margins, and an MBA can give a good employee that extra edge when it comes to managing the firm's funds. Being able to create, read, and understand earnings reports, sales forecasts, and statistical models is integral to performing well on the job, as being able to understand a firm's financial information is a large part of being any type of manager.
Time
Learning to manage time effectively is something MBA students must learn immediately. MBA coursework is challenging and professors expect a great deal from their students, so properly organizing one's study time while balancing it with the demands of life is an expertise best quickly learned. The bright side to this is that time management skills are highly desirable in the MBA's workplace. Managers have full workday schedules, and those who can best organize their time the most effectively are the most successful, no question. In many cases an MBA's day can include meetings with clients and upper management, interpreting sales and efficiency reports, handling employees, and preparing presentations. Being able to balance each responsibility in its own time frame is essential to becoming a successful, MBA-holding manager.
By far, an MBA degree teaches students to better understand broadly the overall economy, their specific company's place in that economy, and the inner-organizational workings of their own company, giving students the ability to better understand how businesses operate more fully. Included in that broad-scoped understanding is the importance of an organization's employees; as such, managing them properly is one of the most heavily-focused on aspects of the MBA degree. Managing a business is not just understanding and motivating employees though, and an MBA degree helps graduates learn more about how the management of money in an organization functions, giving them the important skills to understand the financial standing of their organization. Lastly, in order to be able to juggle all of the demands on an MBA, the coursework provides graduates with the time-management skills necessary to handle all of an MBA's demands effectively.
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