Student: My name is Jennifer Webb. And there is a Fedex commercial on TV. The scenario is it’s the MBAs first day on the job and the task that he is given it to place some sort of shipping order. His comment is ’I have an MBA’. So his mentor is like, ‘well I’m going to have to show you how to do it’. I just want to know, in today’s society how do companies really view MBAs?

Dr Reimann: Who wants to take a shot? Bill, you want to start?

Bill Nussbaum: I guess it depends on whether you have some experience, whether you’ve gone directly straight through school and gotten your MBA or whether you have practical experience behind it or with it. I think the idea on that commercial was not only do you need book learning in theory and understanding, but you also need how I can contribute to this organization and what I can do to improve it? And a lot of times it does’nt come out of a book and in lots of things we’ve been saying, I think, are saying those kinds of things. Many of the things are people skills and they’re team building and lots of things that you just don’t get out of the book. You learn through practice, through doing them, making mistakes, and helping things get better.

Marie Williams: And with that, yes… but.... this is fun because part of what I look at from the MBA’s standpoint. I mean what you really want is an MBA with common sense. And I think that’s part of what we are looking at. You fill in the blanks. But for me, the MBA says that I can think systemically. I can look at the whole picture. And so it’s like MBA is the right of passage to the good door, the fast door but it says to me that you have the ability to learn and to adapt and to contribute, but that you need to understand the whole to be a part of it. So I view that as the common sense that goes with the communication things, but it gets you the edge to go this way instead of this way; to trend upmuch faster.

Joe Daylor: I will agree with that. One of the things that I always try to do is look at the whole person. And obviously it is the combination of the ability to apply the science of things as well as the art of trying to lead people and improve things. So I am looking for that mix, but one of the things I’ve found just to be really great is many folks are choosing to pursue their MBAs after they have done 3 or 4 or 5 years, whatever it is, worth of work. And what it has sort of led me to believe is that they’ve been able to sort of identify that area that they have some passion. They have some sense of where they want to take this thing. And they have context I think, to the way they do their study. And so I’m big on them. On my team, I have ten people and eight of them are MBAs. But I believe all of them did it sort of after the fact and they are really just outstanding people. Now if someone came to me just purely on the credentials... If someone came to me with an MBA and limited experience, without the passion and leadership attributes verses someone who has some other undergraduate degree I would go with the person that had the passion myself.