As some of you may know, yours truly is a consultant. Being being one, I meet a diverse set of people. From those who you can admire for their business acumen to absolute no brains who amaze you with their flawed management skills. I believe that everything stems from logic. You can explain the most complicated scenarios with simple logic. For those of you, who disagree with me on this, please note that physics of the entire universe can be described to a great degree of accuracy by 4 sets of simple equations. And if the physics of the universe can be described so easily then I am sure that our day to day activities are even easier to define.

Unfortunately, I see people (including me) making things more and more complicated for themselves. I have seen people screw up situations that could have otherwise been easily handled. I have also seen people give more value to a degree than evaluate the person. This again beats me completely since a degree is the past while the guy you are trying to understand is the present! Let me give you one good example for this (Ubiquitary Style!!!).
Nowadays, the most sought after degrees the MBA. Thats why you find so many people running for an MBA degree. If you want to work in an MNC you need an MBA. In fact many companies have policies stating the requirement of MBA as a prerequisite to the job. My personal opinion is that this is completely unnecessary and not called for. I don’t believe that all MBAs are smarter than those with out the degree. Yes may be a majority, but there are definitely exceptions to the rule. I list below a few names, none of whom have the degree of an MBA. Take a look and tell me if these guy would have managed to secure a managerial job in a top MNC (Consulting, Finance, Industry):

1. Bill Gates
2. Warren Buffett
3. Steve Jobs
4. Richard Branson
5. Dhirubhai Ambani
6. Sunil Bharti Mittal
7. LN Mittal
8. Steve Balmer
9. Azim Premji
10. Walter Schloss

These are extremely well known and successful businessmen. (If you don’t any of them look up the internet) Yet none of them have an MBA. In fact, 6 of them (Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Richard Branson, Walter Schloss, Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani) didn’t even have a college degree when they started out. I truly believe that if such people had taken the normal route, they would have indeed found it very difficult to climb the corporate ladder. It just goes to show our unwarranted assumptions can throw logic out of the window.

A person is not a bad manager because he is very young or that he doesn’t have a college degree. A person is a bad manager because he cannot make timely and good decisions. Simple! That’s the definition of a good manager. No need to complicate it with minimum degree requirements. Remember, don’t generalize. Just because you needed an MBA to learn to manage does not mean that everyone does. In fact, I have seen some MBAs make horrible decisions that don’t make any business sense or logic.

This was just an example. (Those with an MBA degree please don’t beat me up). Just keep things simple, understand the basic fundamentals and everything will fall in its place. There is absolutely no need to complicate things for yourself.

Ubiq Out!