My Impressions: The 30 Day MBA

Cool book.  I was recommended to read this book by a friend a few years ago.  I guess it was kind of to mock me for paying a lot of money to attend a program instead of just reading.  After all these years, I finally decided to read it. 

The 30 Day MBA: Your Fast Track Guide to Business Success

I received my MBA in 2013, so I thought I’d do a refresher on some of the business principles.  The title of the book seems to suggest that by reading the book for a small price, you can get the same benefit but save all the tuition from attending a fulltime program.  Personally, I think the “right” group of people to read the information presented in this book are accepted MBA candidates. 

This book to me is a perfect primer to expose candidates to a variety of business functions and tune into the right mindset while setting foot into a fulltime MBA program. Slightly off tangent, but for Business Analytics, the perfect primer is this book:

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

Anyway, back to the 30 Day MBA.  The writing is English based, instead of “American English” based.  So I found some of the terms slightly refreshing.  Such as gearing = leverage?  The most important tools I learned in MBA were shown in the book and organized very cleanly.  This is a toolbox book with a lot of tools inside that I could constantly refer to. 

The allocation of different business principles were similar to my program with finance and accounting taking up 30%-50% of the curriculum.  Compared to other subjects, finance and accounting are more straightforward, with correct answers to homework, and also requires more precision.  The different finance courses I took all taught me something different.  However, the different marketing courses I took mostly seemed to be the same.   Other disciplines are usually not as easily measured to be “right or wrong” when compared to finance and accounting.  You can BS your way and “wing it” through most of the marketing courses, but try that with finance? 

Finally, why I don’t think a book can ever replace a program (although, one most wonder if the cost of MBA is ever worth it) is because MBA taught me certain things that could not be learned from a book.  Two things I find very hard to replace. 

First, forced choices and constraints.  8 teams, 8 courses, job interviews, networking, making friends(?), family, study, exams…  Intentionally, our course was designed not to be completed.  It was “impossible” to complete it.  I streamlined my life around studying.  My cooking/eating time takes less than 5 minutes.  I slept at 4 A.M. and woke up at 7:45 A.M. every day.  I spent most of my conscious hours reading.  MBA was the FIRST AND ONLY time I ever had eye bags (good genetics?).  I read every assignment, and did every assignment.  In my second year, I asked my peers how they did it.  They told me they didn’t.  In fact, most didn’t read 30% of the assigned material because there was so much.  Asides from me, the most someone read (from my limited survey) was 70% of assignments.  That classmate worked HARD and didn’t have a social life. 

In a “normal” life, we don’t push ourselves that hard.  We don’t make hard choices where you’re trading a D in an exam for an interview.  High GPA or graduate without a job?  Do you spend the evening with your family, or you alienate them over the tougher times and hope they understand.  Happy wife = happy life without income?  When you have 8 projects, but can only attend 3…  Which 5 teams do you disappoint?  How do you make up to them in future assignments?

This is as real as the real world still contained in a safe environment.  In the “real world,” we all have limited time as an employee.  The company has limited resources allocated to you.  Your counterparts also have limited attention devoted to you.  How do you make those decisions?  Books can provide you theory, but you learn to make hard decisions by making hard decisions.  Just like you can read books about poker, understand the odds, and understand the strategies…  But betting your hard earned life savings on whether a person is bluffing or not…  And to recover/heal from it when it backfires…  The only way is to walk through it.

Second, the program hammers you into that fine sword you are, repeatedly.  MBA has a rigorous filter on who they accept (provided you go to a top program).  Pick anybody in your program, and they are probably A LOT better than you at something.  In fact, they are probably A LOT better than you at A LOT OF THINGS.  It keeps you humble, but it also hurts your confidence.  Every day, I go to class and my confidence gets beaten down so hard…  At the end of the day I go home and lick my wounds.  Crawl in my little corner and have my own self-pity party.  Repeat this for 2 years…  It changes you internally.  You come out stronger. 

Read the book.  But know the limitations of a book.