“To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction”. -Stephen Covey
Stephen Covey author of best-selling book “Seven habits of highly effective people brilliantly mentioned to begin with end in mind. Taking a similar approach from above quote let’s visualize approach taken by three professionals in different streams with following careers:
1. Professor of Management
2. Wealth Manager in a private sector bank
3. Sales and Business Development in Media distribution
1. Management Professor
Did High school in Commerce, Graduation in BBA, and Worked as academic research associate for two years after completing MBA immediately after Graduation. Did my PhD in Management and taken up teaching job alongwith pursuing PhD. Focus had been on academic learning, building writing skills and class-delivery skills.
2. Wealth Manager in a private sector bank
Did high school in commerce, Graduation in Commerce, Worked in Bank and Financial services dealing with Third party distribution (Mutual Fund, Life and General Insurance, Forex etc.), Pursued two year full time MBA with finance specialization after three years of work experience. During the three years of work experience, took multiple certifications in Mutual Fund, Capital Market, Investment Management-CFP and Insurance.
3. Sales and Business Development
Did high school in Commerce, Graduation in Commerce, Worked at Retail organizations for ten years. Pursued one year of MBA program full time with Marketing Specialization. Focused on building up Sales, Business Development skills, Interpersonal skills-including team skills, Communication.
In addition all three of them focused on building aptitude skills (English and Maths) for clearing competitive exams. Did basic level understanding of different Management Specialization (Marketing, Finance, HR, MIS etc.) through online portals.
Apart from ensured their profile was getting stronger through undertaking social initiatives and pursuing hobbies simultaneously. Picked up wide reading habit by reading books on wide variety of subjects, started reading Business newspapers and magazines.
As you can see all three of them had great alignment in Pre, During and Post MBA. This resulted in they being able to pursue field of their interest and not allowing external pressures decide their career paths. It would be a good idea for school students to get exposures of multiple career options, undergo counseling sessions for right fitment.
Lot of students with entrepreneurial aspirations have a myth that MBA will help them set up business. But in my view MBA helps you get prepared for a Job or helps you grow an existing business setup. For people with entrepreneurial aspirations, they should straight away start their business ventures alongwith their graduation studies. Having set up business and then in the phase of scaling up, MBA education might help.
A prospective Management student should begin with end in Mind in terms of career looking to pursue. One they are clear, then they should pursue their academics and other profile building activities in alignment to their career destination they have chosen.
Author:
Nityanand Jha, Assistant Professor, Unitedworld School of Law (UWSL)
Disclaimer: The opinions / views expressed in this article are solely of the author in his / her individual capacity. They do not purport to reflect the opinions and/or views of the College and/or University or its members.
