职场思考:读MBA究竟有没有用?

　　In reality, schools just trying to keep their cashcow M.B.A. programs alive by attempting to ride the entrepreneurial fever breaking out across the country. The truth is you have a better chance of getting the Tea Party to embrace the Affordable¹ Care Act than getting traditional business schools to teach real-world, hard-knocks entrepreneurship.

　　在现实生活中，学校们想要让M.B.A.项目这棵摇钱树保持活力，于是就趁着全国刮起的这一股创业风潮来赶时髦。事实是，让传统的商学院教在真实世界中艰难前行的创业方法，还不如让茶党(Tea Party)接受平价医疗法案(Affordable Care Act)的可能性大。

　　Here is why: traditional M.B.A. programs are classroom-centric. They give students little realaccess to business leadersor to the places where business is done. And as best I can tell, many academics want to keep it that way. Their big idea has been to bring in retired² entrepreneurs to teach in the classroom. This is like putting a catfish³ in a bathtub and calling it ariver.

　　理由如下：传统的M.B.A.项目是以课堂教学为主的。他们很少为学生提供真切接触商业领袖或者商业场合的机会。据我所知，许多学院想要保持这种方式。他们的伟大创意是请退休的企业家来教室中上课。这就像是把一条鲶鱼放到浴缸里，然后声称这是一条河。

　　Entrepreneurs generally don't do well outside their preferred environment (the real world), and the students don't get any real sense of how fast the business world moves. I think we may even have reached the point where some M.B.A.'s actually damage up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Go sit in a classroom, then go work in a fast-growth company. Talk about the difference between night and day! You will see why the classroom is a dangerous place from which to view the business world.

　　在企业家们所偏爱的环境（也就是现实世界）之外，他们往往表现得不好，学生们也没办法真切感受到商业世界运转得有多快速。我觉得我们可能甚至已经抵达了一个问题的核心：为什么事实上有些M.B.A.反而毁掉了一些前途大好的创业家。你可以去坐在一间教室里，然后再试试去在一个飞速发展的公司里工作。这样的差异就跟白天和黑夜一样巨大！你会把教室视为一个危险的、无法看清商业世界的地方。

　　For example, Gianine Abdallah, an entrepreneur based in Atlanta, recently started an online apparel company that wasprofitable in its first week. Like most fast-growth entrepreneurs,she wants to move fast. So when she asked me if I thoughtgetting a classroom M.B.A. would be helpful, I responded that I did not think it made much sense for her, logistically oracademically. Does she really have the time to drive across town to sit in a class or to spend hours with an online programthat doesn't give her real-world business experience?

　　举例来说，吉阿妮·阿卜杜拉(Gianine Abdallah)是一位主要在亚特兰大发展的创业者，她最近创立了一家在线服装公司，在第一周就实现了盈利。像其他快速发展的企业家一样，她想要飞快地前进。所以当她问我去上M.B.A.的课会不会有帮助时，我的回答是我不觉得它对她来说有太多意义，不管是在逻辑上还是学术上。她是不是真的有时间开车穿过城市去上课，或者把时间花在一个无法给予她真实世界商业经验的在线课程上？

　　Eand access to business leaders and partners that can help her now. She needs toconnect and have her real-timequestions answered by someone like Susan Nethero, who built and sold a lingerie company, Intimacy⁴.

　　在商业领袖与合伙人前亮相或者与其接触的机会才是现在能帮助到她的。她需要建立人脉，让她在现实世界中遇到的问题能由像苏珊·内瑟罗(SusanNethero)这样建立以及售出一家女性内衣公司Intimacy的人来解答。

　　Yes, of course, Ms. Abdallah and all other entrepreneurial students could use some accounting⁵ and finance, but why nottake them online? In past years this may have been a poor option,but technology and online teaching methods haveimproved so much that one study for the Department of Education found that "on average, students in online learningcondition sperformed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."

　　是的，当然了，阿卜杜拉和其他创业的学生可以用得上一些会计与金融的知识，但为什么不在网上学习呢？在过去，这可能算不上一个好选择，但科技与在线教学技术现在已经进步了许多，美国教育部(Department ofEducation)的一个研究发现，“平均来说，在线学习的学生比那些接受面对面教学的学生要表现得更好。”

　　When I got my M.B.A. from Emory in 1994, I was already an information technology leader at.U.P.S, and I wasconsumed with climbing the corporate⁶ ladder – just like most of my fellow students from other big companies. But today,many M.B.A. students want to do their own thing and start their own companies.

　　当我在1994年在埃默里大学(Emory University)拿到M.B.A.学位时，我已经是UPS快递的信息技术负责人了，满心想的都是要继续在公司内部往上攀登——就像绝大多数来自其他大公司的同学们一样。但现在，许多M.B.A.学生想要做自己的事，开创他们自己的公司。

　　My general management M.B.A. was worthwhile for me while I was at U.P.S. because it gave me exposure to otherdisciplines beyond information technology, like marketing⁷ and strategy.The accounting and strategy courses were usefuleven when I was building my business.

　　对于当时还在UPS的我来说，综合管理M.B.A.的学习已经够用了，因为它给我机会接触信息技术以外的其他领域，比如市场以及战略。会计课和战略课非常有用，即使在我创业的时候也还能用到这些知识。

　　And now, when entrepreneurs ask me whether they should go get an M.B.A., here's what I tell them: If you get in to Stanford, go. Stanford offers exceptional access to Silicon⁸ Valley, the best fast-growth ecosystem⁹ in the universe. The school's work-study program hits the all-important three Rs: rigorous, relevant, and real-world. In many cases, Stanford students end up helping¹⁰ a Silicon Valley company grow while getting their M.B.A. at the same time.

　　现在，当企业家问我是否应该去读一个M.B.A.的时候，我会这样告诉他们：如果你能去斯坦福大学，那就去吧。斯坦福能提供独一无二的接触硅谷的机会，而硅谷是全球发展最快的经济生态圈。它的商学院的半工半读项目符合三个最重要的R：严格(rigorous)，紧跟时代(relevant)以及现实(real-world)。在很多例子里，斯坦福的学生都能一边帮助一家硅谷公司发展，一边为他们的M.B.A.学位学习。

　　And if you get into Harvard's business school, go. It has been proved over and over that it can help you build abusiness, although I'm not convinced it has anything to do with the school'swell-known "case study" business curriculum.For my taste, the case study remains¹¹ a classroom-centric model that has little to do with entrepreneurs trying to build abusiness today. But go to Harvard anyway — if only for the Harvard alumni network. The contacts you make during and after the program are worth the price of admission.

　　如果你能去哈佛大学的商学院，那也去吧。它一直都在证明，它可以帮助你创建一份事业，尽管我并不认为这与该学院著名的“案例教学”商业课程有关。在我看来，案例教学仍然是一个以教室为中心的教学模型，与如今创业家们试图建立的事业并没有什么关系。但是不管如何，还是去哈佛吧——哪怕只是为了哈佛的校友人脉网。仅凭在项目之中以及之后你所认识的人，你入学时交的学费就已经值了。

　　Beyond Stanford and Harvard, I would say this: Go only if you find a program that offers real-world experience, working along side someone who is building a business. Otherwise, while I wouldn't say the current traditional M.B.A. is useless, it is pretty much like having athletes studying game film but never practicing on the field.

　　在斯坦福与哈佛之外，我会这么建议：只有在你找到一个能够提供现实经验、与正在创业的人士接触的机会的项目的M.B.A.项目的时候，再去读。否则，虽然我不会说现在的传统M.B.A.完全没有用，不过它着实就像是让运动员去观看比赛录像，却从来不让他们上赛场实战一样。

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