• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
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“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” —Ghandi

For several years now, I’ve been contemplating the pursuit of an MBA. As much as I love learning, I don’t do very well with formal education. It’s just not my thing. I need that real-world, school-of-hard-knocks kind of experience. I’d rather fail frequently than navigate my way through classrooms and case studies that teach me to minimize risk. In the words of one MBA grad who had prior real-world experience, “sitting through each session of [this class] was like hearing virgins talking about sex.”

However, there is still this intriguing urge to pursue more “formal” education because of the doors it opens up. It’s not about a new career or better pay as much as it’s about a calling card of sorts for where my life is headed. It’s another tool in my tool belt. Like speaking a second language or playing an instrument.

This past weekend I read Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School by Philip Delves Broughton. It’s an insider’s guide to arguably the most prestigious business school in the world. A former bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph, Broughton left his advancing career in journalism to start fresh at Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2004.

The mission of HBS is “to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” Broughton would continually wrestle with this mission during his two years at HBS, and ultimately suggest a revision. He wondered if leadership could be taught and if business was the right medium through which to teach it. He wondered if business leaders could achieve balance between reason and emotion. “This is why people hated MBAs. Too much cost-benefit analysis, too little humanity.”

It’s clear that Broughton is a great journalist. He knows how to tell a story. The jury is still out on whether Broughton is a “businessman.” He was one of a handful who did not have a job upon graduation and, from what I can gather, he’s still trying to find his stride.

I applaud Broughton for his “capitalist skeptic” approach. He knows there is more to life than money. The work/life balance conversation would pop-up again and again, and Broughton could never quite get his head around it. It was more myth than method in his mind. Late into the book, a familiar classmate summarized Broughton’s dilemma this way:

Your problem is this: You wanted to make all this [money] and you went to Harvard Business School so you’d have the opportunity. But all the time, you couldn’t quiet the voice inside your head telling you that just making money is a ridiculous way to spend your life. I know this is your problem, because I suffered from the same thing, before I got over it.

Broughton does a great job sprinkling in some things he learned at HBS. “To most companies, the idea of people as individuals is terrifying.” “Be a principal or a decision maker, not a service provider.” HBS definition of entrepreneurship: “the relentless pursuit of opportunity beyond resources currently controlled.” He’s packed it with stories from classes, guest speakers and complex business terms he converts to language anyone can understand.

Overall, I was not more or less interested in an MBA after reading Ahead of the Curve. This was extremely frustrating because I had hoped this book would have swayed me in either direction.

My contemplation continues.

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