This week one of my all-time favorite reality television shows (yes, I love fauxlity tv) begins again-The Apprentice premieres on Thursday. While I have learned many valuable lessons from the show, like never to mess with crazies like Amarosa and that Brett Micheals can do a lot more than rock a guitar, the lesson that has proved most valuable is about balancing street smarts and book smarts.
On season 3 of The Apprentice, they formed the teams into street smarts vs book smarts. The book smarts pretty much thought they had everything figured out coming into the initial challenge. Even the business rookies felt like they were much more prepared than the seasoned business professionals because of the base of knowledge they had acquired from school. Pretty soon, it became painfully obvious that the MBAs had no ability to work with other people. They even lacked the ability to maintain basic civility in the face of stress. For the street smart team, this was no problem-they had all built their businesses on being able to deal with people in a highly effective manner. They knew how to deal with stress. They knew what to do when their plans went off course. They had the ability to change course when necessary and evaluate themselves instead of being evaluated. In a recent article, Entrepreneur explored this issue with Steven Arroyo, a restaurateur from Los Angeles who never attended any college,“The street will teach you honesty, integrity, humility, and how to BS”. First of all, I just love this quote-especially the BS at the end…but I also think it is really accurate. If you are planning on having successful interactions with others in the business world(or even just in life), being able to communicate effectively is a mandatory tool. However, as season 3 progressed, there were some challenges that the MBAs won simply because they were more current on the latest technology. The street smarts tended to be a little bit more old school-depending on more traditional methods of sales and project management- while the MBAs tended to come to the table with more innovation. Sure, their team worked awfully together and often imploded, but they had a better skill set to survive. The MBAs lost challenges because they couldn’t manage their egos, while the street smart team lost because they couldn’t always manage the task.
When this season aired in 2005, I was really had no desire to get an MBA-I saw it as unnecessary in the trajectory of my career. While I can’t really say that this season was the deciding factor in getting my MBA, it did open the door to it in my mind. Five years and big tuition bills later, I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this issue. I learned some really interesting, valuable things in my program-like how to make decisions, how to manage, how to do strategic planning and lot of other insights that academia usually produces. But, honestly? I don’t feel like having an MBA has made my career, but I do feel like it was a career advancer. For me, it’s a calling card that gets me recognition, gives me validity, and gets my foot in the door. From there, street smarts have got to take over. I think it would be virtually impossible to have any successful long-term business career and have no ability to deal with people, no salesmanship, and no ability to BS your way through. At the same time, there have been occasions where my degree has put me ahead of my peers and taken me to the next level.
In the end, I think that it really depends on your business and what your life goals are. Mine dictated an MBA, for many others it may be an unnecessary waste of time and expense.
Let me know your thoughts on this issue at jdanner@peoplelease.com
Have a great week!
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