Why On Earth Am I Doing An MBA?

Well, that is a very good question. The answer is simply that I am somewhat bored since retirement. Of course, there is plenty to do in my shed or around the house, but that just doesn’t stretch my mind and feed my insatiable thirst for knowledge.

I have always enjoyed the world of business. I am fascinated by the intricacies of leadership, entrepreneurialism, management and people organisation. What makes businesses, organisations and people thrive? What are the methods and techniques that keep people growing as individuals and maintaining that growth mindset?  It is one thing for people to engender this mindset themselves. It is another for an organisation or business to foster such a mindset in people.  Doing so results in greater contributions to the business or organisation by the individual. In turn, this increases the value of that person to the organisation as their contribution is constantly improving.

Reading through the subjects for the MBA shows a logically progressive goal towards and end result. All of these subjects are areas of interest for me and I will be fascinated by the content. Naturally, I am somewhat nervous, but that simply means moving out of my comfort zone into a growth zone. This is not new to me. It’s not the first time I’ve done it and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

My Particular Interests

My particular area of interest is Community Organisations. Personal involvement with many of them over the years has shown me a considerable lacking of skills in many of these places. Volunteers are the salt of the earth. They are absolutely wonderful people for giving of their time and energy for no monetary reward.  Many, however, have not had any training in leadership let alone the conduct of meetings. Financial skills in management and reporting are other areas of constant difficulty. And that is just the Committee!  Then at the membership level, many of the ordinary members don’t have the skills to challenge the output of the Committee so things just don’t get managed properly.

I sincerely hope that doing this MBA will provide me with better skills to establish ways and means to introduce such skills to not for profits and community organisations. This must be done with empathy, compassion, humility and within a framework that is non-threatening to volunteers.  How can this be done? I have no idea at the moment but I will be working on it over the next two years.  If I can come up with a means of improving the management and therefore the effectiveness of community organisations, then our communities will be a lot better off and more liveable as a result.

Wish me luck!