Category Archives: MBA Essay Resources

Ethics & Community, MBA Admissions, MBA Essay Resources

How to dent the universe (or how to apply for an MBA like Steve Jobs would)

In dealing with MBA admissions clients, I’m always looking for ways to push them beyond the ordinary, both in terms of how they frame their life to date and what they plan to do in the future. I also counsel applicants to ‘think like a CEO-in-waiting,’ that is, ask: what would a senior executive do here? What would she say? How would he apply?

The poster child for the pathbreaking senior executive is business legend Steve Jobs, Apple CEO. I recently came across a site called MBA Naukri that has collected Job-isms, some of which I have reproduced here as guidance in ‘reaching for more’ in an MBA application.

1. There is no shortcut to excellence. “Use your talents, abilities, and skills in the best way possible and get ahead of others by giving that little extra. Live by a higher standard and pay attention to the details that really do make the difference. Excellence is not difficult – simply decide right now to give it your best shot – and you will be amazed with what life gives you back.”

2. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. I’ve got it down to four words: ‘Do what you love.’ Seek out an occupation that gives you a sense of meaning, direction and satisfaction in life. Having a sense of purpose and striving towards goals gives life meaning, direction and satisfaction. It not only contributes to health and longevity, but also makes you feel better in difficult times.”

3. Create something to give back. “You know, we don’t grow most of the food we eat. We wear clothes other people make. We speak a language that other people developed. We use a mathematics that other people evolved… I mean, we’re constantly taking things. It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge.”

4. Fail and rebound. “I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year… It’s very character-building.Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake. There is no such thing as a successful person who has not failed or made mistakes, there are successful people who made mistakes and changed their lives or performance in response to them, and so got it right the next time. They viewed mistakes as warnings rather than signs of hopeless inadequacy. Never making a mistake means never living life to the full.”

5. Dent the universe. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? Did you know that you have big things to accomplish in life? … Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Granted, it’s much easier to say stuff like this if you’re a billionaire celebrity not a cubicle slave. But you can see that if Jobs himself were applying for an MBA he would not be saying something nebulous like: ‘upon graduation I plan to go into management consulting and then transition to be a manager in the IT sector.’ He’d tell you exactly how he was going to dent the universe, why that was a worthwhile and necessary thing to do, and why it was his deepest inner purpose to do it.

MBA Admissions, MBA Admissions Book, MBA Essay Resources, MBA Interviews

Making messages stick: an MBA Studio ‘bible’ gets some airtime

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As a follower of many blogs in the MBA admissions ‘space’ I know, as you probably know, that they are of mixed quality. But the musings of AIGAC-accredited MBA admissions consultants is generally good, and I find we are of one mind on most important matters. So no surprise that today’s post is a hearty agreement with Linda who recently recommended the book Made to Stick (Random House, New York, 2007) by Chip and Dan Heath, on her Accepted blog.

made-to-stickI read the Made to Stick hot-off-the-press two years ago, and have integrated every aspect of it into MBA Studio’s client offerings ever since. It’s not the only resource I use of course (and my own MBA Admissions Strategy, which predates it, has many of the same principles.) But Made to Stick is unsurpassed in focusing on one single thing: getting a message across. Formulating it so that the reader reads it, understands it, remembers it.

So, as I have said consistently to MBA Studio clients and whomever else would listen: this is the single best “non-MBA” guidebook for MBA applicants. Be aware that it won’t help with the key aspects of determining who you are and what your key value points and application platform are — what you want to communicate in the first place (as revealed and coached through MBA Studio’s signature “Profiling” process.) Nor will it help with the specifics of how to manage and beat business-school-specific expectations in essays and interviews and reco’s. But as a book about how to communicate a message, it can’t be beaten, and is justifiably a worldwide bestseller.

The Heath brothers have distilled what makes a message “stick” into six principles, which they communicate in a (sticky) acronym, SUCCESs (sic). That is Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. Chapter by chapter they show how to simplify a message to its essence; grab attention via its unexpected elements, use concrete rather than abstract intelligence; enhance credibility via various proof channels; and achieve emotional connections with the reader. Telling stories that matter, and telling them well, is the key to much of this.

Made to Stick has a blog by the way. Unfortunately two years and counting after the book was published, it’s only occasionally active.