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Many professionals seek and achieve a higher standard of work in the office place. They put in long hours, reply promptly to their emails, and at the end of the day help create a good product. They may even bring their officemates bagels or donuts to keep everyone smiling, but somehow it is not enough to be promoted or receive a raise. What follows are some suggestions, dos, and don’ts as to how to better achieve your goal of moving up the ladder in your workplace.

Dos
Speak up. Send out relevant interesting articles to staff. Try to become someone that people know, beyond your boss.

Seek out advice as to how to achieve your goal from others who are higher in the company hierarchy.

Offer to take on greater responsibilities. It is vital to prove that you can already do the job that you want. However, as you will see in the Don’t section of this post, don’t go too far with taking on other people’s responsibilities. Remember that you need to prove you can do the job you already have. You will not get a promotion if you make many mistakes, and prove that you are not up to the responsibilities, as mundane as they may be.

Recognize that despite your efforts it may not be so easy to attain the promotion you desire. It may take an additional year of work or it may require that you take your experience to a different company. Hard work, motivation and positive thinking will not necessarily get you noticed at your current company. Don’t quit to early though because the time you have spent in your current job may be a factor in a looming promotion.

Don’t
Let your boss down. The easiest way to get promoted is for your boss to feel extremely confident in your abilities and in your devotion to your work.

Exceed the limits of your position. This is not a time to come across as wanting to usurp control from your boss, instead you are trying to impress him or her.

As trivial as it may seem to some, appearance counts. Do not take casual Friday to far, or too early in the week.

Overall
Try not to be deterred by initial failure, for many working their way up the corporate ladder is one of the most difficult parts of their career and there are sure to be bumps along the way. But if you work at it, if you become a better employee, a better manager, as well as more knowledgeable, you are likely to succeed in the future. Through following some of the advice above, you will increase your networking potential both within your company and beyond. Attaining the promotion you want is possible; it may simply take patience and drive.

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Global Consulting Opportunities

In a recent video interview with Business Week Online, UCLA Anderson School of Business Dean Judy Olian discusses some of the schools many new and developing programs. Running through these programs are themes we have seen developing in many top-tier MBA programs, and which may be of interest to anyone considering business school. These themes reflect the need of the business world to recognize social and environmental sustainability, as well as the global nature of business.

Anderson’s part-time program, currently the number 1 ranked program of its kind, has introduced a global consulting requirement called the “Global Access Program” that has had far reaching effects on the school. The school wants all of its students to have a consulting experience that usually spans 6 months. Students must work with a company, located in a number of countries and continents including New Zealand, Africa, Finland, and India. Through data collection, the student must help the company solve a problem which may include branding, acquisition, or another market related issue.

This program reflects the global nature of business as well as the effects of globalization on business.

Dean Olian believes that their location in Los Angeles places them in a position well suited to meet the demands of globalization: They have access to US markets, as well as Latin America and the Pacific Rim.

Leadership and Sustainability

UCLA is also expanding its focus on issues of leadership and sustainability. The school, in partnership with the Institute of the Environment, has an interdisciplinary program, where students must develop business models that are socially and environmentally sustainable. This program is designed to address issues such as “how to address the problem of transportation in Los Angeles in a business viable way.” This program, and other similar issues of social entrepreneurship represent the students’ desire to apply their management skills to social and environmental problems in a way that produces some kind of social good. Studies show that some 15% of Anderson grads are going into non-profit work. We, Manhattan Review, hold the same belief that the skill set of an MBA is welcome and useful in any sector.

Anderson is also active in non-degree programs that promote leadership skills in marginalized communities. They have leadership programs specifically designed for women, African Americans, Hispanic leaders, gay and lesbian leaders, as well a program for the disabled that addresses the opportunities for leadership for the disabled.

The New Face of Business School

The changes in Anderson’s part- and full-time MBA programs reflect and represent the ever-changing face of business and business education. How can students be prepared to meet the challenges of globalization, and the challenges of sustainable business models? Programs like those at UCLA are designed to give business students the tools to address such issues. UCLA Anderson is a good choice for any prospective MBA looking to get involved in social and environmental sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Here are some things to remember about UCLA Anderson:

- Their Global Access Consulting Program
- Non-Degree Leadership Programs
- Focus on developing both socially and environmentally sustainable business models

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While the discussion may be less heated than in recent years, grade disclosure and the associated policies are relevant to MBA students. The debate consists of the following arguments for and against grade disclosure:

- Grade non-disclosure policies (GND) enhance student collaboration and promote extra curricular activities which in turn promote networking opportunities
- Grade disclosure policies (GD) promote rigorous academics. When grades “do not matter,” students may become lazy and the atmosphere may become less competitive

In most circumstances, the supporters of GND are the student bodies, and the supporters of GD are the professors and administrators. The majority of America’s top B-schools seem to have either a GD or voluntary GD policy, where students may share grades with potential employers voluntarily. Now, let’s look at the four schools’ policies and the debate surrounding them:

University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)

Wharton, a member of the top three B-schools on many lists, seems to house the most heated grade policy debate. Prior to 1998, the school had a GD, but the student body overwhelmingly supported a GND. The logic behind those opinions follows pretty closely the logic above. Amazingly, during a 2006 vote to amend the school’s policy, students voted in favor of GND by 94%, with 84% participation.

Wharton has adopted a voluntary disclosure policy, where students are free to share their grades, but are not required to.

Harvard

Harvard’s grade disclosure policy is especially interesting due to their somewhat unorthodox grading system. As of 2005, students are free to discuss grades in job interviews or other circumstances with potential employers. The administrators have stated that this policy makes them consistent with other business schools and undergraduate programs, as well as the rest of Harvard University. As stated earlier, grade disclosure is designed to promote high quality academics. According to an article in the Harvard Crimson, a school official stated that disclosing grades is also consistent with being a successful business leader: businesses are constantly trying to quantify progress, development and develop ways to measure their performance.

Harvard’s grading system may also necessitate GD being implemented. Harvard’s grading system works by using three categories, rather than an A-F scale. Approximately 75% of HBS students occupy category II status, with the rest occupying category 1 (top tier) and 3 (bottom of the class). The combination of “grades not mattering” and Harvard’s grading system could be deadly to academic morale: the likelihood of being in category 1 is so slim that students may as well just stick with category 2. On the other hand, it is unlikely that they will fail out, which means many MBA students can squeeze by.

Stanford

Stanford’s administration does not have a particular policy, but the student body policy is non-disclosure. There is an astonishing 99% compliance rate among students.

Both sides of the grade disclosure debate have sound arguments and valid points. It also seems that the only possible compromise is the one that some schools have already put into effect: a policy of voluntary disclosure. The students who feel that it is within their right to withhold grades from employers are free to do so. If the employer demands such information (which they may) the student will have a difficult choice to make, one that very closely reflects many decisions – operational, managerial, and ethical – made in the business world: How do I optimize the result with minimal compromise?

Final Thoughts

On one hand, grades are an important indicator of one’s personal achievement. However, on the other hand, how you translate your learning into behaviors and actions in real life is a better indicator of both achievement and character.

Maybe grade disclosure should carry more importance in college than graduate schools. Different majors should put different level of emphasis on grade disclosure as well. The grade disclosure policy could vary depending on course types, i.e., cores vs. electives.

Graduate business schools focus on practical knowledge and skills, not pure arts or science. A student’s integral ability should have a higher correlation to his/her future success. Certain qualities can not be quantified by grades, in particular, managerial talents such as decision-making abilities, sound judgment, ability to outperform in face of adversity and leadership. Nonetheless, analytical abilities can certainly be tested out and measured by grades.

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Today we are going to discuss grade disclosure policy.

In a 1997 experiment, Cornell’s College of Arts and Science decided to post the median grades for courses on the Internet. According to an article on BusinessWeek.com, this was intended to “give context” to grades, in that students would see that if a certain class had a lower median grade, say a B-, an A in that course could be more meaningful. Cornell also had plans to publish the median course grades in student transcripts so potential employers could see the “big picture.”

This experiment had interesting results – results the opposite of what was expected. Instead of students choosing the course in which it would be more challenging to get a higher grade, the students chose the courses where professors tended to give out higher grades. The study that found these results also found that students with lower SAT scores were the ones choosing the “easier” courses. The experiment, in turn, has lead to grade inflation.

Perhaps because of these unintended results, Cornell has not yet followed through on putting the median grades on student transcripts. We, at Manhattan Review, believe that the fact that more students chose an easier course is due to a lack of their confidence in their ability to earn above-median grade in a challenging course and the negative ramification of a lower grade even if the median is even lower.

The grade situation at Cornell could reflect a larger ethical dilemma, one that has always been present at business school. Should students do whatever it takes to get to the top, even if it does not reflect their intellectual prowess or managerial talent? Is the “cunning” and quick decision making those students may use to get higher grades really relevant to their future business? Many professors would say no, ethical behavior is as important in an academic community as it is in the business world, but some students may say that their ability to get ahead will end up supporting them in the future.

Even if a less-capable person can get ahead here and there, it is highly unlikely the winning streak will continue without any hiccups. Unethical behavior or simply unwise decision will, sooner or later, have a consequence in a person’s personal or professional life.

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The claim among certain individuals that business school produces graduates well-equipped to succeed in the classroom but ill-prepared to think outside it deserves greater attention. In the classroom, students learn tools of data analysis that are extremely useful in business, but are removed from real life business dilemmas.

The Crux of MBA Education
This critique of business management education calls into question the fundamental curriculum choices made by MBA programs. For example, the case method developed at Harvard Business School (HBS) may be partly to blame for lingering sentiments among those that hire MBAs that they lack in the practical experience essential to decision making in the corporate world.

The case method used not only at HBS but throughout the world incorporates the world of real business decisions to the extent that actual cases are discussed and analyzed in the classroom. In a case method analysis, students have the complete picture; they know the beginning, middle and, very often, outcome of each case. Yet, a classroom discussion or debate on an actual case seen in hindsight is not the same as business decision in which some pieces of the puzzle may not be so apparent.

Columbia’s Innovation
It is with this in mind that Columbia Business School veered from the case method in its fall curriculum, employing a new approach to management education known as decision brief. Dean Glen Hubbard developed the decision brief method in reaction to some of the weaknesses of the case method. It approaches a case with less information and does not reveal the solution to the problem until after a full discussion. In an effort to make discussion more like the real business world, the decision brief seeks to a more plausible real world simulation, a view from the ground rather than from the air in a certain sense.

The Case Study vs. Decision Brief debate may be just part of the larger issue of MBA curricula and the changes needed to make the degree up to date with the current needs of businesses. The ability to solve problems from many different business perspectives, be it finance, operations or marketing, is necessary for a future business leader. Many schools, including Yale, Stanford, and UCLA, are addressing their curricula to keep an MBA from their school in high demand.

Too Much Information, Shortcuts, and other Criticisms
The criticism of the case method includes other aspects: There is too much information in a case study – much of the information is irrelevant or unimportant to the main points. In some cases, a large portion of the 10 page single-spaced document may be “skimable” by the student. Also, there is no macro-level recap of the information in the study; the key facts and issues are often times not salient.

Revising the Classroom Experience
Ultimately, much can be learned in the classroom, but not everything. Thus, Columbia and many other business schools around the world are seeking to stretch what the classroom can do by incorporating a revision of the case method into its curriculum. In many cases, schools are requiring students to work with companies, often abroad, on problems those companies are currently dealing with. It will be interesting to see the reaction of students and the corporate world to this adjustment in their management curriculum.

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