From Luke Armstrong of Coburg Consultants

 

Can an MBA help you lose weight? Probably – most of us are so caffeinated we haven’t the slightest appetite.

Be a better family man? Yup – my family is 56-large.

Fall in love? Absolutely – and with the rich, dark, and hot Timothy Horton.

Seriously though – the skills and insights from Dalhousie’s Corporate Residency MBA aren’t just for the benefit of business. Like a top CEO strategizes and implements plans to meet her company’s goals, we can use the principles of strategic management to meet personal goals as well.

The same strategies that drive the Apple’s, Amazon’s and Netflix’s to top performance can help you lose weight, or stop procrastinating, or improve your love life. I’ll illustrate by using a timely example – getting into the MBA.

The strategic management process starts with defining your mission, vision, and values. This might sound like a bunch of buzzwords, but they’re actually the starting point for success. Whether a corporation or college senior, you have to know yourself and you have to be yourself. If not, you will probably end up doing something you don’t like and you will probably be bad at it. Our hypothetical MBA prospect has to ask herself “why do I want to do an MBA, and does it fit with who I am and who I want to be?”

The next phase is the external analysis. A CEO might consider the political, economic, technological, social, and competitive situation they find their company in. Our MBA prospect should be considering the trends in MBA education, trends in admissions, the GMAT, and their competition from other students for admission.

When the external environment is understood, it’s time to look within. A company will analyze its own core competencies and determine its strengths and weaknesses. Our MBA prospect should examine herself and determine what makes her a strong fit for an MBA program. By objectively analyzing herself as an applicant, she gains insight on how to position her rare and valuable applicant qualities for success.

A thorough external and internal analysis should yield enough information to create strategic objectives. These are specific, measurable, and actionable goals that, if successful, are likely to produce the vision, which is getting into MBA school. Examples of strategic objectives for our applicant might be improving interview skills or getting a 680 GMAT.

Of course, the best strategy in the world will get you nowhere without sound implementation. The strategic objectives must be carried out in a way that is likely to lead to success. A company may look to marketing to improve sales, or game theory to predict competitive response. Our applicant should estimate how many mock interviews to do, or what kind of study regime is required to achieve the desired score and then stick to the plan?

Do an M.Eng and build the best paper airplanes. Do a Master’s in Biochemistry and make the best home brew. Do an MBA, and pursue your personal goals with enough strategic weaponry to run a company.

Or just lose weight from all the coffee.