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I, for one, sometimes miss the knowledge that an MBA might give me. I'm a technical CTO and I have some trouble with long term planning, budget, managing people

by haolez 6y ago

I, for one, sometimes miss the knowledge that an MBA might give me. I'm a technical CTO and I have some trouble with long term planning, budget, managing people, etc.

dabeeeenster 6y ago
You really don't need to do an MBA to learn those things. Of the 3, two can be learnt in a week. Managing people is a lot harder!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
reallydontask 6y ago
If MBAs taught how to manage people then they might be worth it but alas, this is far from the case.
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  I agree that this is a huge weakness of some MBA programs. I think this is because a lot of the curriculum comes from academics, people with a consulting background, and people with a finance background. For many of those careers managing lots of people is not a number one priority. When I got my MBA there was a case study(it's like a lesson chapter) I read about a top performer who didn't get along with a team. We never got to that one and it probably wasn't a favorite of the professor. But we did do a lot of cases about reallocating assets across a conglomerate or relaunching a fifty year old product or what have you. In retrospect, any insight in how to handle that troublesome high performer would have been really helpful, particularly at the start of my career.
mmmBacon 6y ago
I report to a CTO and manage a large team. You probably need to delegate your planning and budget activities and serve as mostly an approver for those things. Managing people is hard and it’s unlikely you will learn how to manage people from an MBA. Managing people is an experience thing. If you’re bad at managing people, my advice is that you hire people who are good a managing people and have those people report to you. At the same time, you probably want to minimize your number of directs. You might even consider keeping your org small and have a VP of Engineering report into someone else on the C-Staff for all things execution related. This will allow you to focus on your strengths which hopefully are technology roadmap/vision and selling that vision to customers.
- haolez 6y ago
  Those are exactly my strengths. Very insightful! Thanks a lot.
conductr 6y ago
Many CxO's have same problems. IT is hard to plan. Budgets are moving targets. I know this thread is about the opposite, but this is where I'd recommend someone at your level not try to become an expert budgeter. Find/hire a partner who is even if it's just on a CFO advisory level (can be a more junior person if it's just budgeting, planning, etc; CFO level if more strategic). Managing people is more of a craft. Approach it the way you would learn to build furniture as a hobby. Gradually over time through practice and experimentation acquiring tools for your shop along the way.
yowlingcat 6y ago
> I, for one, sometimes miss the knowledge that an MBA might give me. I'm a technical CTO and I have some trouble with long term planning, budget, managing people, etc. Is it your first time? If so, you would probably have similar growing pains MBA or not. Being a business conversant technical CTO is the kind of thing you only get good at by doing it.
- haolez 6y ago
  Yes. First time where I'm the CTO of a company, and not of a nano startup doomed to fail :)

by haolez 6y ago

I, for one, sometimes miss the knowledge that an MBA might give me. I'm a technical CTO and I have some trouble with long term planning, budget, managing people, etc.

dabeeeenster 6y ago

You really don't need to do an MBA to learn those things. Of the 3, two can be learnt in a week. Managing people is a lot harder!

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

reallydontask 6y ago

If MBAs taught how to manage people then they might be worth it but alas, this is far from the case.

georgeecollins 6y ago
I agree that this is a huge weakness of some MBA programs. I think this is because a lot of the curriculum comes from academics, people with a consulting background, and people with a finance background. For many of those careers managing lots of people is not a number one priority. When I got my MBA there was a case study(it's like a lesson chapter) I read about a top performer who didn't get along with a team. We never got to that one and it probably wasn't a favorite of the professor. But we did do a lot of cases about reallocating assets across a conglomerate or relaunching a fifty year old product or what have you. In retrospect, any insight in how to handle that troublesome high performer would have been really helpful, particularly at the start of my career.

mmmBacon 6y ago

I report to a CTO and manage a large team. You probably need to delegate your planning and budget activities and serve as mostly an approver for those things. Managing people is hard and it’s unlikely you will learn how to manage people from an MBA. Managing people is an experience thing. If you’re bad at managing people, my advice is that you hire people who are good a managing people and have those people report to you. At the same time, you probably want to minimize your number of directs. You might even consider keeping your org small and have a VP of Engineering report into someone else on the C-Staff for all things execution related. This will allow you to focus on your strengths which hopefully are technology roadmap/vision and selling that vision to customers.

haolez 6y ago
Those are exactly my strengths. Very insightful! Thanks a lot.

conductr 6y ago

Many CxO's have same problems. IT is hard to plan. Budgets are moving targets. I know this thread is about the opposite, but this is where I'd recommend someone at your level not try to become an expert budgeter. Find/hire a partner who is even if it's just on a CFO advisory level (can be a more junior person if it's just budgeting, planning, etc; CFO level if more strategic). Managing people is more of a craft. Approach it the way you would learn to build furniture as a hobby. Gradually over time through practice and experimentation acquiring tools for your shop along the way.

yowlingcat 6y ago

> I, for one, sometimes miss the knowledge that an MBA might give me. I'm a technical CTO and I have some trouble with long term planning, budget, managing people, etc. Is it your first time? If so, you would probably have similar growing pains MBA or not. Being a business conversant technical CTO is the kind of thing you only get good at by doing it.

haolez 6y ago
Yes. First time where I'm the CTO of a company, and not of a nano startup doomed to fail :)