Doing Social Good As An MBA

How MBAs Should Prepare for Automation

Technology and automation are increasingly making their way into nearly every industry. The future of tech leaves business leaders with a tough decision about whether to cut jobs or train their staff to work with automation.

Oxford University researchers predict that 47% of US jobs will be replaced through automation.

The Tough Decision

Andrew Hill, management editor at Financial Times, argues in an op-ed piece that business leaders need to not simply create more jobs, but better jobs.

“Job numbers alone are an increasingly crude barometer of economic health. For workers under pressure from changing technology and globalization, a new measure is required, based on job quality as much as job quantity,” Hill writes.

In a Poets & Quants article, Zach Mayo – chief operating officer of MBA hiring marketplace

RelishCareers, says that while automation won’t likely affect job prospects for MBAs, it will directly affect workers under their management.

“While MBA orthodoxy dictates that managers should always err on the side of operational efficiency, there will come in a time in the not-so-distant future when replacing workers with robots en masse will have profound effects on both a micro business level as well as a macro societal level,” Mayo writes.

The decision seems far away, yet Mayo stresses the importance of managing for an uncertain world. How does one do that? Mayo argues that it starts with how and what business students learn in business school.

“The holistic approach to business that is taught in most MBA programs can offer valuable perspective on these issues, but business schools and MBAs both will need to be ready to adapt traditional rules of business to a brave new world of rapid technological change,” Mayo writes. “How well they handle this transition might just determine whether the rise of robots will represent a boon or a burden for society in the 21st century and beyond.”

Preparing Workers for Automation

In his FT article, Hill talks to Rick Wartzman, author of The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America. Wartzman argues that business managers will need to figure out how to reposition workers to fit automation and maximize effectiveness. “Doing an across-the-board cost-cutting exercise isn’t management,” Wartzman tells Hill.

Another responsibility Hill highlights in his piece is the need for educating workers. He calls it “ground-level digital education.” Wartzman says it will be essential to change the model of learning to one that offers lifelong learning opportunities.

“Ideally, this should happen on the job, rather than after redundancy, when the efficacy of retraining may be undermined by the general lack of opportunities, as happened to Janesville’s unemployed car workers in the depths of the 2008-09 recession,” Hill explains in his article.

How MBAs will Prepare for Automation

MBAs themselves also need proper education to prepare for automation. Since skillsets such as building spreadsheets will be out powered by robots, Mayo argues that MBAs should focus on building interpersonal skills, or “soft skills.”

“Soft skill classes can often seem trivial or unimportant in comparison to the academic rigor of quantitative disciplines, but absorbing and implementing lessons from those courses will be the primary way in which the MBAs of tomorrow demonstrate true value to their employers and ensure the continued viability of their careers,” Mayo writes.

Sources: Financial Times, Poets & Quants, Oxford University