MBA-Lite

Marc Leenders admits his first foray into sales wasn’t graceful. After earning his economics degree from the University of Western Ontario, he moved to Edmonton and sold motorcycle parts as a district sales manager for a London, Ont., supplier, deciding to give himself five years to try to make a go of it. Despite struggling at first, he soon found his groove as a salesman, grew as a rep and, a decade later, left to start a new company for a shareholder of that London supplier. Today, Calgary-based Parts Canada serves 1,700 dealers as a national distributor of aftermarket parts and accessories for motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles.

Despite being vice-president of sales, Leenders has frequently toyed with the idea of returning to school for a master of business administration (MBA). Aside from hoping to hone business strategy skills, Leenders has always respected the importance of education. He comes by it honestly. His father has a business doctorate from Harvard and teaches at UWO’s Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont. But even dad questioned the need.

“My father said to me, ‘Why go back to do your MBA? You’re already on the path you want to be on and you can’t get any higher in your field,’” says Leenders.

Now married and with a little one – and already working 10-hour days – he can’t imagine missing out on tucking in his young son every night, let alone coming up with tuition. Instead, he has taken a more manageable approach to boosting his business acumen by taking management courses from UWO, immersing himself in business magazines and seeking out mentors.

Weighing time commitments of up to four years and tuition costs ranging from $20,000 to (if your goal is an executive MBA) $80,000 against the degree’s value to career advancement has students and those already in the workforce facing the same uncertainty as Leenders. Fortunately, getting ahead doesn’t necessarily mean putting life on hold and being buried in debt. Like Leenders has found, there are simpler alternatives to the MBA.

Internships, leadership courses, industry seminars, on-line courses or various programs offered by universities outside of workday hours are all being recognized by employers as valuable education options.

“Is an MBA useful?” asks Glenn Lesko, a senior recruiter with Edmonton’s Lock Search Group, and whose headhunting expertise lies in consumer goods and life sciences. “Of course. I’m an advocate of continual learning, but earning your MBA might not impact your earning potential right away. Five years down the road, it will pay big dividends, but early on at an entry-level sales-related position, the MBA is probably just a tie-breaker.” Managers, Lesko offers as example, take executive MBAs because they recognize that they may eventually hit a career plateau without such training.

“It’s all dependent on career motivation, succession expectations, geographic mobility and a few other factors,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree is an expected standard of entry… but the decision whether to earn an MBA requires more thought.”

That’s the decision Laura Montes weighed three years ago. She had just finished her master of biomedical technology from the University of Calgary, had some work experience in a microbiology lab and considered pursuing an MBA to learn more about the business development side of her field. But she didn’t know exactly what area she wanted to focus on and didn’t want to spend a lot of time and money trying to figure it out.

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