As nearly 50% of Fortune 1000 C-suite executives tout an MBA, it’s clear that a strong education can lay the foundation for a successful business. Many executives feel the lessons they learned in school follow them throughout their careers, and for seasoned South African CEO Mark Lamberti, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.
Receiving his MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand before being conferred his doctorate in business administration from the University of Pretoria earlier this year, Lamberti has spent his nearly 40-year career in constant pursuit of knowledge and recently spoke to students of the Wits Business School about how to leverage their higher education into career success.
Preparing Your Future:
In addition to what you’re taught in the classroom, the structure, scale, and pace of graduate school can teach you a lot about yourself, preparing you for high-stakes leadership positions by honing your approach to challenges and extending the threshold of your abilities.
“Those of you who are doing MBAs will know that the volume is almost overwhelming,” Lamberti says. “Any one subject on its own is not that challenging. But together, they get you to understand how much you can absorb, how fast you can read, and how much your mind can imbibe. It was a life-changing experience, for sure, in terms of understanding oneself.”
“I think the general takeaway from the MBA is that those of you who will graduate shortly, will walk out of here with a toolbox,” he continues.
By providing a depth of knowledge in a variety of crucial subjects and disciplines, Mark Lamberti believes that graduate school encourages individuals to view problems and opportunities from a holistic perspective—a particular benefit to entrepreneurs and business leaders whose approach must be all-encompassing.
“The thing that you’ll take from an MBA, unlike a master’s degree in a specific discipline, is the integration of all the facets of business leadership” he attested. “That’s what the purpose of an MBA is, so that you’re not just siloed or functional, you’re saying, “How do I integrate all of these subjects into the running of a business?” And I think that’s what you come away with in general.”
Providing the Tools:
While running a business is often riddled with unpredictability, a robust education also offers tools that can be leveraged in unexpected or advantageous situations. Lamberti’s own career is a testament to this, as he founded Massmart in 1988 – Africa’s second-largest retail distributor when it was acquired by Walmart in 2009 – using the insights he acquired from his MBA thesis.
As Lamberti describes it, his research into the rarely used science and theories of store location created a basis for a low risk strategy to expand and acquire new storefronts in areas with viable population densities, transforming six failing Makro stores into the multi-million dollar 248 store conglomerate of Massmart. “Having a theoretically based formula for knowing the location and size of viable stores enabled extraordinary organic and acquisitive growth, which carried on for 19 years. This was a direct consequence of my MBA.”.”
Not everyone’s education will lead them to running multi-million dollar businesses, but graduate school, and particularly the case study method, can provide you with the tools to understand that business successes and failures – can both be treated as a leadership lesson.
“I have no regrets because all the mistakes were an occasion to learn. They were an occasion to say, what did I do wrong there? What do I have to do differently in the future? So I think this whole notion of seeing business failure as a learning experience is important. We can only claim ‘20 years of experience’ when we have interpreted the successes and failures of every year. Without this we don’t have 20 years of experience, just one year of experience 20 times over.” remarked Mark Lamberti.
“Business failure is part of what Schumpeter called “creative destruction”. Some businesses fail, as a step towards the next innovation So don’t take it too personally. It may not be you. And anyway it’s just a business,” he continued.
Read more Mark Lamberti interviews here: https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/articles-interviews/chain-reaction-obg-talks-to-mark-lamberti-ceo-imperial-holdings-interview
