The New MBA in Reaching Women? A Master’s in Relevance
As we all wonder, and as the media is now digging for the whys and wherefores of our country/world’s sad financial situation, the issue of status-seeking-through-money keeps bubbling up. If the orientation of those involved in business and money-handling is, at its core, solely about making more and more, we pretty much set ourselves up for this moment. And, now, perhaps because the crisis serves as a worst case “inspiration” for finally taking a fresh look, a few business school professors pushing to add a little purpose and relevance into the “business administration” equation are being noticed. (Thank you, and who can we blame for not hearing their voices earlier…?) This makes me think of how so many brands were blind, but NOW they see the benefits in marketing to women. The recession has forced the issue.
Let’s look at the business school developments, first:
As Kelley Holland writes in the March 15th, New York Times, since stock price became the primary index of success in the 1970s, business schools have been very focused on churning out so-motivated managers. In this moment of dire reflection, however, highly regarded management professors are espousing a more values, purpose and relevance-oriented business education. Take Warren Bennis, a professor at the University of Southern California, for example, who Holland quoted as saying:
…that the schools suffer from “an overemphasis on the rigor and an underemphasis on relevance.”
Then, there’s Henry Mintzberg of McGill University, who also argues in that article that:
…because students spend so much time developing quick responses to packaged versions of business problems, they do not learn enough about real-world experiences.
And, finally, from David A. Garvin, a Harvard professor who co-developed a study on graduate student cheating (2006), and concurs:
“There is a need to broaden from the analytical focus of M.B.A. programs for more emphasis on skills and a sense of purpose and identity.”
There is definitely a parallel, slow-on-the-uptake environment in the marketing to women realm, as well. Does it take a crisis for the “big news” to be how marketing to women is suddenly important to brands? (If they’d been paying attention to the signs a few years back, there wouldn’t be a mad rush to figure out how to do it well now…) Have marketers for too long, been focusing on the way its always been done and the quick sale/immediate payback from any marketing campaign? Yes. That means they’ve missed serving a whole bunch of consumers who won’t respond to such methods, but are instead looking for longer term brand commitments to their particular priorities and lives. Many of those people are women.
Do you notice anything here? The need for relevance in MBAs or marketing is not any mind-blowing concept. It is just that all hell had to break loose before decision-makers in both realms could see the red words spray-painted on the wall: Deliver relevance!
Now, the rigor and analytics traditionally taught in business schools should by no means be wholly replaced by the softer side of values, purpose and non-financial results. Nor should the linear, traditional aspects of a marketing approach be set aside to focus only on the more relational, connecting aspects. But, those “softer” elements that have been bubbling up and being ignored – in both cases – for way too long, have come to call.
Your brand may be late to the game, and frantically scrambling for a reality check in this recession, but marketing to women has been quietly waiting for you. There’s no time like the present for relevance to get its due for reaching women (and the many men who are starting to think and buy like them). The new MBA is an MA in Relevance.
