The proposed Masters of Business Administration (MBA) course has, over the past year, amassed a huge amount of research regarding the potential of creating a Design MBA at Central Saint Martins.
We’ll be sharing with you some of the quotes we’ve gathered along the way, demonstrating that the idea of launching a business degree at an art school is very on point with MBA students, alumni, and business leaders. One of the subjects we tackled is that of how MBA graduates, past and present, should deal with flexibility and uncertainty. Here are some of the answers we received–we welcome your thoughts, comments and input via our survey.
• “Creativity. For the first time, in IBM’s survey of CEOs in 2010, a large number of them, around 60%, said that creativity and innovation was something they needed. There’s a huge knowledge base about design that has been absent from management education.” Management School Senior Academic, US
• “John Maeda says something like, ‘Artists ask question, technology creates possibilities, design creates solutions and leadership creates action’. That’s a summary of what an entrepreneur needs to cover.” MBA Alumnus
• “People need different ways of thinking in order to respond to the challenges of a no growth, no carbon society, dominated by non inclusive politics. I’m interested in design as a way of doing that, because designers use their brains laterally, contingently, accepting there is no one truth, accepting iterating as a methodology to move towards alternatives.” CSM Faculty Member
• “A focus on people’s experiences. I’ve realised from being in the entrepreneurial community in the Bay Area that user-centredness is so lacking in all aspects of business.” MBA Design Strategy Alumnus, US
• “Building organisation capable of innovating. The was for talent is expected to heat up for positions requiring high levels and more education.” GMAC 2013
• “Effective multi disciplinary building and working. Firms like GE, IBM and Philips are all struggling with talent and skills. The opportunity is to blend designers who are up-skilling to be equal and effective partners with marketing, engineering and new product development, and business and management people who want to access design innovation and creativity.” MBA Faculty Member, US
• “Design as a core managerial capability. Everything about a business has been designed: from how you answer the phone, to HR policy, to what the products and services are, to deciding what strategy to employ. And how they design is to look around, and find someone to rip off, which they call ‘best practice’. But that’s only relevant if what they do is sufficiently close to your situation to be applicable. If companies survive, it’s because they are unique. More and more, finding existing designs out there is not enough. You need to be capable of doing the activity. This is something that resonates with executives I talk to.” Management School Senior Academic, US
If you agree, or disagree, with any of these statements, you can have your input by filling out our survey–a very important step in the exciting development of this program.
More information:
CSM MBA
Stanford d.school
Innovation Management
Makerversity
ImpactHub
THNK School of Creative Leadership
KaosPilots