Why an MBA after PhD?

Or, why an MBA when you have a good career going on right now with PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering?

These are the questions I have been facing consistently in the past few months, since I had decided to resign my job as a professor/researcher and join Kellogg School for my full-time MBA program. These were the questions put to me not only by the Kellogg admissions interviewer, but also by several friends, colleagues, family members, and now by several fellow students at Kellogg. Of course, I could sense that many who asked me were doing so more out of curiosity and amazement than out of any intention to discourage me.

Every time the questions were put to me, I think I was able to justify the purpose. But then, I could not help myself wondering what ultimately am I looking for here in my journey in this new area.

As it is hard for someone, who had lived his/her entire life in only one small region or even in one country, to visualize the life in other parts of the world and it is difficult to understand and appreciate the culture, the beliefs, and the lifestyle of people from other far away places, it is natural for people in very different fields of research and management to not understand each other's work culture, style, and purpose.

But for me, who has just stepped out of the field of research after an intense twelve years of constant exploration and publication and entered the field of management, it feels that I am only travelling within the same world from only one hemisphere to the other. As one develops a global perspective after travelling to distant and distinct places, I too hope to attain more clarity in what I vaguely sense for now that I am only travelling from one hemisphere of research career into an another hemisphere of management field, and that they are not two different worlds but are only two hemispheres of the same world.

As I face the question of why an MBA degree after a PhD and a long career of research in technology, something struck me in my very first week at Kellogg. The very first case study that we did in the first week of very first course (Leadership in Organizations) was the analysis of the decision process at NASA that led to the disaster of the Challenger space shuttle launching in 1986, and the very next case study we did in the same week was about the decision process at NASA that led to the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003.

Come to think of it, the people at NASA involved in these decision making processes were the smartest people with highest technical calibre and with advanced degrees in Engineering and Sciences. Yet, the post-mortem of the process revealed flaws in the decision making at various levels. It showed how engineers/scientists, however smart they are, are unaware of their own flaws in the decision making process. So, I believe the analyses justify even more why a researcher/scientist with a PhD must have a good understanding about leadership and decision making, especially if that someone is bound to lead organizations and make critical decisions. Take my word, attributes necessary for providing good leadership and making sound decisions are not taught in most engineering or science programs.

So, my new journey has begun and I look forward to travelling through the many horizons in this new hemisphere.