The MFA is the New MBA

The MFA Is the New MBA

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PAUL MICHALMAN: Hello, this is Paul Michalman and I am joined today by Katherine Bell. Katherine is senior editor of Harvard Business Digital, and also the author of a recent post in our conversation starter blog entitled “The MFA is the New MBA.” Katherine, thanks for joining me.

KATHERINE BELL: Thanks for having me.

PAUL MICHALMAN: You bet. So Katherine, we’ve heard a lot over the years, and particularly recently, about the value that so-called right brained thinkers can bring to organizations. These are highly creative people who aren’t constrained by traditional business think, and who are often very valuable in a company’s innovation efforts, among other areas. But you’re taking this idea one big step further with your blog post, in which you suggest that the training that MFAs get, these are people pursuing Master’s of Fine Arts degrees, is actually very good business training. So to introduce us to this idea, tell us where it came from.

KATHERINE BELL: A few years ago, I quit my job as a manager at an internet company and moved to Iowa to do an MFA in fiction writing. For almost four years I wrote and taught and finished a novel. And when I came back to work afterwards, I was really surprised to find that I was actually a better manager than I had been before that, even though I’d been spending so much time by myself.

I think they’re really two things that writing fiction, and also teaching fiction, really taught me. The first is persuasion. If you can create a world, a completely imaginary world that a reader believes in, you can manage to do pretty much any persuasion that you have to do in the business world. A PowerPoint presentation is nothing after that. Also, the most important thing that a fiction writer does is put him or herself in the shoes of his characters. And that’s really empathy, which is something that is absolutely crucial in business as well. You’re constantly needing to think about things from the perspective of your direct reports, of your boss, of your colleagues, and, importantly, also of your customers.

PAUL MICHALMAN: OK, thanks. So you list two really important personality traits. Persuasion, or the ability to persuade, and having empathy. Which are obviously critically important for any manager. In your blog post you also list four very specific lessons that you think MBAs can learn from MFAs. So why don’t we walk through those. The first is how to take criticism.

KATHERINE BELL: Right. This is something that you learn very, very quickly in a writers’ workshop. The workshop setup is very different from most classroom situations. It’s a lot like what you see in art schools or architecture schools with the crit. What happens is that the student brings a piece of work that is a draft, and the rest of the class and the professor has read it ahead of time, and then discusses it in front of the student. So it’s a very scary situation your first time going through this. I mean, when you’re dealing with creative work it’s very, very close to you. You’re about at your most vulnerable when you’re putting forth something that is from that deep inside you and that you’ve created. And that you know isn’t finished. You know that there are flaws with it.

The great thing about the writers’ workshop is that for teachers who handled them well, set expectations up front that everybody is dealing with drafts that are not finished, and what we’re doing as a group is a collaborative effort is trying to make this piece of creative work better. And I had one professor, his name was Frank Conroy. He was the director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for many years. He was a brilliant professor. Very scary to many people because he was a very harsh critic, but in my experience he set the expectations so clearly at the beginning that he said, none of you would be here if I didn’t think you were amazing writers. But all writers write bad things a lot of the time. And he would give examples of F. Scott Fitzgerald writing crap after a hangover. But he would take everything on its own terms. He would look at what was on the page, it was never personal. It was always about the work. And so, knowing that, I found it much easier to take the criticism.

The other thing was that you really had to learn how to give criticism in a way that people could perceive it and actually hear it. And that’s a skill that is very valuable in the business world, as well. And I think I find, and I’ve found in many of my jobs, that people tend to be very sensitive about taking criticism. I really have seen myself have a different attitude about it personally in my own jobs because of my experience in the MFA program. I really seek criticism. I love it because I know that it makes my work better. And I don’t take it personally.

PAUL MICHALMAN: It sound to me like what you’re saying is that context for both giving and receiving criticism is essential. When you’re giving criticism you’ve got to set the context as your professor did, saying, it’s already established that I think you are excellent, but everybody can improve. And then you’re receiving that feedback in a similar context. Is that right?

KATHERINE BELL: That’s absolutely right. The other thing that is very useful is, in thinking about how this might apply to a business context, is that we also tried very hard not to be prescriptive in our advice. So we would respond to the work as a reader and say, this is how I’m reacting to this. This is where I’m confused. This is where I am having this kind of reaction. This is where I have no idea what’s happening, or I don’t understand the character. And then let the writer, who is the creative owner of the work, come up with a solution for that. I think that’s really useful as a manager in terms of giving advice to employees, that you let them come up with the response. You provide the feedback, they provide the solution.

PAUL MICHALMAN: Great. So the second point you make in your blog post is that MFAs have a lot to teach MBAs about what motivates people.

KATHERINE BELL: Right. This goes back to my point about empathy. It’s really important to be able to think about things from somebody else’s perspective. And this is why I think fiction is such a useful world to live in as a business person. Because what a writer does, and what a reader does really, is try to understand people. And that’s really what management is all about. It’s also what customer service is all about. And what product creation is all about. And that’s why I was really surprised when I came back out of sitting all day by myself in my office writing a novel, and back into the working world, to realize that my management skills had actually grown much stronger in that time, rather than weaker, even though I’d been spending a lot of time alone. And I think part of that is because when I was writing a novel, for example, I was doing a lot of managing people. They were imaginary people, but I was managing them.

Writers always talk about how there’s a point when you’re writing, a novel especially, where your characters really take on a life of their own and they become real people. That’s the amazing thing about humans, is that when you aggregate a number of human characteristics into a character, they come to life. And, I mean, that’s the difference between good and bad fiction, good and bad movies. Once a character comes to life, even if you’re the novelist, you’re not the god in control of that character. That character will refuse to do things and will want to do things that you maybe are surprised by or don’t expect. And then sometimes it can be very inconvenient. But you really have to think about why they’re doing what they’re doing in order to know what they’re going to do next. And I think that’s something that is very useful for understanding, again, both your customers and your employees.

PAUL MICHALMAN: OK. Lesson three from an MFA is how to engage your audience.

KATHERINE BELL: This is another one that I think is really relevant, especially to today’s world. Consumers now want experiences. They want to be involved. They want their identity to be aligned with the products they’re choosing. They want to be engaged. And knowing how to actually make it a two-way conversation, I think is really important.

And again, the writer’s position is a good metaphor because the writer never comes into contact with the reader. On the face of it, it looks like a very one-way street. That the writer is writing, the reader is consuming, and there’s no back and forth. It’s the same thing when you think about business and the customers being pretty distinct from each other. And the business is creating something that the customers are consuming. But really, imaginatively, it’s a back and forth. And I think the same is true in terms of the way that people consume products and the way that people imagine the products, and imagine your brand, and contribute back to it.

PAUL MICHALMAN: OK. Point three. MFAs can teach us a lot about how to engage an audience.

KATHERINE BELL: One thing a writer learns pretty early on is that readers are really active participants in the imaginative process of creating the world of a novel or of a story. The reader wants to be involved. And I think this is something that is incredibly important in today’s economy, what many people are now calling the experience economy, where consumers don’t want to just be handed a product. They actually want to experience that product fully. They want to participate in the creation of the product, in terms of customization at times. And also, they want to be able to have a conversation with the company, have a conversation with the ideas of the brand. I think that’s something that is now, more than ever, really important to understand.

PAUL MICHALMAN: OK. This point strikes me as just slightly ephemeral. Are there any companies you can cite who you think do this well and help bring this to life?

KATHERINE BELL: Well, I think a lot of companies at the moment are doing this in a very direct way by actually engaging the customers in product development in terms of idea generation right up front. So Dell is a company that’s doing that with their IdeaStorm online, where they actually solicit ideas from customers, and then sometimes go ahead and actually create products.

PAUL MICHALMAN: Great. OK, your final point, and my favorite, is MFAs can teach us a lot, and particularly fiction writers can teach us a great deal, about how to let go, and when to let go, of very good ideas.

KATHERINE BELL: This is really about revision. As a writer, you have to learn to be absolutely ruthless about revision. The key point is that it’s not just about getting rid of the pieces or the parts of what you’re working on that aren’t working. Sometimes there are really good ideas, really beautiful phrases, for example. Or a really great feature on a product that you’re developing that you kind of fall in love with, and you don’t want to let go of them. They may be a really good idea. And you need to know when they don’t fit. Sometimes they just don’t fit in the piece you’re working on at the time. And they get in the way. And they mean that you don’t see the bigger solutions.

And one thing that I’ve really found when I was writing, when I would notice things like that that I thought were kind of, I was clinging to, as soon as I knew I was clinging to something too hard I would know that I had to consider letting it go. And in those cases it can be really hard to imagine letting it go forever. Plus, it’s a good idea. So the key thing there is to not think about deleting it permanently, but to rather cut and paste it. So if it’s a product, there might be an aspect to it that just doesn’t work this time. But maybe will work in another iteration, or maybe will work for a different product, or maybe it will completely change itself and become a different idea in the future. But never completely delete your ideas. Just save them in a separate place and go back to them later.

PAUL MICHALMAN: OK, Katherine Bell, thank you very much. To read more about Katherine’s ideas and to get involved in the conversation about how the MFA is the new MBA, you can visit the conversation starter blog at harvardbusiness.org.

Next up, Harvard Business Review communications director Kathy Olofson sits down with the editor Tom Stewart for a preview of the May 2008 issue of the magazine.

KATHY OLOFSON: Hi, this is Kathy Olofson. I’m talking today with Thomas Stewart, editor of the Harvard Business Review, about highlights of the May 2008 issue. May features an article by professors Byron Reeves, Thomas Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll on the rise of multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft as training grounds for the next generation of leaders. The authors’ research shows that players hone skills that serve them well in the real world, and more importantly that game environments foster more effective leadership. Tom, it seems unlikely that these players who are assuming the roles of dwarves and warriors and elves are actually developing real life leadership skills.

THOMAS STEWART: It does seem odd, but step back and think about how the workplace itself is changing. More work is being done by global teams that are assembled for specific projects, decision making is increasingly scattered throughout organizations in order to enable rapid response to change, interaction is increasingly digital rather than face to face. So these multiplayer role-playing games are actually becoming important at a time when the requirements for leadership are changing. They kind of match up with them.

Games like World of Warcraft and Everquest in EVE Online, they’re not just play, they’re worlds away from traditional video games. And they’re also not unlike work. This is a world that involves more than just a few geeks. There are tens of millions of players, many of them probably playing these games, doing this stuff at lunch, on their computers in your offices right now. Players face organizational and strategic challenges. They have to be top notch, which they do. They can spend upwards of 400 hours playing to reach the highest levels, more time then they’re probably spending in any development programs you’re giving them through the HR department. And while they vary in themes, these games are similar in structure. Forty to 200 players form a team to take on increasingly difficult tasks, and those earning them the skills to go on to ever more difficult task as they advance to the top levels.

Now, there is an analogy to work here, but it’s not a perfect analogy to business. First of all, the stakes are lower, the problems are often strictly defined, goals are usually specified. Also, the vast majority of players in these games are men. And the metaphor is more usually war than it is cooperation. But the principal findings of the authors is that players who lead teams in these online worlds do indeed hone skills that they will need as business leaders in the future.

The authors identified three distinctive ways in which these online leadership labs develop skills. Speed, risk-taking, and acceptance of leadership roles as temporary. And that’s kind of interesting. The idea that leadership is temporary is alien to most businesses. Companies usually identify people’s leaders early in their careers, they dub thee knight and off you go to the executive suite. But the growing complexity of business means that no single leader will be an expert in every area. Increasingly, what we’re seeing is what Warren Bennis once, years ago, talked to me as floating Crap games of project teams that come together, disband, and come back together with different leadership and different leaders, depending on the situation that they face. So this is a really interesting way in which people are developing leadership skills that they will be using in the workplace tomorrow.

KATHY OLOFSON: Tom, one of the findings that most surprised the authors is the idea that getting the leadership environment right can be as important as choosing the right leaders. What do they mean by that?

THOMAS STEWART: Well, what they meant is that organizations can benefit by selectively game-ifying the work environment. In other words, there are aspects of online games that you can borrow and instill in the workplace now. For example, incentives. In one online game, members can collect dragon kill points that provide an immediate incentive to achieve group aims. The corollary in business would be to pay out a bonus as soon as a project is successfully completed, until waiting to the end of the fiscal year. As the authors point out, some elements of games that can be incorporated into business now that enhance not just leadership, but also innovation and collaboration.

KATHY OLOFSON: It’s fascinating. OK, let’s move on to another article in the May issue. It’s written by Jean-Pierre Garnier, the outgoing CEO of drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline. The article is called “Rebuilding the R&D Engine in Big Pharma.” And it takes a very hard look at the declining fortunes of drug companies and how the industry can turn itself around. Tom, can you tell us about it?

THOMAS STEWART: Well, for decades big pharma companies were the greatest of all great growth stocks. But starting in about the year 2000, from 2000 til today, the top 15 companies in the industry have lost roughly $850 billion in shareholder value. A lot of observers think that large pharmaceutical companies are dinosaurs doomed to be replaced by the more nimble biotech sector. And Garnier indeed acknowledges that the industry is struggling from what he calls an innovation malaise. And certainly the stock market proves it out. They’ve hit a perfect storm of trends. Pricing pressure, skyrocketing costs, tough regulatory requirements, generics, globalization, and more.

The root of the industry’s problem, according to Garnier, is R&D productivity. The industry’s collective investment in R&D from 1980 to 2006, ballooned from $2 billion a year to $43 billion. But the number of drugs approved the FDA in 1980 and in 2006 was roughly the same. Garnier says that the way to restore productivity is to return power to the scientists, which is not as simple as it sounds.

In 2000, GlaxoSmithKline undertook a dramatic re-engineering of its R&D. It replaced traditional organizational pyramid, with 12 centers of excellence each built around a family of related diseases like Alzheimer’s and neurological diseases. They removed layers of management, they overhauled incentives, like rewarding scientists now immediately when a potential drug reaches the proof of concept stage, and the results so far are pretty compelling. I mean, when the company began to re-engineer its R&D, it had only two products in late stage development. Today it has 34, the most in its history.

KATHY OLOFSON: Garnier is stepping down as CEO at the end of May. What are the major challenges that his successor Andrew Witty will face?

THOMAS STEWART: Well, Witty himself, and I think all big pharma, are going to face this real pressure of driving R&D productivity up. It’ll be interesting to see whether Witty follows up on some of Garnier’s more radical proposals. For example, he suggested abandoning the pursuit of the instant blockbuster. And Garnier says that there might be progressive blockbusters that would be a better way of developing drugs by targeting a limited segment of potential patients and then expanding to other segments. Garnier thinks companies can simplify and speed up product development. But as Garnier admits, this would require a much more ambitious reinvention of the clinical stage of R&D and companies may not be ready for it yet.

KATHY OLOFSON: Thanks, Tom. Check out the full May issue of Harvard Business Review at www.hbr.org.