External Areas of FocusAs you
look at the essay questions, you will notice that they focus
on a few basic types of questions. The answers to these
questions will hopefully, paint a picture of your potential
for success in business school and afterwards. I have chosen a
few of the most important questions below to examine:
- Why do you want an MBA? Why this school? Why now?
- Where have you exhibited leadership? What is your
leadership style?
- How do you function in a team environment? How have you
influenced people in a team environment?
- Where have you shown integrity and ethics in your
actions and decision making processes?
- What were the impacts from your contributions? Are they
relevant?
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I have already gone over the first question in the beginning
of this guide. After you read through the rest of this guide, you
will need to apply a theme and integrate your answers into why you
want an MBA. I will explain this in more detail later.
For
now, let¡¯s examine questions 2-5. These questions ask about the 4
external areas of focus which I describe below:
Leadership
Questions about leadership are widely
used in business school applications as most schools are looking for
someone who has proven leadership experience in the past. The key
point to remember here is that you don¡¯t have to be technically
appointed or be chosen a leader to display leadership. Many times,
your ability to become a leader informally has much more impact than
a mere appointment of a leadership position. Just keep in mind that
when you have an opportunity to take the lead on something, take it!
Teamwork
When thinking about team work, think
about your influence within a team. Do you keep the team together?
Do you facilitate communication within the team? Do you influence
other members of the team in a positive way? Good teamwork is not
just the individual efforts of each team member added together. Good
teamwork is when the synergies of the team enable the ultimate
outcome to be greater than that of each individual¡¯s work added
together. Put yourself in situations where you have the opportunity
to influence a team and make the outcome greater than the individual
contributions.
Integrity
Having integrity means
applying moral and ethical guidelines to your decision making
process. Ever since the Enron and Arthur Andersen scandals, business
ethics have become a key focus of many business schools. Good
business is not about making as much money as possible but doing
things that are ¡°right¡± for the company, shareholders, employees and
customers. You may also get asked, either in essays or interviews,
about how you handled an ethical dilemma. Everyone has faced
situations where you have to make choices between what you think is
ethically correct vs. perhaps something that positively affects the
bottom line of a business. Always consider the moral and ethical
impacts of your decisions and remember the situations that you had
to make those decisions.
Impact
In anything you
do, keep in mind the impact of your actions. You should prioritize
based on the impact and do things that require the least amount of
effort for maximum impact. In other words, you don¡¯t want to spend
months running a project that has very little impact to the business
or organization you are trying to help.
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