Master class: Why do an executive MBA in Brussels?

In a rapidly changing world we need to learn all the time. Doing an executive master’s in business administration – an executive MBA – is a great way to do that without taking a break from your career.

“In the past, when you finished school you would apply most of your learning to your work,” explains John Metselaar, academic director of the MBA at Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. “Today, things are changing so fast that you need to both contribute and learn at the same time, so that learning is continuous. And when you do an MBA you make a step-change in that learning; you get a whole breadth of new skills.”

Executive MBAs are designed for people who already have a few years’ business experience, but want to change direction or develop in a particular way. They might want to move from a specific function in a company to a more general management position, or to update their skills and broaden their career options. Then there are entrepreneurs who dream of setting up companies, or have done so and need to know more in order to grow.

But these categories are not hard and fast. “We have people who start the MBA with the ambition of getting higher on the corporate ladder, but ultimately decide to do something for themselves,” says Koen Dewettinck, director of the executive MBA at Vlerick Business School, a joint venture between Ghent University and KU Leuven, which also operates in Brussels.

Executive MBA programmes are typically followed intensively for a year, or over 18 months. Participants gather once or twice a month for two days of classes, while carrying out assignments in between. They have to be committed, but an executive MBA should fit in with a full-time job.

The programmes at Solvay and Vlerick both emphasise the fundamentals of business education, from finance and accounting to general management and marketing. But they also prepare participants for a rapidly changing economy, driven by digital technologies.

“Companies used to set up strategies for three, five or ten years, but today the market changes so fast that you need to act and react much faster,” says Metselaar. “So we want to get our students ready for that, and making them versed in the core elementsof innovation in this new digital world is a big part of the programme.” Listening to the market is essential. “Today you need to teach students the agility to go out and to test things, to figure out what they really need to do in the future,” he goes on.

There are useful techniques to learn here, such as the lean start-up and the business pivot, but the right mind-set is just as important. One way Vlerick approaches this is through improvisation techniques, where performers must respond quickly to new situations.

“It’s about letting go of control sometimes, it’s about really listening to other people and building on their ideas rather than saying ‘Yes, but…’. And our participants like this a lot,” says Dewettinck.

The schools also teach a different kind of business leadership, which is less about command and more about engaging staff. “What you need to do as a leader is lift up everybody in the organisation,” says Metselaar. Where there is trust, for example, staff are more likely to propose the far-out ideas that may turn into innovative new businesses.

As for the digital economy, it’s important not to get hung up on hardware and software. “The technology is developed by individuals who have a focused expertise,” says Metselaar, “but the biggest challenge is what you do with that technology. How do you combine all the opportunities these new technologies offer into your leadership, culture, structure and systems such that it allows you to identify that attractive innovation that will ultimately translate into new business?”

MBA participants learn this through case studies, in class and in the field. Vlerick, for instance, takes its participants to Dublin to look into big data and digital transformation, and to Silicon Valley to think about scaling up a business. “That is also part of the new world,” says Dewettinck. “Scaling up now typically has the connotation of going global, while a few years ago that wasn’t the case.”

But the international dimension is never far away if you’re doing an MBA in Brussels. “We see a huge variety of cultures and countries represented,” says Dewettinck, “and that makes it a special and an interesting place to go for an MBA.”

Find your place in a changing world

It’s increasingly common to find people from the public sector or non-governmental organisations enrolled on MBAs alongside aspiring executives and entrepreneurs. One example is Paola Garcia Isaak, who is doing the executive MBA at Solvay Brussels School.

She works as a communications adviser at EASME, the European Commission’s agency for small and medium-sized enterprises. “Frankly speaking, the MBA is not specifically a prerequisite for my career advancement,” she says, referring to the rules for promotion within EU institutions. Instead, she enrolled to deepen her knowledge of the way business and society are changing, and to think about career opportunities that might present themselves in the future. “It’s about seeing what your place is in this changing world.”

With a recent master’s degree in digital communication she is well-versed in the digital world, but has discovered more traditional business skills. “I would never have thought that understanding a profit-and-loss statement was going to be so useful; the nuances of what you have to look into and what that tells you about a company.”

The MBA has also been enlightening on customer-centred service, which she has already applied in her work, and the mind-set necessary for effective innovation. Just when business is booming, that’s when you need to plan your next move.

“You can also apply that to the MBA,” she says. “It’s just when your career is fine, and you are successful, that you need to acquire new skills and invest in yourself.”

Step out of what you know to keep up

Lutz Walter’s motivation for enrolling in the executive MBA at Vlerick was to update the business management degree he completed in Germany two decades ago. “Knowledge, technology, and business and market developments are going so fast that you can’t say: I learned something fifteen to twenty years ago and I’ll just keep applying it. That doesn’t cut it any more.”

He currently works with the European Apparel and Textile Federation, a trade association based in Brussels, where he deals every day with research and innovation. But the breadth of knowledge he wants cannot be picked up on the job or through self-study. “You have to step out and be prepared to go more deeply than you could by simply reading or taking a quick course.”

He is particularly interested in learning about entrepreneurship, with an eye to helping people with innovative business ideas in the textile sector to start their own companies, and to grow his own business, which he created four years ago. “I have a lot of specific knowledge, so it’s more the generic skills needed to run your own company.”

While only a few months into the 18-month programme, he is already impressed that the group work is producing ideas with real business potential. “It’s fascinating that these things pop up, just like that, when you give a group of four or five people a task, ask them to be creative about it, and present something to the class an hour later.”

This article first appeared in ING Expat Time