To grab your audience’s attention, you need to frame your message compellingly. Whether you’re making a presentation, writing an email, or pitching your proposal, here’s how to convey your idea more effectively: Continue reading
Category Archives: Leadership
We recently conducted some ground-breaking research into the real impact that the MBA has on ALL aspects of the lives of MBA students and graduates. Not only the impact on career advancement and remuneration, but also on personal aspects like outlook on life, self-belief, relationships, and so on. We also looked at the negative aspects and the sacrifices that students make in areas like marriage, sex life, stress, social life, etc. The fundamental question the research aimed to answer was: Is an MBA worth it? Continue reading
Curb Your Obsession for Work and MBA
This article also appeared in Finweek Magazine in their 9-December-2011 issue
Are you a Type-A personality focused on climbing the career ladder or getting top marks for your MBA? It’s destructive to obsess about your job (or your MBA for that matter), especially if other key areas of your life suffer such as your relationships and your health. Here are three tips to help you keep your passion under control: Continue reading
Mzansi Gold Entrepreneurial Finance Event: What a Day!
Thanks to everyone who came to our Mzansi Gold Entrepreneurial Finance event this weekend and for the great feedback. We had an incredible turnout despite the Currie Cup final and the Kings of Leon concert on the same day. Also a big thank you to our speakers for sharing their funding experiences. All in all it was a big success. We plan to do lots more like this to help raise awareness that angel funding is now an option for entrepreneurs in South Africa. Continue reading
The State of Entrepreneurship in South Africa Through the Eyes of Our Youth
In a recent survey commissioned by the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, our youth gave their perspectives on the state of entrepreneurship in South Africa. The eye-opening report at http://www.bransoncentre.org/SouthAfrica/young_upstarts_report.pdf shows that this area is in drastic need of improvement!
What can we do to fix this? Entrepreneurial role models and a positive national outlook have a vital role to play.
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The South African MBA – to be or not to be a Master’s?
You may have seen the recent article entitled “Honors Even” in Financial Mail about South African MBA degrees potentially being lowered to Honours level. (If not, take a look at the article on MBAconnect.net)
According to the article, Government’s Council on Higher Education (CHE), which accredits SA MBA programmes, has recommended that the MBA be considered no better than an honours degree or postgraduate diploma. Continue reading
Your Passion Can Be Your Poison
Passion is a vital trait for success, especially in entrepreneurs. But it can also be your downfall. Continue reading
Business Schools Teaching Entrepreneurship – is the Paradigm Broken?
Are there flaws in the models that business schools use to teach entrepreneurship? To unpack this question, one needs to go back to the origins of business schools and the MBA.
The first business schools like Wharton were formed in the late 1800’s to teach management. In fact the first MBA degree was offered in 1908. The fundamental challenge they aimed to solve was to train people how to manage a large corporate that needed to implement on a known problem, for example producing more cars. Continue reading
Hire your alter ego
This article also appeared in Finweek Magazine in their 6-September-2012 issue
Complementary skills are vital for your team to succeed. This sounds like a simple concept, but it’s much harder to get right in practice.
In my experience, I’ve seen that some entrepreneurs are ideas-people who are strong at conceiving ideas, whereas others of us are more operations/implementation-people who get things done. Very few individuals are both. You definitely need both skillsets to make a successful business happen. So if the entrepreneur doesn’t have both, you need to have someone on your team who has the skillset you lack.
Networking – How To Up Your Game
Gone are the days when hard work alone would get you the career advancement you wanted. In today’s connected world, everything hinges on networking and relationships. The bigger your network, the more doors to opportunities it can open for you.
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