Never Stop Learning: conceptual reasoning

Never Stop Learning

The most important skill we teach in our MBA programme is "thinking," a skill refined with practice, just like riding a bike or learning to play a musical instrument. We emphasize conceptual reasoning as a central theme across all of our courses (along with character) and as the foundation for independent, lifelong learning: it works like this.

We ask students to interact with a relevant professional or academic literature (e.g., marketing, finance, sustainability), so they ground their thinking in a respected body of knowledge accumulated over time. This is in contrast to relying on the experiences of one lifetime, a very small N of observations leading to faulting reasoning. We teach our students to analyze (not read descriptively) each article or assigned chapter to grasp how the author defines core concepts and the logic he or she constructs. Note, this expedites their reading. They learn to interact with a literature (any literature) and critique the coherence of logic / arguments presented, a valuable skill. This grounding in a professional literature offers a firm foundation; our student's ability to critique logic enables them to additively advance knowledge; and their ability to reason through concepts enhances the integrity of their own arguments, either in writing or in-class discussions.

Then, our students distinguish between (1) grounding their thinking in an established body of knowledge, and (2) using of this knowledge in analyzing data, with data defined as written case studies, live cases (real corporate clients) and personal experiences. The body of knowledge they bring to data analyses allows our students to impose a structure on noisy data, with noise defined as opinion, irrelevant observations, faulty reasoning, and so forth. And the structure they impose drives the analyses they conduct to address critical questions informing solutions to the complex problems businesses face. In the most elaborate extension of this reasoning ability (e.g., our capstone 540 consulting engagement), our students gather hard (e.g., financial or operating numbers) and qualitative (e.g., industry expert interviews) data to support the construction of a well-crafted, coherent argument backed by data supporting their reasoning.

It is my opinion (N of some number of observations) that many academics and practitioners lack the discipline to think powerfully, as I have just described. And, I would argue that the value of an advance degree like the MBA comes from improving the students' reasoning abilities, a skill that generalizes well to any applied context...and lasts a lifetime. Go ahead, critique my argument.