Master of Management

Jennifer Parcell 00:04
Can you take us through how the master of management works? It works very hard to master management is actually a bit of a misnomer. You're not going to master management at any stage. I don't think I think you'd become expert, however, in asking questions, and penetrating questions. So what I'm trying to encourage you to think about is, in terms of why would you want to take on management? And why would you want to take on a postgraduate degree in Management, or management is one of those incredibly vexed spaces, we can be very critical of management, justifiably, because sometimes it looks as though it's a self serving activity, it's only interested in what management wants. But once you had a chance to engage with management, in the postgraduate level, you start asking more important questions, what's the role of management? What's the public role of management? What is the nature of its accountabilities and responsibilities. And once you get out of that space, all of a sudden you there's a, there's a humility that kicks in, and a curiosity. And I hope that that's something which will come through this evening, both a humility about the role it has to play, it's vital, and a and a curiosity about how it can be influenced. So in other words, we are not trying to get you to become a master of management, what we're trying to do is encourage you into becoming an expert in asking questions about management, for your practice. And that's a difference of a significant scale.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 01:38
I'm very happy to expand on the differences between the masters of management and the MBA, we'll get to that in due course. But I do want to emphasise, you're not going to be considered a Master, I don't think anybody seriously imagines themselves as masters. What it really refers to and this is important, is it's different to the bachelor, bachelor degree, at level seven and much call the Australian Qualifications Framework, level seven. That's just that's an international standard, then it moves to Level Nine of the masters level. Now the what's significant about the masters level, it's different to the undergraduate. And we'll get into more detail about that later. But the higher level of achievement is means that there's significant complexity, and I'll expand on that as we go. Okay, well, maybe we can talk about some of the options of in terms of what you can actually study under the broad spectrum of the master of management, let's start on the right hand side there. Because if you're thinking about doing a master's degree, we would encourage you to see these various stages, the very first stage look upon it as being a graduate certificate, it's the introduction to the master's degree. And there are some core subjects for very, very fundamental and basic, as in simplistic, they are fundamentally a foundations if you like. And so there's four subjects that you would do the graduate certificate, then you move into higher level level up and you do a little bit more at the graduate diploma level, and into the Masters, you'll see how it moves from four subjects to eight subjects, to 11 subjects. And then there's an extension, which you can, you can consider to take up by either doing some significant research into one organisation, or some other electives. We can talk about that a little later. But there's what I really wanted to draw attention to is, it's a 72 credit points process to get to the masters level. Think about it in terms of steps, graduate certificate, Graduate Diploma, and then masters. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think sometimes, you know, taking on a master's straight on can seem a little bit daunting. But as you mentioned, you can take bytes and you know, make sure that you're liking it and getting something out of it and keep going with that. Keep going Keep going. Yeah. And like Christina is we'll get to your keep going after the masters.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 04:09
Exactly. But if you start on that left hand side, the graduate certificate, there are four basic, basic in the sense of foundational subjects, and it's worthwhile looking at what they are. The first one has got an unusual word and it hasn't stewardship. And that goes to what we tried to say about the whole of the business faculty, that we are very, very serious about the concept of stewardship, meaning custodianship, that's what it means. That means we are custodians of public trust. So when we start to we're managing and leading, we we open up and say it's not out of control situation, it's about doing things in a way that is warranting respect of public, the public about how we treat people and how we treat the environment. Managing change, sustainability and And then multicultural global world, you can see how all of those are related stewardship, change sustainability and multicultural the other foundations. And then there's the development beyond that into the Graduate Diploma, where we pick up some of the important kind of literacies needed to be able to negotiate your way through what's expected of you, and what we are aiming to cultivate within you. So you'll notice that I've used the word cultivate for a couple of reasons. Basically, the word cultivate says we're not saying that there is a certain number of things that you must know and remember, and repeat back to us, which is what you did when you were at school, cultivate means no, you've got you've got worldly experience, what we're trying to do is to get you to think a little more comprehensively a little more deeply. And but you still need to be able to pick up some skills along the way, that are not just getting the job done. But also to be able to think more comprehensively wider perspectives, beyond business, business in society, not simply business alone. And that's a topic that you will see being emphasised throughout the whole business school, it's a business for society, then ended on a master's degree you pick up on your notice that word is global, as opposed to international. And that's a very important point. Because if it was international, it would simply be developed world. And if we talk about the developed world, we ignore two thirds of humanity. So we are talking about global world as opposed to the international management world. And we know what that's like. Now, there's a series of options that you can see that are available to you beyond the masters to go into the extension. Or you can go into, as I mentioned at the outset, or a significant research opportunity for those of you considering, and there will be hopefully a number of you. When you get to that point, you think well, my options, what are my options do I go into, into a further into research, you might want to get a taste of it here. Or you might want to think about other options, which is what Christine represents. That's the structure.

Jennifer Parcell 07:09
And I believe we've got mentioned at the bottom there electives, do you have any, I guess examples of what types of subjects or where some of those electives could come from? Is it free choice, or there's a bit of a guide within the business

Dr. Walter Jarvis 07:25
is very much open, we, you know, we will be encouraging, I don't know what other other academics would say I'm pretty much the same as I would I think that we would encourage people to broadly look across the university, not simply confined yourself to what the business school offers. In fact, you know, if I have to discipline myself at this point, if if push became shove, I'd be saying, Please do more. But don't do it out of the business school, we're gonna do more humanity's going to do more of the the subjects which help you understand what it is to be a citizen, what it is to be part of the world, as opposed to simply being more business subjects. But that depends on your background and your interest. But you've got an options there. What I'm trying to say, Jennifer, there are options across the university, as well as available within the business school.

Jennifer Parcell 08:12
Excellent. And I guess I've kind of started to kick off a little bit in terms of asking some of the common questions that we have, such as what the electives are. But I think that pretty much covers, as you mentioned, the rough structure and some of the basic components that make up the master of management. So what I might do is stop sharing and open it up to some questions. So as we mentioned, if you do have questions, by all means, please pop them in the q&a section. But what I might do for now is just go through some of the common questions that we get from time to time from prospective students. Now fairly topical, I suppose at the moment monitor I might throw this to you, although Ben and Chris, I'd love to hear your experience. And that is, how is the course delivered? Is it online face to face a combination? And sort of what what I guess are the current situation and what do we think will be happening in future?

Dr. Walter Jarvis 09:12
Well, we are in transition. We've been in SB everybody knows we've been in zoom mode for the last two and a half years. So that means of course, that it's imposed its own limitations and opportunities, not saying it's all been bad. But what makes such a difference is being able to get face to face on campus and have an opportunity to share and a remarkable building extraordinary building that we have and the facilities that it offers. So from next semester from from Spring, we're in the process of moving back on campus, so we're expected to be able to have a look at some of the lectures may will be recorded and go available. line, but we're seeking to have our tutorials as much as we can face to face on campus. That's the That's the plan anyway. But look, the one thing to emphasise, too, though, Jennifer is why even UTS be rather than we think about, you know, do I come on campus or not? I want to emphasise UTS as a business school for good. Now, that sounds cliche, you know, in 2022, that sounds cliche, I have to tell you that represent that statement of the Business School for Good in what Jennifer read out about the vision and the values. And purpose of a bit of being a public university is something that is clearly important to all of us. It's a break from very considerable break from the traditional approaches to business education. And you that was the reason why I was saying, look at that strange word at the top of the tree there. The first word is stewardship, you would not find the word stewardship being used, other than perhaps in accounting, where they're talking about the protection of assets. But we're not talking about that we are engaged in building a reputation, not for the business school, but for our graduates who will have an influence in the business world. And in the organisation world, I don't want to confine it to business like the people in interested in not for profit, they're also interested in not for loss, that they're that they're not for profit. So there's a spectrum. So it's enterprise's rather than simply business. And its determination to find ways to encourage students to inspire students really seriously to inspire people to make a difference to the world by developing the confidence and the skills necessary to not impact imposed, but to cultivate discussion and debate about the sorts of things that the broader public is looking for. So that's that first part, which is, you know, would you want to do that online? Now you can, because we didn't have much choice. The more we get into the classroom, the morning you have internet interconnections, the more we listen to each other, the more perspectives and this will be a theme that will come through more and more, I hope I'm no it will, the more we hear opposing points of view, and are able to engage with those opposing points of view, not alone in our views of defeat, but to expand out our perspectives, so that we can engage with people who don't agree with us, we've got to find ways to ensure that we don't simply disappear back into our little bubbles, where it's all comfortable, and everybody's nice to each other and the outside world is the enemy. It's too easy. And it's not very mature. And certainly not consistent with the level of education that we are seeking to encourage people into at the postgraduate.

Jennifer Parcell 12:51
Oh, well, I think the next one I'll throw to both Ben and Chris. And that is, I guess, can you tell us a little bit about your experience, we can obviously see Walter is very passionate, which is a fantastic thing. All of our academics hopefully have that. And that's been your experience. But more broadly, what's been your experience of the course working and learning from academics and other students in your course?

Benjamin Dooley 13:13
Yeah, I'll go first, if you don't mind. And filter is very enthusiastic about it. And I think that's what it was actually leading the first class that I took online, unfortunately, for me, because I'm pretty social. And I would have loved to still meet him. And I'm sure I will shortly. But let that fire and I'm glad, Walter that you also spoke about the UTS being a good business school or socially good business school, however you referred to it. And it's, it does sound a little bit cliche, yes. Until you do Walters classes and you, you have no idea how relevant that is to to business and how important that is to business. It doesn't matter if it's my position, Chris's position or Walters position anybody in any any sort of business is going to benefit from those sorts of classes. And I'm in a unique position at the moment where I'm actually closing to facilities for large logistics company. I mentioned that earlier. But at first like before, taking those classes, I was just thinking, Oh, it's business didn't really care about the human element so much. It's just business, just business, just business versus do this. After those classes, my whole attitude has changed. And I'm actually employing a few roles. I've got six team leaders and the shift manager role that I'm looking for at the moment and even looking for the people that I'm going to put into those positions. I'm actually reaching out to the business school for a little bit of help to see if there's any support they can give me to find those students that work that word that are also speaking about but I think given the class that I was taking, I didn't really need to take an MBA, I mean a rather senior position. I've got two of my own companies and financially pretty good and took it for different reasons and whatnot, but to reflect on my experience so far. It has been so relevant in so important for what I think business can be. Liked word, use the word should that like lunch with too much, but what business should be?

Jennifer Parcell 15:13
Fantastic and sounds like, as we mentioned, you've been able to apply your learnings through the course to your actual extremity?

Benjamin Dooley 15:23
Absolutely.

Dr. Christine Yates 15:24
Yeah, maybe I'll just pick up. So I really started my education or my education journey. My undergrad, I finished in 1984, oh, my goodness. And then I never I didn't study, I did professional qualifications in between chartered accounting and banking qualifications, etc. But no university studies until 2018, when my youngest daughter was doing HSC. And my husband had moved on from being a partner at Deloitte to doing his undergrad in architecture. And I sat there talking to the dog and thought, well, let's go and do some study. And I saw, so I started my master's at the business school at UTS. And I'm so glad I did. I am so glad I did. Because I had been a manager for over 30 years. And as Ben was saying, you can mathematically it's easy, you know, like and say, Well, if I close down that and take out, blah, blah, FTE and apply it to blah, blah, widgets, that will make absolute sense. And without knowing it, you have your brain has been so trained to think that way. It's actually it's amazing when you stand back and get on the balcony, which is what education does for us. What this course does, you get on that balcony, you're looking to go, Oh, my goodness, what is an organisation? An organisation is just a group of people who get together to coordinate resources to make things happen. Well, let's work out what the things are, we want to happen. And we each shine that and if we don't educate ourselves, or don't work out our way of seeing the world properly, which, you know, we're so responsible for what does go wrong when corporates make mistake. So it's no point when people say, that wasn't my intention, I didn't mean for that to happen, well I'm sorry, if you didn't think deeply enough in your in your senior role, you are accountable. So how do you actually make sure that your lens is wide enough, and the right colour, so you can see well, and not have not standing there one day and say, that wasn't my intention.

Dr. Christine Yates 17:27
So this is what this education has given me. And it can be then very confronting, because when you do see some things and start to challenge your, you know, it really is hard. So being able to put structure around the way you position, the way you think, does help others hear you. Rather than say, that's wrong, let's go over here, you can actually frame the why. So there's so much I've learned and the more I learned, the more I learn, there's so much I need to keep learning. And so I've kept my journey going. And after completing my master's, I then have started my doctoral Business Administration, where my key focus is going deeper into how managers in organisations to influence by organisations, and we keep sort of reinforcing beliefs, and don't really challenge our beliefs. And my thesis is still being developed. But it's fascinating and completely comes from the one module, managing stewardship and leadership. So thank you. That's where it comes from, like, continue that journey.

Jennifer Parcell 18:30
And this is maybe a little bit off the cuff, but just something I'm curious about. And that's how supportive were each of your workplaces for you to undertake extra study where they kind of do what you want to do in your own time, don't involve us, or is it something that they've supported you with your journey in terms of study and applying what you're learning.

Dr. Christine Yates 18:51
I haven't asked for any help, because I wanted to do it so personally, and I didn't need to have support. So I do talk about what I'm studying, and my colleagues, at least are courteous enough to listen and, and I do interview a lot of people who are good colleagues as part of my studies, but if I know that if I wanted support, they would be there. My kids have all left home, I don't need extra support. So in that regard, I'm fine. But plenty of people at work are getting supported through Master's programs, even undergrad. I'm not sure about too many actually taking on their doctoratrals, but the support I find tends to be there in the larger corporations who can support.

Benjamin Dooley 19:27
Yeah, I can second is that working for big businesses as well. They've been extremely supportive. I'm self funding mine personal needs. If I needed some time, though, I'd absolutely allow that, especially for exams and we work well together on on my availability around masters.

Jennifer Parcell 19:46
Now we've had a question come in from one of our audience. Our audience member is currently working, which obviously both of you have been in that situation she's or he's planning to start a family perhaps towards the end of the year. So A few more things going on there. And just wanting to know sort of how busy the course is? What the workload is like? And if there's any support, I guess that UTS supplies to help people manage their, their workload in terms of the course that they're studying.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 20:15
If you've done an undergraduate degree, it's gonna be the expectation that the postgraduate is a quantum leap. It's not an extension of what you did at the undergraduate level. Now, I'm going to be very simplistic for the sake of making a clear point, you might not believe it, but at one stage, I was a teenager. And, and I did do an undergraduate degree. I did a Bachelor of Business and I graduated before I was 21, I need to say that, because that meant I was an adolescent, and therefore my priorities were nothing to do with the background that you see here and nothing to do with the pile that you see in the back of Christina's room. I was more interesting, getting into the pub, and meeting people and enjoying life, and therefore I did the minimum I needed to do. Minimum. At the undergraduate level, we really only wanted a piece of paper so we can get a job. At the postgraduate level, you know, what's ahead. You've got a good understanding of what's how important this is going to be, therefore, you want to take it seriously. Now, what does that mean? It means you've got to do more than what you did before. You're going to have to read more widely. You're going to have to write more critically. You're going to have to think to the point where your head hurts, and you think you start pulling out a little doll was my image on the front, and my colleagues immediately start sticking pins in and say, the bastard wants me to just change. He wants me to think in different ways? And the answer is yes. Because at that level nine, there is not just more knowledge, it's more complex. It's not just is not more difficult, it's more uncertainy. High levels of uncertainty. Higher levels of complexity. This is the way the level nine is defined. Right around the world level line masters, it says higher levels of complexity, higher levels of uncertainty, and higher levels of accountability.

Benjamin Dooley 22:03
And once the short answer 8-10 hours it really comes down to what you want out of it. And like well, to say that is level you want to be here. It is tough. It is, it is very challenging and there are nights where your head does hurt. For me on average, if I'm being honest, it's it's about 10 hours per subject, a week.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 22:25
how many subjects would you do, Ben?

Benjamin Dooley 22:27
I'm only doing one per semester at the moment.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 22:30
And if somebody says they want to do four subjects, what would you think?

Benjamin Dooley 22:33
Oh, my gosh, I wouldn't be working.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 22:37
Theres the answer to the person who's planning the family. Don't take on four subjects.

Benjamin Dooley 22:42
No, do it nice and slowly and enjoy it.

Dr. Christine Yates 22:44
Yeah. Hang on to that, you know, enjoying, it's super important. Because our careers are long, and why wouldn't you want to enjoy it. So that's important. I do remember sitting down way ago, when I was actually we just got married and planning our children. My oldest girl is now 28. So there we go. And I actually sat down to fill out a form that was an application form. I think it was Macquarie Uni, master of finance from memory a long time ago. And my husband looked at me said, What are you doing? And he said, Are you mad? And at that time, I said, you know, you're right. And I threw that in the bin and I didn't apply. So what would I do now what I say to myself 28 years ago. First of all, that was not the right one. So doing something for me, that's more general management. Because it's more about I've already done enough of the economics, accounting, finance. So doing something that's a general management was would have been more important. That would be the right choice. And then to have done one subject every semester, I absolutely could have done it. Absolutely. Now for those who who don't have kids and working full time, I did two subjects and worked full time and found that because I enjoyed doing it so I enjoyed reading that. Some subjects which are I loved, I'd worked so hard to get our HD and probably over did that. And other ones, I didn't get a 51% Walsh, I would have disappointed myself, but I did go a bit lighter, but I didn't need to notice. So you can toggle on and off, you know as well, which is important.

Jennifer Parcell 24:21
You can always adjust as your situations change. So you know, you can start with one subject and if it's easy for you next semester do two. If that gets too much dropped back to one or something changes in your life. So there's certainly that flexibility for the course that you can sort of take on as much as you can handle accordingly. Walter, a common question we get, which is probably one worth exploring is, what would be the differences or perhaps the pros and cons for someone thinking about, should I do master of management, or should I do and MBA where I specialise in management?

Dr. Walter Jarvis 25:03
The MBA is designed to take people into preparing them for for executive roles. And preparing for people for executive roles I'm teaching now in the MBA is to say that means you're advising and reporting to the board. Now, that's a huge connection to start to think about. Now let's go the other way. The other alternative is the masters of management. And I, this is my bias. So the master of management says right over a bunch of people, we've all got different roles to play. Each one of those roles is a crucial role for what we're striving to achieve. What is it, we want to achieve. Lets not go into the detail. Master management takes an enterprise wide perspective, from the shop floor, back office, front office, to the boardroom, everybody, champions and appreciates, and respects the work that's done at every level. And it finds ways to make sense of it and celebrate it and to give it a sense of direction and purpose. And I like there's opportunities that that opens up, because that starts talking about culture, starts talking about attitudes and values, start talking about respect for the work itself, the dignity of work, the nature of work, it enables you to start to see more in terms of the context in which you're operating and the impact that you might have on others, outside the organisation as well as inside the organisation. So that's crudely, executive suite, MBA, general management, shop floor to board room, Master's of management.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 26:34
The second part of the answer, however, is if you decided to go down the specialisation route, for example, I'll do the Masters, I'll do the MBA with a major in and lets just think about the options. With a major in management, with a major in human resources, and so on majoring in marketing. Those are attractive for people who maybe have only begun to go into that space, I want them to project themselves 10 years out. And there will be a time they'll reach a time when they'll say I've done as much in HR that I could ever want to do. I am now wanting to think about more broadly, I want to get somewhere I can have a larger influence. Yes, I'll take my human resources with me or my marketing with me. But I, you know, you've been prepared, the more you stay there, they've been prepared for general management, more broader management, so why not anticipate that by all means have a passion for a field and no matter what it is, but contribute also in terms of opening it up to and here is a point I'll get to a little later on and emphasise. A former student who said, what she found when she graduated was that she had through her study is not fully appreciated until she graduated, how the more that subjects, the diverse subjects she did, the more she was able to build bridges between various interest groups. So if she'd done finance only, she would not have known how to build a bridge with marketing, not about how to build a bridge with operations, but knowing about how to open up to different cultures and so on. So it's when you start to think longer term, which is where your organisation will be thinking about you. And you hopefully you will be that you start to realise, yes, I need a specialisation, but I want to get beyond it. That's where I would be encouraging to think

Jennifer Parcell 28:24
So I might throw one last question to each of you. And that is, what would be your top tip or perhaps tips for success in the course and postgraduate study.

Dr. Walter Jarvis 28:35
Take it seriously. Very, very seriously. And I'd loved Christine picking up on what Ben said, and take it so seriously, but don't lose sight of the you know, you're cultivating a curiosity. Enjoy that. Don't get don't get locked into exams and things. You know, it's the more questions you ask and it was socratic that was Christine's answer was the more I realised how little I know and the more I want to learn, and that's the journey that you're on. So rally should cherish it. It's a lifetime. Don't think about this finishing with a master's degree. This is an introduction to lifelong learning.

Dr. Christine Yates 29:13
You know, I think Walter you said it all just then. So success is when you fall in love with learning, you know, and you weren't, you weren't feeling love straightaway. It's that love hate relationship, and then you'll fall in love. And then when you start to see the world in 3D, 4D and 5D, that success.

Benjamin Dooley 29:32
Can't help but agree to it. Seriously, and really enjoy the process. You're gonna love it. I was a bit surprised because I just thought, I got to get through this thing and whatnot. Didn't really know why I entered it to be honest. But when I started, it all just started making sense. And now I love it. I really do.

Jennifer Parcell 29:51
I'd like to thank you all for joining us and for your expertise this evening. Obviously, you know we can talk about what the course is, and the structure is as well to cover, but really hearing from people who are studying is really so informative so that people get a proper understanding of what to expect, what it's like and have a chance to ask you questions. So thank you, Ben. Thank you, Christine, for joining us tonight. As Walter mentioned, if you do have more questions post this evening, please do get in touch with us. You can see our email address and our website there where you'll find all sorts of information. We do have one on one consultations available so if you'd like to chat more deeply about your particular situation with someone and how things might work for you. That opportunity is certainly there. Finally, I'd like to wrap up. Thank you all for attending. Thank you for your expertise and sharing your journeys with us this evening and I hope you have a fantastic rest of the night.