Is the Master of Fine Arts the new MBA?

Saw this on Harvard Review, by Katherine Bell:

The Master of Fine Arts is the new MBA. So argued author Daniel Pink in a recent New York Times story about the new creative economy, in which even old-school corporations like GM increasingly value imaginative “right-brain” thinkers.

The thinking being that the MBA was fine for the mechanistic businesses of the past, but wrong for todays knowledge businesses you more need a Masters in Business Creation, not Administration. The author outlines 4 areas where in her experience MBAs could learn a few tricks:

1. How to take criticism. In a writing workshop, each writer must remain silent while others discuss his work. This rule allows him to hear what people say, rather than distracting himself by preparing his defense.

2. What motivates people. Everyone’s mix of motives is unique and complex. The more you can intuit the secret desires that drive a person (whether a fictional character or a colleague or your boss), the better you can predict what she’s going to do next.

3. How to engage your audience. Good fiction writers know how to involve readers in acts of collaborative imagination. Readers like to be challenged -- part of the pleasure is guessing the murderer’s identity before being told -- but if they can’t follow the plot, they get frustrated.

4. When to let go of good ideas. Or, as writers like to say, kill your darlings. An idea may be great on its own, but if it doesn’t serve your larger venture, you have to be ruthless and cut it.

I'd just like MBA's to start by stopping teaching NewSpeak, or Bizspeak or whatever it is that creates those turgid corporate convoluted communication.

Interesting idea anyway though....not sure that these are the killer issues in the argument, but is it time for someone to write What They Should Teach You in a Harvard MBA? Not sure that the MFA per se should be the "New" MBA, but it is probably a useful thing to re-assess whether the MBA is any more effective a route to business success than any other way.

(props to Cindy Stanford for the link)