At a previous organization, during a time I was working towards advancement, I was told by an influencer within this organization (who holds a technical bachelor's degree) my graduate degree, "did not matter." My graduate work in the study of human behaviors and communication was deemed not relevant to the leadership position and, ultimately, the position went to someone who held the same technical degree.
I recently read an article by Janice Bryant Howroyd who, when asked if degrees are relevant, always responds: “Relevant to what?” This made me reflect on my own experience of being held back because my education and experience was dissimilar to that of the decision-makers. Of course a technically focused career in health, information technology, accounting, or trades (plumbing, electrical, automotive, etc.) require technical training and education. And these types of training and education are essential, invaluable and completely relevant to the career. But when it comes to a degree in the social sciences, history, literature, or languages, it’s not a matter of what, it’s a matter of whom.
"RELEVANT TO WHOM?"
Every day I read yet another article promoting DIVERSITY within an organization; how leaders must seek individuals who DISRUPT the status quo, CHALLENGE the standards, and possess the ability to ENGAGE and COMMUNICATE to a diverse audience. However, I suspect most managers/leaders fear embracing the unfamiliar, the dissimilar. Why? Because I've experienced it. And because research into human behavior suggests individuals are most comfortable when focusing on what they know, most comfortable in nonthreatening environments or surrounded by others who are considered nonthreatening, and most avoid what would be self-interpreted as "conflict." All these result in what psychologist Irving Janis proposed as "groupthink," when members are similar in background and the group is insulated from outside opinions. How often have your leaders and those they lead fallen into this circumstance?
A technically trained, concrete systems thinker (one who produces a tangible need) may find the ideas of the scholar of humanities, art or social science abstruse and, therefore, not "relevant." However, I strongly believe a successful organization – an organization with sustainable success – embraces and seeks out these divergent types.
The Harvard Business Review published an article on the leadership lessons learned from Steve Jobs. Author Walter Isaacson states, "[Jobs] connected the humanities to the sciences, creativity to technology, arts to engineering. There were greater technologists (Wozniak, Gates), and certainly better designers and artists. But no one else in our era could better firewire together poetry and processors in a way that jolted innovation. And he did it with an intuitive feel for business strategy. At almost every product launch over the past decade, Jobs ended with a slide that showed a sign at the intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology Streets.
The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences exists in one strong personality was what most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to building innovative economies in the 21st century. It is the essence of applied imagination, and it’s why both the humanities and the sciences are critical for any society that is to have a creative edge in the future.”
Again, is a degree relevant? It depends on the decision-maker.
Education is a pathway to discovery and development; but let's not forget success, growth, empowerment and understanding favor colorful, contradistinct minds. You may not understand the degree, but that doesn't mean it – or the degree holder – is invaluable, or unworthy of inclusion or a position of leadership.
Unfortunately, I’m not convinced of the efforts to eliminate the comfortable, like-minded, groupthink environment in most organizations. If leaders espoused the advice to hire DIVERSITY of thought, support DISRUPTION, encourage CHALLENGERS, and be unthreatened by others who excel in ENGAGING and COMMUNICATING to an audience, then my experience and the experience of so many others who hold those “irrelevant degrees” may have been different.
Yet, I'm hopeful.