What kind of animal is an MBA?

I spent this week having several exhaustive career discussions - my own, my wife's and my sub-ordinates. This was Annual performance review week at my company and we all were judged for our performances and set ourselves nice unattainable goals for the year to come.

During this process, I spent a good time analyzing my career - the past, the present and the future. I also had a couple of discussions about my MBA and how it shaped me.

This most infamous of all degrees seems to carry a certain aura with it. The mere mention of it is sufficient to generate an emotion. Respect, awe and loathing seem to be the most common ones.

Being a passionate naturalist, I like to imagine people as animals. While many observers make the mistake of giving animals human-like emotions (eg. cunning like a fox), I go the other way. "Doesn't that man look like a mole-rat?" - a classic example of a question uttered by yours' truly resulted in a poor chap at my ex-company being labeled the "mole rat".

This week got me thinking about us MBAs. What animal best represents us? I did a very unscientific survey of some subjects who are VERY prone to bias and got some answers:
1. Tiger (because we are aggressive)
2. Hyena (because we pick on the weak)
3. Elephant (Because thats the size of our heads)
4. Peacock (because we prance around like them)
5. Salmon (because we always seem to be swimming in the wrong direction)

All, very interesting indeed....and in some cases, just a wee bit insulting.

However, I decided to examine my own classmates. They seemed to have the above characteristics all right. But they seemed to have something else in common. An emotion which is perhaps a result of the above characteristics. We are all RESTLESS.

All of us think we need to rule the world. We must be the next Arthur Keller (a little snooty inside joke for my fellow INSEADers out there - give it up for "ze Camembert" y'all). We jolly well better be running a big show and changing the world.

Sadly most of us aint in a position to match that expectation. So, we get restless. We move, and quite often, we move again. Within the company, outside the company, outside the country, outside the continent.... Time and again, we switch positions yearning for that perfect job. Many of us are very good at what we do, but it just never seems enough.

The challenge seems to be - curb your insatiable thirst for instant gratification, and show some damn patience! But damn-it-all....I know I am better than this!

So, this brings me back to my central point. We might be super-arrogant, aggressive, prancing, counter-current swimming hyenas, but in all reality there is only one creature which could be a perfect metaphor for an MBA.

Aw heck - we are nothing more than a swarm of butterflies! Flitting from one pretty flower to the next, in the never-ending quest for the perfect nectar. Sad though this might be, the arrogant MBA in me has two things to say:
1. This life is short (like a butterfly's) - we might as well enjoy the variety.
2. At least we made it to the butterfly stage and didn't get stuck as caterpillars!