Many professionals pursue a Master of Business Administration(MBA) hoping the lessons they learn will prove useful someday. For Christian Boakye Yiadom M’27, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pizzaman Chickenman, a fast-food brand, that “someday” often arrives before the next class.
Currently enrolled in the Ashesi MBA, Boakye Yiadom has developed a new routine: learn on the weekend, apply the lesson at work, evaluate the results, and repeat. “There’s never been a single course in class that I haven’t learned anything worth applying to my business from,” he said. “And when I try it, it works.”
That approach has turned his MBA into more than an academic experience. It has become an ongoing process of refining a business he has spent the past eight years building. Through the program, he says, he has gained a deeper understanding of the principles behind many of the decisions he previously made based on experience.
One area where that learning has made a difference is employee performance management. Insights from one of his favorite courses, Managing People, Culture and Performance, prompted him to rethink how the business approaches rewards, recognition and discipline. “Overall, these changes have started producing some good results just in the past few months,” he said.
The changes have extended beyond individual policies. Leadership development programs across the business have been institutionalized and tailored to different levels of responsibility. Drawing lessons from his MBA classes, Boakye Yiadom also helped establish an internal e-learning platform where employees can access training modules and learning materials and complete assessments.
