The speed of change in business is unprecedented today. CEOs are constantly confronted with frequent market disruptions due to shifting consumer habits, the entry of new competitors and dramatic new technologies. Hence, it is not surprising that even the most successful CEOs are always searching for ways to make their organisations future-ready. This future-readiness is not just about investments, technologies or product lines, but also about the kind of people they need to recruit.

Accompanying this churn, the job market is also changing at a hectic pace, and today’s graduates may have 10 different jobs by the age of 40. In other words, they must prepare for jobs that do not yet exist and be ready to solve problems of which no one is aware yet. For instance, who would have thought, even five years ago, that a social media expert would be such a sought-after job?

It is in this context that a liberal, interdisciplinary education acquires greater importance than ever before.

Current educational paradigms, starting from school and continuing into higher education (especially engineering and management), encourage students to learn how to do well in an examination without necessarily getting into the depth of the subject. Further, students are led to believe that there is usually only one correct answer to any question. Lastly, most of these students are not equipped with the actual skills required for the modern workplace, which are not the same as technical skills (even though technical skills are a great start).

A Liberal Arts and Sciences education imparts skills such as critical thinking, complex problem solving, written and oral communication, teamwork and innovation. It provides a grounding in many different subjects and encourages students to find unexplored connections between them,

leading to innovative outcomes. It trains them to do their own in-depth thinking after understanding an issue from different viewpoints. It orients them towards asking the right questions instead of seeking obvious answers. It combines the qualitative with the quantitative, recognising that any business has a human context apart from a technical or financial one. Most importantly, it teaches students how to learn, preparing them for a future in which knowledge and work will both evolve continuously.

A Liberal Arts and Sciences background is what unites some of the world’s best-known business leaders including Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Jack Ma of Alibaba, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, A.G. Lafley of P&G, Brian Chesky of Airbnb, Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group and Michael Eisner of Disney (who made the company hugely profitable despite being an English and theatre major). In fact, studies have shown that one-third of all Fortune 500 CEOs have a degree in liberal education. Even Elon Musk, today’s breakaway business leader, studied physics and economics at the undergraduate level. In recent years, liberal education majors have founded some of the best-known global brands including Wikipedia, PayPal, YouTube and Flickr.

Steve Jobs, perhaps the most storied CEO ever, briefy studied calligraphy at Reed College, Oregon (which he leveraged superbly to create Apple’s unique identity). He had this to say about interdisciplinary thinking: “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with Liberal Arts, married with the Humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.”

Research carried out by DDI International surveying 15,000 professionals from 300 organisations, 20 industries and 18 countries has shown that graduates with a liberal education were in the top quadrant along with business graduates for leadership skills, and performed strongly on results orientation and entrepreneurship.

In sum, given that management is both an art and a science, there is no one better equipped to do it than someone who understands both arts and sciences!

And that’s why “Liberal” is a good word for business.