Isn't this well known ?
Hasn't Dilbert been saying this for years more succinctly and wittily ?
The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
51–60 of 73 posts
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is silly. Both aspects are important. Someone who thinks money isn't real may make huge basic business blunders like not paying the right taxes, not managing their debt/income correctly, or just making horribly inefficient business choices (I've seen this a lot). The result may be a company that goes out of business even though it's perfectly viable if run correctly. Or a company that dies because it inadvertent…
No, what's silly is that people still quote Peter Drucker with a straight face. Ever been frustrated by the many layers of middle management in corporate America today, or laughed at a dilbert strip? Blame Peter Drucker. Just look at the results of all this "management as a science" bullshit - only one fifth of employees feel engaged with their jobs today, as was recently pointed out by the WSJ ( http://blogs.wsj.com…
I fail to see the connection you draw between Drucker's teaching (eg What gets measured gets managed) and the poor management you see in corporations today. Have you ever read any of his articles/books? Can you point to anything particularly offensive?
Anyway Drucker wasn't a "management as a science" guy. He was an economist, or a microeconomist if you're nitpicking.
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#53If The Economist can use the word bullshit , in the technical sense -- self-conscious jargoneering intended to inflate the speaker's perceived importance -- then the rest of us can too, right?
Sounded wrong to me too. But, as 'ig1' pointed in another comment, it's a signed piece extracted from a book - seems like one of those "we asked N people question X" things.
The "official" Economist pieces are unsigned.
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#54The Article Just Tells people what they want to hear. Management Positions will still be filled with the MBA Crowd.
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#55What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business.
as an Oxford alumni, i'd love to know what she's basing that statement on.
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#56What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business. as an Oxford alumni, i'd love to know what she's basing that statement on.
the correct singular is alumnus
few things bother me more than blatantly incorrect usage of Latin next to supposedly prestigious institutions
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#57What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business. as an Oxford alumni, i'd love to know what she's basing that statement on.
the correct singular is alumnus few things bother me more than blatantly incorrect usage of Latin next to supposedly prestigious institutions
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Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#58What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business. as an Oxford alumni, i'd love to know what she's basing that statement on.
the correct singular is alumnus few things bother me more than blatantly incorrect usage of Latin next to supposedly prestigious institutions
Fewer things bother me more than pseudo-intellectual jackasses bothered by grammar.
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#59[I]f fewer bright, ambitious people go into business, economies may suffer. Instead the talent will go increasingly into the public sector, the law, medicine—which are already bursting with bright people as it is. This must be some new definition of “suffer” that I was not previously aware of.
I think it would be conservative to estimate that millions of jobs and billions of dollars of production are generated regularly from firms founded by "bussinessy" business types. Yesterday I was listening to an interview of an entrepreneur that I admire, and I didn't realize until then that he had an MBA. There are probably tens of thousands of people employed by him. But don't let me get in the way of your prejudic…
The prejudice is not in me, but in the author of the original essay.
There are entrepreneurs who have led companies to provide great value for their customers, employees, and stockholders, and entrepreneurs who have led companies straight into the ground. There are doctors who work heroically and insightfully to save lives and there are doctors who are more interested in satisfying their God complex than actually caring for patients. There are lawyers who help right the injustices of the world and lawyers who just look for excuses to run up their bills.
I don’t see why we should assume, a priori, that fewer bright and ambitious people in business and more in law or medicine will be a net social loss.
Re: The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit
#60I can certainly understand the desire to vilify MBAs, there's certainly plenty to complain about. However, it's also worth remembering that folks with sound business sense and good intentions are really very valuable. There are countless examples of very talented people (engineers, artists, musicians) who came to ruin because they lacked even the slightest business sense and made some bad choices they couldn't recove…
Not that I disagree with your premise about makers and business folks, but Steve Jobs didn't have an MBA or a college degree.