HIGHER EDUCATION — OR BETTER EDUCATION?
by Mike Manes
Your success in business won't depend on what you know, but rather on how well you can leverage what you know to achieve the Vision: The shared goals. In this document about education, Mike Manes illustrates the importance of working with and through people for the common good.
GETTING ‘IT'
In the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash learned IT — an understanding of life, living, people, and purpose — by painful experience. Nash was a mathematical genius who won a Nobel Prize for his theories. He was also a paranoid schizophrenic who was institutionalized in two different places: one an insane asylum (where none of us would want to go), the other in institutions of higher education (where most of us fantasize about being). You can learn in both places.
For Nash, IT wasn't about the Nobel Prize, or the degrees, or the numbers, or the theories, or the reasoning/logic he taught. IT was about love (people).
IT is wisdom, not education. IT is about knowing people, not knowing things. IT is being a better person educated, not being a better-educated person. IT means using organizations for the good of people, not using people for the good of the organization. IT involves experience gained, not facts taught (and maybe learned). IT is scar tissue, not brain tissue.
THE MBA SYNDROME
This article is the result of a conversation with a good friend and a really smart person, Larry Morrison. When I was in Seattle visiting with Larry we got on a tirade about MBAs: What they know and what they don't know, what they think and what they don't think, and what they do and what they don't do, and finally the good they could do and the harm they do ! Larry is a recovering MBA. Believe me, in dealing with MBAs you have to put up with a lot of do do !
Please note – this is a stereotype and stereotypes are bad. As my cousin Martin tells me, “The broader the stereotype, the narrower the mind.” Martin believes I have a very narrow mind! He's right.
This article is not about the executive MBA who has spent years in the field and then goes back to the ivory tower. It's not about the recovering MBA, like Larry, who has tried what they learned in the classroom, submitted to the tougher lessons taught in the field, and have now successfully balanced their brain tissue with scar tissue. The recovering MBA is an asset because now they know what they don't know.
The article is about the fully educated yet “unlearned,” the knowledgeable but not wise MBA —a newly minted, “shavetail” second lieutenant in the business wars who has earned the rank, but not the respect. These people have the power and knowledge, but lack the maturity and experience to use it.
The good news about stereotypes is that they're easy to understand. In this case, I hope the positive potential — encouraging some MBAs to rethink what they do — will outweigh the harm — some hurt feelings — which might be caused.
Larry said, “I have an MBA, and when I got out of school, I was dangerous. I had all the answers but didn't know the right questions. I didn't know what I didn't know.”
He added, “The good news is that Daddy didn't go bankrupt, because if he had listened to my advice he would have.”
Probably the best news in our society is that most mature business people can work around these “wet behind the ears” MBAs. We nod at their comments and then do what's right. We let them talk and then we think and act. We let them use their education in front of us until they can get some “learnin'” standing next to us.
They share what they learned sitting in a classroom, while we do what we learned falling on our faces in the office, field, or assembly line. We watch them in amazement — their ego, naiveté, and drive (to their vision, not that of the organization). In worst-case scenarios, someone “frags” them (if you don't understand this term, ask a Vietnam combat vet).
To new MBAs, their education/degree is a hammer and, like most of us who have a new hammer for the first time, everything looks like a nail !
Larry — now a wiser man — said of his new MBA hammer, “I was so green back then I didn't know what green was. What I learned after I got ‘educated' was that scar tissue was more important than brain tissue. My definition of wisdom is to not get bit in the same place twice. Of course, it took me a while to figure the last part out.”
He and I laughed about what “smart people” taught us. We learned that Sears was going to dominate the retail business. I wonder if not having an MBA intimidated Sam Walton. When asked for his secret for success, Mr. Sam replied “good decisions.” When asked how he made good decisions, he replied, “experience.” When pressed for his source of experience, he said, “bad decisions.” In other words, he had scar tissue — not an MBA.
Larry said, “Back in MBA School, being taught by professors who couldn't manage a lemonade stand, we learned that Exxon and Sears would own their respective worlds because they could afford to staff with MBAs.”
We talked about the insurance companies that turned away from streetwise insurance folks and turned to “bean counter” MBAs for leadership. Remember Reliance, Kemper, Allmerica, Aetna Life and Casualty, Executive Life, and Equitable? There were more — many more. Today, they're all gone or on life support.
MBAs at Chase were going to make so much money on derivatives that they'd own the world. Today, who owes what to whom? How deep is the hole that their MBAs will need to fill? Citicorp-Travelers was going to become the financial services provider for the universe. They did manage to steal the umbrella.
We talked about MBAs in politics. You old timers will remember Robert McNamara, the MBA who was going to use all his “schoolin” to win the war in Vietnam. Our troops in the field had to ask, “May I?” when fighting for their lives. Committees of MBAs in the Pentagon were making bad decisions, for which the soldiers in the bush paid the ultimate price.
George Bush has an MBA, although I'd bet his “brothers” in that fraternity would deny him membership if they could. He won the war because he let the people with the scar tissue call the shots. He probably did this because he has scar tissue as well.
Our diatribe continued, but I won't bore you. Larry and I both believe in education . We think it's good to know a lot of stuff, be able to analyze the stuff you know, make good decisions, and implement the decisions you make. However it's more important to be able to gain the commitment and respect of the folks you work with so that they will become involved and commit to the shared goals — the Vision.
Your success in business (and often your survival) won't depend on what you know, but rather on how well you can leverage what you know to help the members of your organization achieve the Vision: The shared goals. You must work with and through people for the common good.
Some MBAs know all the words, but don't know the definitions. Other MBAs might know the definitions, but can't make a sentence. Too often, others “bark” sentences based on those words and definitions. Unfortunately, the folks they should be talking with (but all too often are talking at ) might not be able to understand them.
Ultimately the success or failure of an organization will play out at the “worker bee” level: The bottom, not at the top. Leadership is important not in itself, but because of the followers — the people.
My wife, Sheila, is a first grade teacher who once taught kindergarten. Through her I know the critical nature of a sound Kindergarten education: The foundation of all future learning.
Make no mistake about it; I encourage you to get all the “learnin” you can — whether in Ivory Towers or on the factory floor. Get an MBA if you have the opportunity but before you start using that new “MBA hammer” return to kindergarten for the wisdom you need to use it properly.
Consider this excerpt from Robert Fulghum's bestseller, All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten (if you haven't read the book, I urge you to do so):
Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday some. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder.
A CASE STUDY
A retriever on safari with his master is roaming free when he sees a leopard approaching. Knowing that this could be trouble, he quickly thinks and then acts.
He sees a leopard carcass, walks over to take one of the bones in his mouth, and, with his back to the leopard, he says loud enough for the leopard to hear, “Boy, that one was delicious! I wonder if there's another leopard around here, I'm still hungry.” Hearing this, the leopard — unfamiliar with retrievers, but intrigued with living — quietly retreats.
A monkey watching this exchange decides to put his knowledge to good use. He catches up with the leopard and says, “Let me tell you all I know.” The leopard is appreciative and offers the monkey a ride back to the retriever.
As the retriever views the horizon, he sees the monkey approaching on the back of the leopard. Again he turns his back on the duo, but speaks loud enough for the leopard to hear, “Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!”
Your organization is the retriever. You need to survive and want to prosper (eat well). The leopard is your competitor, a regulator, an innovator or any other force that might threaten your future. The monkey is the MBA, with his newly discovered knowledge and limited real world experience.
The lesson: Don't let the monkey be the cause of your demise! Manage (lead) the monkey — don't let him manage you —– because “he don't know what he don't know.”
Michael G. Manes can be reached at Square One Consulting, 625 Weeks Street, New Iberia, LA 70560, cell 337-577-3885, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.squareoneconsulting.com.