Also, anyone who thinks the FedEx network is "ultra-efficient" (as the article claims) hasn't shipped anything FedEx lately. More than ten years ago, FedEx bought RPS for FedEx Ground but never bothered integrating any of the systems. There are still two types of tracking numbers. Shipping something overnight from San Francisco to Los Angeles via FedEx Express routes the package through Nashville, while it could be sent just as quickly over FedEx Ground at lower cost and without using jet fuel. Also, their web site is just about the biggest piece of junk Oracle has ever produced. When you deal with their executive support team, as I unfortunately have, they give you FedEx coupons that the FedEx Office (formerly Kinko's) cashiers have absolutely no idea how to scan. I think what they need is engineers.
I think that MBAs should prove their worth by running their own businesses. The tricky situation is that they claim to be able to run any business using the same rules, but most of them choose to run other people's business instead of their own.
If MBAs were good. They would make their own businesses and win. Is it the case or not?
A lot of MBAs graduate and get into management consulting--basically they get paid to make bullshit Powerpoint decks and provide expert guidance in torpedoing their clients. In the consulting world, everyone agrees senior-level consultants (with an MBA) who are hired for C-level positions will run the company into the ground.
Not a huge fan of an MBA. But I don't think your ability to run your own business is necessarily a strong indicator of your ability to be a VP at a Fortune500.
I think at least some of them already do now. In fact, I has been thinking that hiring execs from the startup world may be a good idea for a while now.
Oh, God, Fedex. The only company where to return something you drive to the boonies where their Service Center is located, and they tell you sorry, this is FedEx Express, you need FedEx Ground or FedEx Home Delivery, which have their own service centers at opposite ends of the city.
Oh, God, Starbucks. The only company where you drive to the boonies where their Corporate Headquarters is located, walk in and order a latte, and they tell you this story about, "to get coffee, you need to go to a starbucks store, not our cube farm".
P.S. Never ship anything with any FedEx service other than Express. Otherwise, use the postal service or UPS.
Your quora piece first argues that MBAs have negative impact because a bunch of the people involved in the financial crisis had them. They also had undergrad degrees and were all human. To actually know if MBAs have a negative impact we need to compare a treatment group (with MBAs) with some kind of control (without them).
As for your view of the "average" MBA, that may very well be the case. There's plenty to write about how MBA programs suck, even (or especially) the "elite" ones. From that to argue that we as a society should have no ambition to teach business seems strange to me.
I disagree. To actually know if greenhouse gases have an impact on Earth's average temperature, do we need a control Earth? In both cases the evidence is pretty clear.
On the other hand, doing a controlled experiment wouldn't be a bad thing, either, so if we just shut down the business schools for the next 50-100 years, perhaps we can find the answer at the end of the study and decide whether or not to open them back up again. :)
>I disagree. To actually know if greenhouse gases have an impact on Earth's average temperature, do we need a control Earth? In both cases the evidence is pretty clear.
We have much better evidence for global warming than "the temperature has been rising and CO2 is also present in the atmosphere". You say that "the evidence is pretty clear" but at least in your piece there's only your anecdotal experience with an unspecified number of people.
>On the other hand, doing a controlled experiment wouldn't be a bad thing, either, so if we just shut down the business schools for the next 50-100 years, perhaps we can find the answer at the end of the study and decide whether or not to open them back up again. :)
I know you're joking but that experiment has already been ran in reverse (from no MBAs to the present state), so that data should already exist. It's not much of an experiment though as you have a bunch of other relevant factors evolving at the same time.
Personally I only disagree in that shutting down the business school is the only solution. In fact, I have known many of the problems of "legacy" MBAs for a while now. Of course, even if the business schools were fixed, older graduates will still exist with the problems you mentioned, which is IMO the hard problem.
http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/Shut-Down-the-Business-...
Also, anyone who thinks the FedEx network is "ultra-efficient" (as the article claims) hasn't shipped anything FedEx lately. More than ten years ago, FedEx bought RPS for FedEx Ground but never bothered integrating any of the systems. There are still two types of tracking numbers. Shipping something overnight from San Francisco to Los Angeles via FedEx Express routes the package through Nashville, while it could be sent just as quickly over FedEx Ground at lower cost and without using jet fuel. Also, their web site is just about the biggest piece of junk Oracle has ever produced. When you deal with their executive support team, as I unfortunately have, they give you FedEx coupons that the FedEx Office (formerly Kinko's) cashiers have absolutely no idea how to scan. I think what they need is engineers.