Things I Learned In Business School

Mojo Nixon has a song, "Rock and Roll Hall of Lame," in which he sings*
"If it were a real rock and roll hall of fame,
there'd be a drug ATM
(I'd be there)
they'd hand out copies of 'On the Road' and 'Fear and Loathing' and 'Steal This Book,'
they'd show movies like Thunder Road
and Vanishing Point
It'd be a monument to teenage sex!"

And that's how I feel about the time I've spent in Business School. I spent a decade in the corporate world, and I can say that if Business School were truly teaching us what "it" is like, there would be courses on how to fire someone, how to protect yourself in the event of a round of layoffs, what to do when your boss decrees that everyone is to read "Who Moved My Cheese?" Instead, they teach us the mechanics and numbers and bits and bytes of business. Which brings us to this holiday installment of What I Learned In Business School: They don't teach you what you need to know.

Business Schools should have a required class called "What They Think About You," to teach the brash MBA students the regard in which they are held by the rest of humanity. This class would consist of showings of "Roger & Me," and "In The Company of Men," and "The Smartest Guys In The Room." Hell, we could even get Michael Moore as a guest speaker. An entire class of MBAs would have to face the fact that it is people like them, with their degrees, that are the direct cause of a lot of turmoil and dickery.

As in Business School, there would be case studies from Harvard. An entire week would be spent on Robert McNamara.

And just like in grade school, there would be field trips. First, to emptied-out Rust Belt towns where smart young MBAs got their first jobs, and promptly ran entire regional economies into the ground. Second, to one of the few remaining American automobile plants, where students would have to work the line for an entire day. Maybe this would quell some of the talk about how unionized employees are too over-paid and too lazy and can't deal with competition. Maybe.

And, finally, for good measure, the final exam would require the class to write about a novel. Not a textbook, not a "Manager's Guide To" whatever, a novel--the kind of book that smart people read. This is just one small step in my larger plan to make the world a better place. It might also give the future CEOs something interesting to talk about while they're getting embarrassingly sloshed at a "networking event."

I doubt any business school would offer this class. It's not in their best interest to tell their students that they cause problems in the world and that strict devotion to business principles can have catastrophic consequences. Nobody wants to hear that. It's just a lot easier to fight for the attention of the corporate recruiters that tell students how much they are needed and in demand. They don't teach you what you need to know, because your job offer depends on not knowing it. And that's another Thing I Learned In Business School.


* accuracy of quotation not guaranteed.