Business Schools Drive Conformity of Thought

Even though I have undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in business I find that business schools are becoming centres of conformity. Business is widespread and diverse and there is no one, right way of educating business students. Of course the best business education is hands on and involves starting or buying your own business.

As a friend of mine said recently, "business schools are now more about business (their own) than school". The early MBA programs worked because they were different and gave a general business grounding to their students. Now days the focus is heavy analysis and number crunching and very big corporate business. Big business represents a very small slice of American business life. Many very successful people have made large amounts of profit from small and medium sized "non sexy" businesses that provide essential services such as garbage disposal, recycling and truck spare parts and wrecking to name but a few.

If I was having my time again, I would have invested the money spent on getting my Masters in Business into a business venture of my own. Instead I spent many years in consulting that was well paid but where 2/3 of the day rate went to the consulting company.

So think seriously before spending what has become an increasingly large amount of money on your MBA. You are likely to get a much better ROI from investing in your own business where you keep the profits.

DK

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Self Education will make you a Fortune

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

– Jim Rohn

I just found the quote above and it is very true. If you look at the great entrepreneurs most of them were self starting and self taught. Many such as Gates, Branson, Rose, Karp and Zuckerburg dropped out of college or didn't go to college at all. College will help you to understand how the world works now, but only rarely will it teach you about what is to come or what is happening at the fiery leading edge of real innovative thought.

Entrepreneurs are by nature confident in their own abilities and don't need any outside affirmation or degrees to bolster what they do. They just go out and do it.

Taking the formal education route in business (esp. MBA's at Ivy League schools) will leave you burdened with debt that will cripple your ability to be truly innovative. The money spent on formal education could have been diverted into developing your own business or furthering your innovations.

I am not against formal education as I have graduate and post graduate degrees but I have learned more on how to succeed by self education and learning from business projects that stretch my skills and gain me experience.

Formal education will indeed help you to make a living (though many MBA's are struggling to get jobs and pay off debt) but what you learn by yourself may be the pathway to a fortune. Following conventional wisdom will not equip you to handle and think about the next unique, groundbreaking advance.

DK

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New iPhone Applications

I have found 2 useful business related applications for the iPhone. They are 1. The Harvard Business Review Tips (HBR Tips) and Biz Classic which is a selection of business classics from over the years. I found some of the business classics from the 1920's to be very clear and redable compared to some of the academic, MBA goggledegook that is served up today.

DK