Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55680
Business is really an art form. At its best, it's the artistry of how people create things together. Some of these businesses continue; some of them don't. But that's beside the point. Doctors, architects, and lawyers don't learn medicine by sitting in lectures. They learn by pro- gressing through practice-based experiential learning opportu- nities. For students to learn to become businesspeople, they have to run businesses. Most schools involve at least some students in real-world corporate consulting projects. Is that a move in the right direction? Perhaps, but consulting is different than managing. Case-based education is great for training consultants, but it doesn't nec- essarily develop managers. As consultants, students learn how to diagnose problems from a distance, give people advice, and walk away. But they don't necessarily learn how to get people working together to accomplish things. Learning and continuous improvement are about trying out new ideas, repeating cycles of experimentation, and cop- ing with less than successful results. That's not a consulting process; it's a living process. You seem very passionate about business. Do you think many business students come to school with that kind of passion for the discipline? No, and that's a real problem. Many people go into busi- ness to make money. As business students, they're taught that the purpose of the business is to maximize the return on invested capital, which I think is total nonsense. Even worse, this approach creates a vicious cycle: When the busi- ness curriculum communicates this idea, it creates a selection bias that attracts students who hold that vision of business in the first place. Years ago, during the dot-com bubble, C.K. Prahalad moved from the University of Michigan to the West Coast because he wanted to be in the middle of the entrepreneurial environment. I asked him then whether he believed entre- preneurs there were motivated by the opportunity to make money. He responded, "Oh, I think that's absolutely true— for all the mediocre entrepreneurs." Great entrepreneurs are motivated by a desire to change the world. If they're good at what they do, they'll make money. But it's more important that they have something they're pas- sionate about. If business schools continue to reinforce the idea that the purpose of business is to make money, we doom our- selves to mediocre businesses. What do you think is the best way to view business? Business is really an art form. At its best, it's the artistry of how people create things together. As a collective creative process, business is not that different from theater troupes or dance troupes or music ensem- bles or movie productions. Business leaders have to deal with so many people who all have different egos and mental models. But when we create synergy among them all, we can accomplish something no one's ever done before. Years ago, Peter Drucker said that organizations exist so that people can do together what they can't do by themselves. It's so simple. Drucker also said that many businesses have no idea what they're here to do; they have no idea of their larger purpose. In the end, business is about meeting social needs. Making money is the byproduct of that purpose. Is it purpose enough for businesses simply to meet a market demand? Some businesses operate with the idea that they'll sell whatever people want to buy, but I think that approach is distorted. If your business is selling junk food or cigarettes, is it your business's social purpose to cause people to be unhealthy or addicted? Business leaders really have to think more deeply about these types of questions. There is a great book by Arie de Geus called The Liv- ing Company, which is a study of companies more than 200 years old. He found that all of them had the capacity to keep questioning whether they were really meeting social needs. Without that capacity, they lost their bearings. What should business schools be doing to help businesses become true learning organizations? Business schools should be asking themselves, "What's our vision of the business of the future? How is our institution contributing to social needs?" The world cannot continue the way it is now, with so many problems related to food, water, energy, waste, toxicity, and the gap between rich and poor. Business schools need to develop a vision of an alternative type of business that can help solve those kinds of problems. ■ z BizEd MAY/JUNE 2010 23