With a Nod to the Graduate: What They Don't Teach You in Business School

Published: Thu, 05/15/14

"The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective." -- Warren Buffett, American businessman and billionaire.

I received my MBA in 1991 and can safely say I didn't learn most of what I needed to know today. As valuable as a business degree is—and it had better be, at a cost of $100,000+ for a top-notch MBA—much of the business theory doesn't apply to my world today.

Business school is like classroom training: it provides you with the frameworks, ideas, research, awareness, and tools to ideally deal with the situations you encounter in the business arena. But it can't prepare you for "the real world" and the practical application of doing it behaviorally. In fact, you're meant to figure out quite a bit on your own. The rubber meets the road on the job. To me, a business degree (or any degree for that matter) is about an individual's level of commitment, discipline, fortitude, and tenacity. However, B-school didn't prepare me for reality.

Hard-Knocks Basics

Here are a few things you'll have to learn on your own, sink-or-swim style, outside of business school.

1. Forget about long-term plans and financial models. Most schools still teach 3-5 year planning cycles, but in an era when business changes at a breakneck pace, short-term strategic planning has become more common, because in most cases, any plan older than a year is stale. Mine tends to change each quarter. Flexibility rules here; your team needs to be able to stop and turn on a dime and grab for new market opportunities, or they will pass you by. Office Depot uses a yearly plan that's reviewed and adjusted every few months, which has helped them immensely.

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(C) 2014 Laura Stack. Laura Stack is America's premier expert in personal productivity. For over 20 years, her speeches and seminars have helped professionals, leaders, teams, and organizations improve output, execute efficiently, and save time at work. She's the author or coauthor of 10 books, most recently, Execution IS the Strategy. To invite Laura to speak at your next meet or register for her free monthly newsletter, visit www.TheProductivityPro.com.