5 ms·

It feels like having management as a specialism in its own right is a result of the financialisation of business. It is inconceivable that business schools can

by hkt 5y ago

It feels like having management as a specialism in its own right is a result of the financialisation of business. It is inconceivable that business schools can equip people to innovate: innovation will come from founders who have technical skills, and the teams they lead. As soon as career managers are involved, the game begins to be about playing the numbers rather than focusing on the product. It seems absurd to think business schools are capable of producing anyone who would do anything else.

g_p 5y ago
Playing the numbers really does seem to be the root of the issue - I've definitely seen occasions with too much focus on mantra-driven accountings practices (playing around shuffling beans from capex to opex), rather than on what actually mattered... In one case, they wanted to just shuffle numbers between columns in Excel, and there wouldn't have been a business in a few months, as they'd have trimmed all the spend that meant there was a viable and competitive product to sell, and made the monthly outgoings higher than takings, all to make the spreadsheet look nice... Maybe business managers need to be taught more about innovation and how to get out the way and enable it as a value creator? Or maybe we need to better condense what really matters into a single college class - cutting all the bean counting and financial tricks and focusing on the useful lessons instead?
ceeplusplus 5y ago
Eh, you definitely need to understand the business aspects of a space to innovate in it. SaaS was a huge change in the business model but not really the underlying technical stuff. But I think it's a lot easier for someone technical to learn these things than for a business person to learn the tech.
- lumost 5y ago
  > But I think it's a lot easier for someone technical to learn these things than for a business person to learn the tech. That's the rub, people have been running businesses for millenia without requiring specialized education for it. SaaS was a huge change in the business model, but did it require an MBA to come up with the idea? Or was it someone who figured that their customers didn't want to wait for "vN" of the product?
- xphos 5y ago
  I don't think you can just claim that MBA generated the idea of SaaS nor that MBA (or tech staff)in general generate that type of novel idea constantly. Now you different can argue that one of those two groups is absolutely required to produce a SaaS product and I think its obivous which one of the two groups is optional. I don't think MBA's are useless but its happens to be my experience. That very often where a non-technical manager is attached to the project and they are kinda useless because they lack the insight to contribute but a given more authority that the people that actually know whats going on. I've found non-manager assistants are often way more productive at getting the actual adminstrative tasks required done as well.
Schroedingersat 5y ago
I can see someone trained in mediation, finance, accounting, philosophy, game theory, and some basic general technical skills (statistics, maths foundations, general tool and workshop proficiency, foundations of CS/IT) being a massive boon to any organizational structure. Technical people often lack communication skills and can lose the forest for the trees. But their voice needs to be equal with people who specialise in what is actually done on the ground. Basically real management specialization, not 'make line go up, you in charge everyone else is a peon to be exploited' training.
- g_p 5y ago
  > Technical people often lack communication skills and can lose the forest for the trees. This is definitely an issue in my experience. There's some who can communicate well. In cases where you don't have one of them though, the solution seems like it would be a same-level or one-level-junior "PR" type individual, who helps them to hone and delivery a message. It seems incongruous that in this one (?) context, we look for general enabling skills further up the chain, rather than down the chain.
  - Schroedingersat 5y ago
    Down the chain is good for communicating to the outside world. But an equal team member would imo be best for helping the team achieve their goals.

by hkt 5y ago

g_p 5y ago

Playing the numbers really does seem to be the root of the issue - I've definitely seen occasions with too much focus on mantra-driven accountings practices (playing around shuffling beans from capex to opex), rather than on what actually mattered... In one case, they wanted to just shuffle numbers between columns in Excel, and there wouldn't have been a business in a few months, as they'd have trimmed all the spend that meant there was a viable and competitive product to sell, and made the monthly outgoings higher than takings, all to make the spreadsheet look nice... Maybe business managers need to be taught more about innovation and how to get out the way and enable it as a value creator? Or maybe we need to better condense what really matters into a single college class - cutting all the bean counting and financial tricks and focusing on the useful lessons instead?

ceeplusplus 5y ago

Eh, you definitely need to understand the business aspects of a space to innovate in it. SaaS was a huge change in the business model but not really the underlying technical stuff. But I think it's a lot easier for someone technical to learn these things than for a business person to learn the tech.

lumost 5y ago
> But I think it's a lot easier for someone technical to learn these things than for a business person to learn the tech. That's the rub, people have been running businesses for millenia without requiring specialized education for it. SaaS was a huge change in the business model, but did it require an MBA to come up with the idea? Or was it someone who figured that their customers didn't want to wait for "vN" of the product?
xphos 5y ago
I don't think you can just claim that MBA generated the idea of SaaS nor that MBA (or tech staff)in general generate that type of novel idea constantly. Now you different can argue that one of those two groups is absolutely required to produce a SaaS product and I think its obivous which one of the two groups is optional. I don't think MBA's are useless but its happens to be my experience. That very often where a non-technical manager is attached to the project and they are kinda useless because they lack the insight to contribute but a given more authority that the people that actually know whats going on. I've found non-manager assistants are often way more productive at getting the actual adminstrative tasks required done as well.

Schroedingersat 5y ago

I can see someone trained in mediation, finance, accounting, philosophy, game theory, and some basic general technical skills (statistics, maths foundations, general tool and workshop proficiency, foundations of CS/IT) being a massive boon to any organizational structure. Technical people often lack communication skills and can lose the forest for the trees. But their voice needs to be equal with people who specialise in what is actually done on the ground. Basically real management specialization, not 'make line go up, you in charge everyone else is a peon to be exploited' training.

g_p 5y ago
> Technical people often lack communication skills and can lose the forest for the trees. This is definitely an issue in my experience. There's some who can communicate well. In cases where you don't have one of them though, the solution seems like it would be a same-level or one-level-junior "PR" type individual, who helps them to hone and delivery a message. It seems incongruous that in this one (?) context, we look for general enabling skills further up the chain, rather than down the chain.
- Schroedingersat 5y ago
  Down the chain is good for communicating to the outside world. But an equal team member would imo be best for helping the team achieve their goals.