Things you will not learn in a business management school | Hacker News Reader

Things you will not learn in a business management school

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36 pointsiktorn14 comments

This article should be called "4 things you WILL LEARN in a business school."

Communication, networking, adaptation, and follow-up/through have been central tenets of my business education. Having seen both sides of the coin (I have a CS degree and I'm halfway through an MBA), I have to say, this is a very typical and incorrect attitude towards to business education.

probably title is bit too much provocative, but I am glad we agree on importance of this things

Here's a big one: decision-making

There are a lot of skills required in business (sales, marketing, leadership, etc), but if you had to boil all of it down to one skillset, IMO it would be good judgment and sound decision-making.

Because of that, all else being equal, I'll take a strong poker or bridge player over an Ivy League MBA any day.

Great addition. Maybe even: quick decision-making based on a limited amount of information

For quick decision-making based on limited information when your opponents may be actively lying to you and colluding against you, see Diplomacy[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)

http://www.playdiplomacy.com/ :)

gamesbyemail.com also has a nice diplomacy interface.

That's why I play bridge: http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2000/06/12/story6...

"It is therefore better to communicate too much than too little."

I can't disagree strongly enough about this. When you're on a team greater than 2 or 3 people, using hyper-communication like this suggests would consume the majority of your time. Instead of, you know, getting shit done.

It's not the quantity of communication that's important as much as the quality of the information being communicated.

We're building an IMAP-based tool focused on solving #4 - "the power of follow-up" - tracking which you're emails you're waiting on for replies:

http://stacyplease.com

There's other startups that do something similar, usually as a plugin for outlook, gmail, or a particular browser.

Very good points, sounds obvious but I had to learn those based on my own mistakes.

A list of the few things you do learn in biz school is an easier feat. I'll start.

- Gantt charts - Dataflow diagrams

Did I miss anything?

UML, if you're lucky.

great compact list of basics everybody should know.

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