A Beekeeper's Perspective on Risk | Hacker News Reader

A Beekeeper's Perspective on Risk

blogs.hbr.org

21 pointszopa5 comments

Am I the only one that thought this article was near worthless?

This article typifies the type of hand-waving that happens in business school (yes, I have my MBA):

1. Identify a business problem. 2. Do a "high-level" analysis to figure out what went wrong, completely ignoring the small details (which are usually immensely important) 3. Come up with brief "lessons" of what not to do in the future, giving no allowance for unique situations or how the future may look nothing like the past.

I took one (yes, only ONE) strategy class in b-school that was worth paying attention to. The prof had developed a single theory on analyzing corporate strategy. He had spent years researching it, devising case studies that supported his theory (right down to a minor details). The theory is actually very useful to analyze future business strategies because it makes you go through a systematic process to evaluate the opportunities. That has value. This article does not.

I don't believe the article was as simplistic as you make it out to be.

It identifies a working system generated by thousands of years of evolutionary adaptation, and several advantages that may not be obvious at first glance.

This is quite valuable, if you ask me, and I could not find the three simplistic points you criticize anywhere in the article.

Otherwise, I agree with your general stance on b-school teachings. I think I learned more from the bees than from the author.

Would you mind sharing information on that strategy?

His theory was that innovation strategy was more than just coming up with the right product, you had to make sure all the pieces were in place in order to get adoption (customers, suppliers, competitors, etc). His analysis of why the Newton failed, but the iPad succeed is very well supported. As is his work on why electronic medical records have failed to be adopted despite the obvious advantages to the paper system

It's a complex enough of a theory that I can't do it justice in a HN post.

Do a google search for "Ron Adner". I'm sure he has some stuff on the web. He just published a new book as well.

I suspect that corporate executives would also be a lot more cautious if the failure of their businesses directly lead to death. It's a worthwhile perspective to consider, but bee-haviour is definitely not close to a solution for humanity's problems.

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