Everyone talks like 'Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction'?
This guy is trying too hard to sound smart. Everything that's written by him reads like a try-hard freshman English major.
This guy is trying too hard to sound smart. Everything that's written by him reads like a try-hard freshman English major.
Its a way of softening the blow for the people being laid off. I mean, sure, you are losing your job, on the other hand, do you really want to work for someone whose brain works in a way that would let them write "Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction"?
It's much easier to retreat behind MBA speak, especially when you don't have a clear grasp of what you're trying to communicate or are saying things you don't want to be heard saying. "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit".
It CAN be a useful tool to deflect and confuse, but sadly I think 99% of the time it's not used intentionally. It's simply much, much harder to communicate complex ideas in a simple and clear way - it takes a lot more effort and deeper understanding, and many people are simply incapable.
I know an MBA right now who is pursuing a business wherein he offers wifi hotspots to small businesses. His literature claims that renting one of his hotspots will make the business "PCI compliant". I've personally advised him on multiple occasions (gently at first, growing more stern over time) that this claim is patently ridiculous and only displays his incompetence to anyone knowledgeable in IT, but he refuses to amend his materials or statements. Just the tip of the iceberg with him.
Granted these are anecdotes, but I think they embody the anti-MBA ethos. Qualified persons strongly dislike MBAs because MBAs often feel their MBA grants them immunity from doing things incorrectly, and that they are instantly authorities on everything without requiring any experience or research.
I swear they have to explicitly teach that in business school, like: "Now, this degree grants you the magic power of never needing advice, information, or training, and you will always be right, and normal people won't understand that because they didn't go to business school... but remember, business school is the only school that matters. No one would have money without us! Just tell the nerds to shove it if they try to tell you anything else." It's far too universal a feeling among MBAs to be coincidental.
YMMV.
Fully agree that YMMV, but generalizations are useful tools as long as we don't take them as absolutes.
Uhh... who said that MBAs didn't "get it"? The original accusation was that MBAs sometimes employed a particularly objectionable type of vapid and duplicitous speech, not that MBAs were lacking in any particular mental department.
I see several people trying to extend an olive branch ("my personal experience coincides with the stereotype BUT I know my experience is limited, please fill in the gaps"). Instead of filling in the gaps, which you are presumably able to do
> I've just worked with people who were both gifted and in possession of an MBA.
, you insult the people asking you for information and you ignore their polite request. WTF, mate?
In any case, MBAs can help start-up focused entrepreneurs. They can be start-up focused entrepreneurs. Your perception that it can't be so is exactly what I'm talking about.
One of the most obvious indicators of this is people who retreat behind the bulshit bingo, which is why it is so rightfully disparaged. Seriously, 'synthesized'?? That word doesn't mean what he thinks it does, unless he literally made up their strategic direction on the spot, in that email.
CEOs and other leaders need to consider their audience. Anyone who casts a company-wide memo to a technical audience in such terms comes off as hopelessly out-of-touch, and deserving of scorn.
As soon as the majority of MBAs start displaying a moderate amount of domain specific knowledge that makes them look less like complete fools to the petty peasants that work for them, I'm sure the hate will fade.
I could see him being Graded cat 4 "in need of improvement" and put on a PIP in one company for that less than stellar performance.