Sounds great expect that most small business owners do a shit job of running the operations of a business. At best they stumble through it. It’s just not their passion to deal with legalities, OSHA, taxes, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc.
The problem with MBAs is that they have little or no practical experience with the business they’re running (seasonality, how to motivate employees, etc). There are some good MBAs out there but there are so many more poor ones. They aren’t looking at the human factor at all. It’s a space that the universities don’t teach for. Everything is KPI related instead. That’s their ultimate downfall.
It’s just not their passion to deal with legalities, OSHA, taxes, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc.
All of that should be handled by lawyers, accountants, and finance people. The MBA is not generally the one doing any of that directly though. They’re the ones managing the people that do that work and telling them what to prioritize. And therein lies the problem as you correctly pointed out; those are all secondary business functions. They are important parts of any business but are not the fundamental driver of any real business. What the company makes or sells or consults about or whatever else is the actual business and MBAs don’t generally know a thing about that part. Letting them steer all of the corporate ships in America is a huge miscalculation and it’s also a big part of why things are getting more and more fucked up for everybody.
They aren’t looking at the human factor at all.
That is an important point. It’s also a pretty good summary of the problem. MBAs ignore everything that made a business successful (people being a huge factor here) and focus on eternally increasing profits, which inevitably leads to making the product as shitty as it can possibly be while still somewhat meeting expectations, and even that last part is becoming less and less important.
Sounds great expect that most small business owners do a shit job of running the operations of a business. At best they stumble through it. It’s just not their passion to deal with legalities, OSHA, taxes, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc.
The problem with MBAs is that they have little or no practical experience with the business they’re running (seasonality, how to motivate employees, etc). There are some good MBAs out there but there are so many more poor ones. They aren’t looking at the human factor at all. It’s a space that the universities don’t teach for. Everything is KPI related instead. That’s their ultimate downfall.
All of that should be handled by lawyers, accountants, and finance people. The MBA is not generally the one doing any of that directly though. They’re the ones managing the people that do that work and telling them what to prioritize. And therein lies the problem as you correctly pointed out; those are all secondary business functions. They are important parts of any business but are not the fundamental driver of any real business. What the company makes or sells or consults about or whatever else is the actual business and MBAs don’t generally know a thing about that part. Letting them steer all of the corporate ships in America is a huge miscalculation and it’s also a big part of why things are getting more and more fucked up for everybody.
That is an important point. It’s also a pretty good summary of the problem. MBAs ignore everything that made a business successful (people being a huge factor here) and focus on eternally increasing profits, which inevitably leads to making the product as shitty as it can possibly be while still somewhat meeting expectations, and even that last part is becoming less and less important.
Great response expansion!