Inventing Elephants

A few months ago I was reading discussions about how if financial leaders had been approaching their problems from a systems thinking perspective then they might have done things differently so as to lessen or completely avoid the crisis in October 2008. I've seen similar articles from time to time and managers with MBAs seemed to be a high target.

Improving judgment using systems thinking makes sense to me, so I didn't think much more of it. Until I started my Strategic Management class, the capstone class of my MBA program, and found out it was all about looking at business in different ways and taking action. There were models to evaluate the industry a business was in, the general environment around it, and its own internal strengths and weaknesses.

This type of analysis is made to look at the bigger picture, so why would it be considered not enough?

As class progressed I came up with some potential pitfalls, all of which were also influenced by business reading I'd done elsewhere and absorbed information from.

In our cases we usually only touched on one layer in our analyis. We only looked at the most immediate responses, not those that would occur because of feedback loops and delays and someone else's responses to our actions. I would imagine that the best businesses would look further when it was their livlihood at stake and not a grade, but perhaps not all of them do, for sake of time or considering it enough, so might miss things.

Also there could be the time factor. It can be difficult to carve out the time for long-term thinking, difficult enough that it's one of the exhortations in various time management and productivity theories, implying that most people don't.

Overall, our focus was on the profitability of the business. It was the only lens we looked through. We would include things like customer response or social good in certain cases, but it was related to branding and positioning and rarely about intrinsic goals. This would seem to be something that would be an even greater driver in the real world.

We also only looked at it from our point of view, even though we considered multiple factors. Other voices weren't considered, nor was there any discussion about collaborating with them, just responding to them.

I can see how things such as these might have a dramatic effect, yet I'm unsure.

I also wondered if in-person MBA programs had more discussion or different types of assignments that would have led me to different thoughts. I find it unlikely, otherwise there would not be those educators deliberately trying to infuse systems thinking or integrative thinking or sustainability into the curriculum. My experience was likely typical.

To be effective, this post really should have held more references to what others have written or I should have been able to tie together the different modes of thought in a more sophisticated way. I haven't mastered the principles well enough to do the kind of thinking I wanted, hence this informal style, but I still wanted to pose the question.

During the course of my MBA I learned a great deal about the different aspects of the business and on what basis decisions are likely to be made, whether for good or bad. I found a different perspective on what was and is happening within the company I work for and on the more popular business books that I have read. The commitment to the degree also influenced the extra-curricular learning I did online and otherwise. I am glad I took the time and effort and am also glad I'm done, so I have more control over my time again. Of course, I'll be using it to do other learning and experience gaining things....

Someday I hope to return to this concept again, about how we are taught to think in different formal and informal ways and the effects of that, but, in the meantime, what musings would you like to add?