Sorry folks, let me repost this under the proper stream.
Dave
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 13:53:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: "David J. Lemak" <
dlemak@beta.tricity.wsu.edu>
To: Management Education and Development Discussion
<
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hiring for attitude
Miles,
True enough, and you can add Ross Perot to the list of gazzillionaires
without formal business training. One thing that I have discovered about
successful entreprenuers is that they seem to fall into two categories.
One group is the visionaries, charismatic, dare I say 'transformational'
leaders, who dream great dreams, attract great people, do great things
until the enterprise grows to a size where it needs technical experts and
professional administrators to run the business. At that point, the very
traits that made the founder a success now get in the way of efficient
operations. Folks in this group: Jobs and Wozniak at Apple, Beauvais at
America West, Burr at People's Express, even Ben and Jerry's and Starbucks
seem to be running into this phenomenon. In the second category are the
founders with that same traits as above, but those who are also wise
enough to know what they don't know, and thus surround themselves with the
best money can buy in the way of technical expertise and administration.
Here is where I put Gates and Perot. If you've ever heard Gates speak or
read his book, one cannot but help be struck but by how "ungenious-like"
(we academics love to make up words) he is.
On the personal experience side, I used three entreprenuers in the
Colorado Springs area to speak to my policy and strategy class - one who
owned a pizza franchise, one who went into the full service restraunt
business after selling off a successful Wendy's franchise and a retail
furniture operation. None of them had formal business training and all of
them were very "people-oriented, empowerment, etc." kind of managers and
all very successful. Three years later, after returning to the Academy
from PhD school, I wanted to use them again, only to find out that all
three had gone bankrupt.
The point is (again from a sample size of one) that there is some
combination of formal education and experience that seems to lead to
success over the LONG term. I don't know what that is, but one thing I
have enjoyed from this list (apart from trying to be contentious when
things get boring) is the input from so many people with such varied
backgrounds as to what the items in that magic recipe might be.
Regards,
Dave
On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, Davis, Miles wrote:
> Just for the record, to expand on David's comments, having attended a
> school is no assurance of knowledge or application. The lack of
> attending a school does not presume incompetence.
>
> Actually, there is emperical data that confirms most managers of
> successful companies do not have advanced degrees and some dropped out
> of college (e.g., Bill Gates). Also, there was a recent study done that
> details who becomes a millioniare in the U.S. A surprise to me is that
> it was not mostly white collar workers. Two thirds were blue collar
> people who owned there own businesses and THEY DID NOT GO TO SCHOOL TO
> LEARN THEIR TRADE.
>
> So can we please stop rarifing education. It has its place, but it is
> not the only path to success and learning. BTW, do you believe that
> this is coming from a Ph.D. candidate.
>
>