SHARE or SHAFT?

Avid daytime TV viewers will recall a fleetingly popular show hosted by political lightweight Robert Kilroy-Silk.  It was called SHARE or SHAFT and gave contestants a choice of sharing and keeping prizes or risking them to get a bigger prize by "shafting" co-contestants.

CC by NC

Informed readers will realise that this is a transparent use of the Game theory "Prisoners Dilemma" where the best outcome is co-operation, rather than competition.  It is a game repeated and lost by so many who believe that they must compete to be successful.

Any economist will tell you, however, that competition is risky.  It can be an "all or nothing" game - all in the pursuit of profit and wealth.

Co-operation, however, can create even more wealth, shared wealth...and a wealth of benefits that money cannot buy.

So, next time you feel like you are in competition with someone or something - ask yourself - "Am I really?"

But, we've always done it that way...

As a graduate entrant to a major bank, many, many years ago I was told by my first Manager not to ask "why?" but to just get things done quickly.

Was I always disobedient?  My Mum says not, but I failed, magnificently, to follow the Manager's orders on this occasion.

£1,000 IN 1984 WOULD BE WORTH £2,715 IN 2019 - BETTER THAN A POKE IN THE EYE WITH A SHARP STICK!

Asking why we did things in a particular way often generated the response:

"But, we have always done it like that..."

Today, that phrase is still a provocation.

Everything can be done differently - and some of those different ways can be:

•  More Efficient
• Cheaper
• Quicker
• or simply better for achieving our goals.
  (but not always)

The £1,000 prize was awarded for an innovative submission to the Staff suggestion scheme.  It changed bank practice in taking second mortgages over domestic property in a small way and saved annual fees of up to £20,000 p.a. (est.) but after about 15 - 20 years was redundant as technology, outsourcing, business models and centralisation had found even better solutions.

So, ask yourself - why are you still doing things the way you do?

Great Expectations of University

Charles Dickens is forever associated with Misery, Bankruptcy, Debt, Hypocrisy, Poverty, Legal delay, Unrequited Love and, as my title suggests, the hope of better things to come.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

A pity then, that Dickens did not write about University life.  It was not part of his personal history, of course.

But what if he had?

Would the themes  be familiar to him?  Misery, Bankruptcy, Debt, Hypocrisy, Poverty, Legal delay, Unrequited Love, and, as my title suggests, the hope of better things to come?

Happy Christmas to both of my readers.

Practice what you teach

Business Schools have long been teaching about globalisation and technological and business model disruption - the sort of thing that has consigned the shopping experience to history.  But how many have applied that teaching to their own practice?

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Yes, it was a great adventure in the 1960s to go shopping with Mum, to visit the various separate emporiums (emporia?) in our local town, where she was greeted as a valued customer and known personally by staff members  (actually my Auntie Edna worked in one of the shops too).  The traditional skills of the shopkeeper were in choosing the right selection of products for the market and locality they served.  Human memory, careful record keeping and building relationships with families and generations ensured repeat business.  But it could not be scaled up and the corporate learning was slow.

Don't get me wrong.  The AI capabilities of firms like Amazon, their prodigious memory and their relationship with us via the data we freely give them, make them appear like traditional shopkeepers - except, of course, they can scale up and they can, and do, learn very rapidly.

So, the Amazon Business School?  built on the capabilities of digital technology, delivering bespoke education, flexibly and in a variety of ways.  What could possibly go wrong?

Get a GRIP on your teaching

I have spent a productive summer working with a GRIP role play simulation.  The concept of role play for teaching purposes is not new but to combine it with an internet based business scenario and timely interventions from news bulletins and video calls from managers is.

The simulation is the work of GRIP (Gamified Roleplay for Innovation Policy from Organiq.nl of Rotterdam) and is based on a fictitious Dutch company in need of urgent turnaround negotiations.

I worked with the game designers to ensure that the game could be delivered to an English speaking student audience - terminology may be different but the management problems and stakeholder perspectives are universal.  I then used the simulation as an introduction to a final year undergraduate module in Corporate Reconstruction and Turnaround.

So why not simply run out the lectures in the same way you have been doing for years Keith?

Because students HEAR and they (might) remember, they DO and they understand.

Where there's MOOC, there's brass?

Please forgive the bending of that famous Yorkshire saying to fit the point I make.

...AND YORKSHIRE TEA IS NOT GROWN IN YORKSHIRE. PICTURE BY E.THIK.

In 2014 many observers considered that MOOCs (Massive  Open Online Courses) would change the face of education.  Why spend so much money when Harvard (and others) are giving their stuff away for free?
In 2019 we know different.  MOOCs have moderated their numbers and are seen as "tasters" for fee paying courses.  Some allow the issue of a certificate (for a fee) but these are not really commercial ventures.
Those benefiting from MOOCs are the institutions that allowed MOOCs to act as a training ground for their Academics, Learning Designers and Technologists.  A training ground that has allowed the evolution into fully online programmes of study (fee paying) offered via MOOC platforms such as Coursera and FutureLearn.

So, hands up if you thought MOOCs were a fad that would pass?

управление

According to Google Translate the most frequently used Russian word for "Management" is:

управление

(pronounced upravleniye)

...it also translates as CONTROL.

SORRY, BUT I JUST HAD TO USE THIS PIC AGAIN

Just where have Business Schools gone wrong if the evidence of their own "Management", through the influence of "professionals" in key roles, the metric-driven measurements that are REF, TEF and KEF, and the subservient attitude of staff (I won't call them "Faculty") looks more like управление than the best practice our management teachers impart in their courses?