When Jack Welch gave a guest lecture at MIT’-s Sloan School of Management in 2005, someone in the crowd asked, “-What should we be learning in business school?”- Welch’-s reply: “-Just concentrate on networking. Everything else you need to know, you can learn on the job.”- Sloan’-s dean, Richard Schmalensee, was stunned because “-Jack was essentially saying a graduate business degree was a waste of time.”- […]
Yes, and this observation would be my answer to the “innovation”/invention” discussion, along with my comment to Mike’s “those who can’t” post on pros/amateurs:
http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2…..-who-cant/
Relationships are a big part of this mundane “work”, and can determine which inventions are most “fit”.
Incidentally, Welch’s predecessor is popularly credited with the invention of the light bulb, but of course his lab only developed the first *commercially viable* bulb.
“Jack was essentially saying a graduate business degree was a waste of time.”
That’s a misunderstanding of the comment. What Welch was saying was that the most valuable thing the students were paying for was the contacts they made, not the content of the coursework. The contacts are hard to make any other way, and many people consider the investment worthwhile. Even if you manage to meet the same people without having the shared background, it won’t do you as much good, since you won’t get the same reaction from them.