Question
Who makes a better Business Professor, a PhD with deep research in the field, or a former Senior Executive with little/no advanced education?
Answer
This is a false comparison. There are FOUR possible comparisons you can make here among 4 types of people. Bad or good businessperson vs. bad or good academic.
If it's a bad versus bad comparison, nobody wins. One teaches stupid lessons full of idiotic and self-serving biases, the other teaches unexamined, untested or obsolete formulas.
If it's a good versus bad comparison, the good wins. A good academic will extract more and more valid lessons from the experiences of a bad businessperson than the bad businessperson himself can. And a good businessperson, even if he doesn't have the textbook knowledge, will be able to tell stories that capture business wisdom that cover the corresponding textbook ideas and go beyond, where the bad academic will mess up the textbook lessons.
And in a good vs. good comparison, there will be no contest. Each will recognize the value of the other, complement each other, collaborate on research and courses, and send their students across the hallway to their colleague when necessary.
Every path through a domain -- academic study, practice, philosophical inquiry -- has lessons to teach. Put an idiot on any path, and he'll extract and teach exactly the wrong lessons. Put a smart person on any path, they'll mine gold.
I've acquired my business knowledge entirely through practice, and I've learned just as much by watching and reading the biographies of smart businesspeople as by reading textbooks and academic opinions. I've never met a smart person on either side who feels the need to create an 'us vs. them' discourse.
A MUCH better question is the following: what percentage of PhD academic types are idiots and what percentage of self-taught business people are idiots?
My sense is: about the same. If you are not careful, you are as likely to pick an idiot mentor in the workplace as you are to pick a course taught by an idiot PhD professor in academia.
If it's a bad versus bad comparison, nobody wins. One teaches stupid lessons full of idiotic and self-serving biases, the other teaches unexamined, untested or obsolete formulas.
If it's a good versus bad comparison, the good wins. A good academic will extract more and more valid lessons from the experiences of a bad businessperson than the bad businessperson himself can. And a good businessperson, even if he doesn't have the textbook knowledge, will be able to tell stories that capture business wisdom that cover the corresponding textbook ideas and go beyond, where the bad academic will mess up the textbook lessons.
And in a good vs. good comparison, there will be no contest. Each will recognize the value of the other, complement each other, collaborate on research and courses, and send their students across the hallway to their colleague when necessary.
Every path through a domain -- academic study, practice, philosophical inquiry -- has lessons to teach. Put an idiot on any path, and he'll extract and teach exactly the wrong lessons. Put a smart person on any path, they'll mine gold.
I've acquired my business knowledge entirely through practice, and I've learned just as much by watching and reading the biographies of smart businesspeople as by reading textbooks and academic opinions. I've never met a smart person on either side who feels the need to create an 'us vs. them' discourse.
A MUCH better question is the following: what percentage of PhD academic types are idiots and what percentage of self-taught business people are idiots?
My sense is: about the same. If you are not careful, you are as likely to pick an idiot mentor in the workplace as you are to pick a course taught by an idiot PhD professor in academia.