Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Business Class

Is business an art or a science?

Judging by the scores of business books which keep flooding the market, it seems to be a science. Ditto for the hordes of people who join Business Schools the world over. But succeeding in business requires the ability to see the future trends, which is not always something that can be taught. Indeed, if someone were able to see the future, he/she might chuck the business they are in and probably get into the betting market. I was reading "Good to Great" when the Fannie May / Freddie Mac bail out news came in. We were having a case study on how great Enron was, when the Enron flameout happened. Business books & cases have a (valid) criticism that they are more out of showing examples of past occurrences for showing how businesses should work, i.e. making a science out of it, when actually it may have more to do with intuition or even possibly luck.

I don't know the answer to the question I asked above, but I would be very interested in knowing your thoughts on this.

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