Critical Chain - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [22]
"Let's face it, Bernie. We don't deliver and the market, to a large extent, already knows it."
They drive in silence for a while. Bernie tries to digest. "But B.J., it can't be. If you are right, nobody would have registered. We charge tens of thousands of dollars, they spend years of their lives, and we don't deliver anything of value? If that were true they would have thrown stones at us. No, B.J., you must be wrong."
"Bernie, what do you want? You want me to say that I'm wrong? You want to convince yourself that I'm just an hysterical woman who is absolutely wrong? But Bernard, what for? It does not change the facts."
At last she reached him. He cannot regard it any longer as a concern, as another item on the agenda. He knows she is right. Almost none of his friends consider an MBA important. He himself, when hiring managers, doesn't consider it as relevant anymore. Still . . .
"B.J., answer me just that. What is saving us from tar and feathers?"
"The respect for higher education," she answers in a lifeless voice. "Respect that is well-deserved by some of our departments but not by others."
It makes sense to him. His mind is racing now, trying to see the ramifications. "When organizations overcome the respect for a university degree the real collapse will happen. I wonder how many business schools will survive then. B.J., we must do something about it. We must save our business schools. They amount to half the university."
"There is nothing to do," B.J. says flatly. "Management is an art and we try to teach it as if it is a science. It cannot work, it doesn't work, and it will never work."
"I don't agree," Bernard is adamant. "It's not art. Organizations have procedures. They operate through defined structures. They institute rules. Management is not based just on impressions and intuition. In organizations many things can even be measured by numbers."
She thinks about it. "You may be right," she says, not willing to argue. "Do you really think that, in its current state, management is like an accurate science?"
"If it were, we wouldn't face the problem," he agrees.
"Do you also agree that we should not count on a miracle? That we should not behave as if we expect business know-how to be turned into science in the near future?"
She doesn't wait for him to agree. "So one thing is clear. We cannot sit around, doing nothing, waiting for the unavoidable collapse of our business schools. Bernard, we must move. It's our responsibility."
"What do you suggest we do?" He speaks so softly she barely hears him.
"There is only one thing that we can and must do. We must start to prudently shrink our business schools."
For another three miles no one says a word. Bernard thinks about what it means. B.J. does the same.
"B.J., I must bitterly thank you, but you didn't fly here just to open my eyes. You have a problem. What is it?"
"Bernie, I'm not up to it," she confesses. "I fought to become the president of a university in order to build. To build a place for young and not-so-young people to grow. Now I know I must slash, that's the only way, still I cannot bring myself to be a butcher."
"I understand," he quietly says. "But B.J., now we both know what will happen if we continue to refuse to address the issue. The business schools will tumble anyway, and if we don't start to trim now, the trauma will be much bigger. The business schools might take down other departments with them. We have responsibility for hundreds, for thousands of people."
"I know. Believe me, I know. But Bernie, I cannot do it. Not even the first step. I tried to bring myself to stop granting tenure. Our business school qualified eight candidates. I read their files. Not much is there, but from the little there is you can see how hard they had to work for it. How many years they devoted. I can picture their families. I can picture how it will ruin them.
"Don't misunderstand me," she adds. "I don't have any problem getting rid of a person who is not carrying his weight.