Critical Chain - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [3]
They say that smart people learn from their mistakes while wise people learn from others' mistakes. Well, I'm not wise. I was never wise, but I am smart. All it takes is to be hit on the head, five to ten times, and I immediately learn my lesson. The details are ugly. It doesn't matter. What matters is that this time it's different. This time I'm making it. Big.
Almost nobody is outside. Or more accurately, no one except for me is idly strolling. In spite of the patches of ice almost everyone is running. It's simply too windy. But I'm not cold.
Life is beautiful. I'm already an associate professor. Tenure is in the bag. The next step is getting full professorship, and then a chair. That's the ultimate. A chair means more time for research. It's being one of the big boys. It's a salary of over one hundred thousand dollars a year.
Such a salary is beyond my comprehension. Give me half of it and I'll be happy. After years of being a doctoral student living on a grant of twelve thousand a year, and too many years of living on the salary of an assistant professor . . . Hell, even a high school teacher seemed rich.
I rub my icy nose. I'll never get promoted to full professor if I keep neglecting the need to publish articles. One might get tenure by being a good teacher and a nice guy, but full professor is another story. "Publish or perish." That's the name of the game.
I hate this game. Maybe I hate it because I don't have the kind of ideas that can be converted into acceptable articles. I don't know how they do it. How they find those small examples that with enough mathematical modeling they can turn into another publication. I need something more tangible, more connected to the real world, real problems. Besides, now I am getting cold. I'd better head back.
I wonder what course Jim is planning to land on me. He wrote that we need to determine it, but it really doesn't matter. Whatever it is I'll have to spend a lot of time preparing. You can't compare teaching an Executive MBA course with teaching a regular MBA course, not to mention an undergraduate course. In the Executive MBA program the students are not full-time students. Actually, they are full-time managers spending one Saturday in class every two weeks.
My strides become longer. It's not just the flush of adrenaline, I'm half frozen. Teaching managers, that will be a new experience for me. They're not going to accept everything I say just because I'm quoting from a textbook. They will force me to deal with the real life situations they face. This may actually be a good thing. It might even give me some new ideas for research . . . and articles.
Ideas are not enough. I can't do research in a vacuum, at least not the type I'm willing to do. But maybe, if I play my cards right I can use these students as bridges to companies. It's possible.
I reach my building. A cup of hot chocolate will help me defrost. I stop near the machine; it's ten 'till two. I'd better hurry.
"Yes, thank you," I accept Jim's offer of coffee, and following his gesture, lower myself into one of his squeaky, uncomfortable upholstered chairs.
"Make it two," he says to Miriam, his colossal secretary, and chooses the sofa.
Status symbols are important in universities and Jim has a room that matches his position. A big room, a corner room. I should rephrase that. I don't know if status symbols are important in every university, but they sure are for the dean of our business school. Our dean will not let anyone forget which is the most important school. And he has a point. The business school has grown, by now, to over six thousand students—almost