Comments on _Critical Chain_, ch 3

Chapter 3

The chapter starts out by focussing on the University President.

There's an event where that president is talking to another university president. They're talking about how both of their universities are seeing less applicants to their business schools.

Alistair articulates what they are all thinking. "The last ten years or so were very good for us. Organizations' demand for new MBAs grew, and the desire of young people to acquire MBAs grew proportionately. We didn't have enough capacity to supply the demand. No wonder we enjoyed a hefty queue of applicants banging on our doors." He stops to sip his red wine.

..."So, is what we are witnessing now simply a result of the universities succeeding in building up enough capacity?

"Probably." Alistair's eyes are fixed on his glass. "But it is not as simple as that. You know how systems tend to react.

“They almost always undershoot or overshoot. I'm afraid that the rapid decline in the number of surplus applicants indicates that we overshot."

I guess that means they built up capacity at a bottleneck (supply) so much that it was no longer the bottleneck and another thing became the bottleneck (demand).

"This means that we had better restrain our business schools from continuing to grow at their current frantic pace. At least until we find ways to encourage more young people to choose management as a career path," Bernard thoughtfully concludes.

“It might be that we don't have enough applicants because we are already over-supplying the market demand and the word is out that an MBA degree doesn't guarantee a lucrative job anymore."

"If that's the case," Bernard wonders aloud, "then it's not simply a matter of slowing the growth of our business schools."

“The challenge is how to smoothly shrink them. That's tough."

They discuss other universities that don't seem to be having any trouble with this. Like Harvard. They turn down 4 out of 5 applications to their business school.

They discussed that their professors are better at teaching than the Harvard professors.

They conclude that it's reputation that is their problem. Harvard has it. They don't. That results in the best students going to Harvard.

They discuss how to build a strong reputation. One guys says...

“... We all know of cases where faculties have built national acclaim. They succeeded in gathering a group of exceptional scientists, whose breakthrough research put their department firmly on the map."

Alistair shakes his head in disagreement. B.J. knows exactly why. There is no way a small university like hers or Alistair's can attract people of such caliber. These exceptional people want, and are able, to go to the already acclaimed universities.

Anyway, she simply can't afford the high salaries they command.

Maybe she can cultivate talent already existing in her business school? Support and encourage them in some way… What way? And what is the likelihood that the business school has some unrecognized Feynman in their midst?

Sounds interesting!

Here's an idea. Look for what the awesome professors want that they don't currently get from universities like Harvard, and see if your university can provide it. Or failing that, find something that they might want and persuade them of it.