This week I go off on Business Schools… I hope you enjoy!
VIDEO SUMMARY
This video is going to make enemies, and I am probably going to get banned from every business school in the country. But I do not care, because there is something about business schools that I feel strongly about. I know a lot about business schools. I have three degrees from three different schools. I was a teacher’s assistant for two years at one of them. And I have visited many others. So I have a really good understanding of how business schools work and how they design their curriculums.
Here is my problem: Business Schools do a really bad job at teaching creativity. In fact, they do everything they can to beat creativity out of their students. You can see this in the words they use. The term “creative accounting” is considered a bad thing. Creativity is not a bad thing; “Unethical accounting” is a bad thing. And I think we have to be clear here. We should be talking about ethics, and not bashing creativity. Because this has a really bad side effect. It gives students permission to ignore creativity. I cannot even count how many business students I have met who say “I’m just not a creative person.” Or “I don’t have any creative outlets.” And in the world of the business school, those kind of statements are okay, because creativity is left for other types of people to explore. This is a massive problem, and I am going to explain why.
Your ability to harness creativity is directly related to how successful you are in business. We have known this for a long time. There are a ton of scientific studies showing the long-term benefits of studying art and music. People who work on their creativity, make more money. And yet, this conversation is completely absent from the halls of business schools. Creativity is really important. Every year, the global economy becomes more complex, with constantly changing competitive landscapes, and business people are faced with very difficult problems that require creativity. And business schools are graduating people who have never developed their creativity skills. So how are they going to cope in this new global economy? They are going to have a lot of struggles.
I feel like I have been lucky in this area, because creative studies have always been a part of my life. Building creativity is just like developing any muscle. Just like you would go to a gym to build muscles, you work on art to develop your creative muscles. I started playing the piano when I was five years old, so music has always been a creative outlet for me. And it has always just been a hobby for me, but it has built those creative muscles. So now that I am working in the business world, I have decades worth of creative muscles that I can apply to real world business problems. I am grateful for those skills on the job every single day.
So at this point, I know that all the business school staff is watching and saying to themselves “Hey, this guy is wrong. We do teach creativity. We teach creative problem solving, and out-of-the-box thinking.” I am here to tell you, “No, you do not.” Let me explain to you how they teach creativity in art schools. If you were taking a painting class, what they would have you do, is rip out your heart, put it on a canvas, display it for all the world to see, and then stand there exposed as people give you criticism. And you do that over and over and over again. That is how you build your creative muscles. It is the process of looking at a blank canvas, deciding your message, how to communicate that, and making your imagination a reality. This is the skill set you need if you are in business. If you are a leader in a business organization, what you are doing is dreaming about the future of your organization, writing down a strategic action, and then sharing that plan with the world. That is the creative process. But it is very difficult to do, if you have never developed your creative muscles.
So how do business schools fix this? I think business schools should require all of their students to take an art class. I am talking about a hard core art class, to build those creative muscles. Business students should be taking accounting, marketing, and painting (or some other art class). Now I realize that business schools are very slow to change, and this is probably not going to happen. So that means, this is up to you. You need to make it a goal to develop your creative muscles on your own.
Don’t get me wrong. I think business schools are wonderful. I just wish they would change this one thing, that in my opinion is the most important skill a business person can have. My goal in this video was just to start this conversation, that is just not happening at business schools. They do not talk about this. I think this is so important, I am going to make another video next week, and dive even deeper into the topic of creativity. I am going to define more clearly why it is so important, and lay out some practical steps you can take to build your creative muscles.
This is a radical idea. If you agree or disagree, leave a comment down below letting me know what you think.
If you are a business school and you are not too angry with me at this point, click on the subscribe button. The best way to supercharge a business is through accounting and corporate finance, and I release a new video every week. So come back and check out next week’s video.
Neither Zach De Gregorio or Wolves and Finance Inc. shall be liable for any damages related to information in this video. It is recommended you contact a CPA in your area for business advice.