Well, I think I now understand the purpose of Critical Management Thinking Class in our curriculum as such. Today morning began with Rolf coming in to discuss, how "Narrations" influence decision of people [common men and learned executives alike]. To setup the context, he discussed various kinds of narrations that we could identify with from the simple Hollywood movie plot to the Christian Gospels. As always, the latitude of Rolf's knowledge impressed me today as well.
Among these examples, one was particularly interesting.
Rolf asked the class to give a few examples of an entrepreneur - Steve Jobs, Mark, Branson .. the names started to show up and then he stopped us, only to ask, isn't the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician, who takes risk of not getting a salaried job and starts his own little venture an entrepreneur.
So, why is our narration based on these few extreme examples? We keep hearing the word Entrepreneurship so many times in here at IE, do we really understand the meaning of the term.
Frankly that question was an eye-opener for me. Not because I thought whether I really understood Entrepreneurship - but because it made very clear to me, the very purpose of this class.
Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Social Responsibility are the core values of IE. And in last 4 odd months here, we have heard and said these words so many times; and we have developed our own special narratives around these buzzwords to such an extent, that if we would have continued on the same path, we would have made ourselves vulnerable to getting lost in our own little sphere of ill-information.
And even while I was thinking about all this, Rolf concluded - Remember the smart guy in ancient Rome with an attitude problem, who kept on saying "I know nothing". Only if you do the same, can you avoid the fallacy of narration. Remember to not only ask "Why" but also "Why NOT"? and only then you would be able to see both sides of the coin.
Today's case for critical management thinking was about the housing bubble in USA during 2002; but I am taking away much more from this class - a beacon of sanity :-)
Among these examples, one was particularly interesting.
Rolf asked the class to give a few examples of an entrepreneur - Steve Jobs, Mark, Branson .. the names started to show up and then he stopped us, only to ask, isn't the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician, who takes risk of not getting a salaried job and starts his own little venture an entrepreneur.
So, why is our narration based on these few extreme examples? We keep hearing the word Entrepreneurship so many times in here at IE, do we really understand the meaning of the term.
Frankly that question was an eye-opener for me. Not because I thought whether I really understood Entrepreneurship - but because it made very clear to me, the very purpose of this class.
Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Social Responsibility are the core values of IE. And in last 4 odd months here, we have heard and said these words so many times; and we have developed our own special narratives around these buzzwords to such an extent, that if we would have continued on the same path, we would have made ourselves vulnerable to getting lost in our own little sphere of ill-information.
And even while I was thinking about all this, Rolf concluded - Remember the smart guy in ancient Rome with an attitude problem, who kept on saying "I know nothing". Only if you do the same, can you avoid the fallacy of narration. Remember to not only ask "Why" but also "Why NOT"? and only then you would be able to see both sides of the coin.
Today's case for critical management thinking was about the housing bubble in USA during 2002; but I am taking away much more from this class - a beacon of sanity :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment