[duxup]

That line reminds me of the old FedEx MBA advert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcoDV0dhWPA

I've certainly had plenty of run ins with young MBA n00bs who have just so little experience in the world that they're not just somewhat a negative, you can't even communicate with them. A company I worked at loved hiring them and putting MBA grads under some managers and giving them tasks. Most seemed to feel there were decisions to make and they were going to make them (hey they have an MBA) and that was that. Some simply didn't show any curiosity about anything, they didn't ask questions so they just never knew and thus their decisions were almost always flawed.

One wonderful fellow was given the task of making the schedule for a call center type environment of about 20 or so people. People would email him schedule preferences and he would make the schedule. This was a fairly straightforward task that had been done for many many years. Except that he never responded to emails and as far as anyone could tell the end product didn't reflect anyone's preferences. It was actually hard to get him to understand that other than responding to his boss's emails... he needed to respond to those who were not his boss. In addition we had to teach him that scheduling someone an overnight shift and then a day shift, and then a night shift and so on was a bad idea.

These guys were so stuck in their MBA world that it really was difficult just to COMMUNICATE with them as there was no shared experience. I don't think he ever had an actual job of any consequence, and his internships were with other MBA type folks doing MBA things with other MBA people.

I've no doubt there are young folks graduating with MBAs who would and will do great, but if you're talking about professional management and such roles IMO most people need a hell of a lot of life experience before they know what they are doing.

[pm90]

This is a common problem with folks who start in management roles right after college. It sounds incredibly trivial, but you have to kinda be on the other side ... "be managed", to better understand the difference b/w good management and bad.

I also had some very incorrect paradigms about the world which I was able to correct in the first couple of years of work (and which I continue to do today whenever I find them to be wrong). Not having the opportunity to do so is a great disservice to these folks... they may never realize some very simple things that most people find rather trivial but they seem to have great difficulty understanding.

e.g. that person who never responds to emails. If I were to guess, it sounds like he has a very inflated sense of self (not common right after college, especially from a top university). It is likely he thinks whatever he does is AWESOME and the boss will realize this and he doesn't need to communicate with the rest of the team.