HBS Books
What They Don’t Teach You at HBS
“The best lesson anyone can learn from business school is an awareness of what it can’t teach you.”
What They Don't Teach You at HBS
I picked up these two books for an unserious read. They were both “good” in their own ways, and I can say I did gain something. What I gained was the assurance that people going into business are actually human underneath. They are only hyper-aware of the game being played.
McCormack helps you understand the world of business. Part 1 was about “reading people” and how important it is in the business of business. Part 2 is on “the art of the deal”, how to sell someone on something and close out a deal. Part 3 is all about “management and culture”.
Part 1 wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Having read sociology texts, reading McCormack’s explanations of “true self,” impression management, and performance seemed banal. Especially when McCormack’s approach is solely from a business viewpoint. A person who is attempting to read everyone and even themselves by objectifying everything is considered “neurotic”.
Part 2 is on “game theory”. The “negotiating table” is understood as knowing each other’s “utility”. It reinforces the idea of economics and business as an “information game”. McCormack essentially says an “acute” business person needs to be on about the same level as a chess player “in the field”.
I skimmed Part 3 and don’t remember much of it.
What They Teach You at HBS
“Of the class of 1985, who graduated into one of the great stock market booms, sixty-five were prosecuted for securities violations.”
What They Do Teach You at HBS
The book was a memoir by Broughton of his time attending “Harvard Business School”. I skimmed through the book and found the “economic talk” boring. What I found interesting was the author’s discussion of ethics throughout the book.
Ethics, especially in a book recollecting business cool, is interesting and funny1 2. Broughton doesn’t fail to pass the message along. A memorable case was when Broughton found out most of his classmates “cooked their books” to receive more financial aid by clearing their accounts.
The other was the philosophical discussion on the concept of “business ethics” when the goal of a business is to “make profits”. If the market will punish people as well as reward them, doesn’t it make sense to try to lie, cheat, kill, and steal?
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At UVA, we get honor reports, which basically are reports on all the cheating and misconduct allegations. The business school here never fails to be the largest % which either means they tend to be cheaters or extremely accusative of each other. ↩
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I heard the title of this book changed after the housing market crash to what it is now. ↩