What Peter Drucker Would Be Reading
Recent selections from around the web that, we think, would have caught Peter Drucker’s eye:
1. The Multipolar MBA: Think it makes sense to get an MBA? Not if you ask Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana (hat tip to Steve Denning). Business schools are pushing in countless directions at once, trying to be many more things than they can possibly be, at a cost of any focus, Khurana says in an interview at strategy + business. “Increasingly, students see an elite MBA as more desirable for its selection effect than its educational impact,” he says. “If you get in, you’ll get a highly valued credential, but you’re not going to learn much along the way.”
2. Break Your Addiction to Meetings: We all have them; we all hate them. Meetings devour the time of ordinary employees and, to an even greater extent, managers. Writing at the HBR Blog, Elizabeth Grace Saunders promises that cutting down on them is possible. Among her simple suggestions: “Don’t schedule a meeting for something that you can solve in a phone call, and don’t make a phone call for something that can be communicated in an e-mail. If you must schedule meetings, challenge yourself to make them leaner.”
3. Why Are Hospitals in India Offering Luxury Services?: India isn’t where most Americans think of going for medical tourism, but that may be changing. A report at Knowledge@Wharton looks at the rise of luxury hospitals in India offering everything from 36-seat theaters and helicopters to Lamaze professionals and five-star hotel amenities. It could mean big money: “According to estimates released in August 2011 by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry . . . the inflow of medical tourists in India would increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% to reach 3.2 million by 2015.”
4. Dx Comment of the Week: Last week, when we looked at the spat between the New York Times and Tesla, we asked whether Tesla had forgotten the customer. Reader J Peterson said no, but with reservations:
The U.S. auto market is absolutely ready for an electric car, but the question is whether you manufacture a car that does everything that gasoline cars can do, or whether you ask customers to modify their habits a bit. Both are tall orders. And this ignores what may be a more challenging obstacle—the established automobile industry that doesn’t want any more competition.Americans hate limits. Look at all the four-wheel-drive SUVs that have been purchased. I bet many of them see the 4WD button pushed once a year or less, but people will sacrifice gas mileage and pay more for the 4WD option. Tesla will have to find a way to market their product that appeals to the American sense of freedom, or the customers won’t materialize.