Ridiculously Dumb Classes

Right now I'm in an intro Management class. I understand that once I start my career, management will be important and significantly more complicated, but right now, this class could be summed up by:

1) don't screw your employees (literally or figuratively)-this is easily 50% of the class.

2) don't sit around and be paralyzed by fear of taking a risk, even if business is good, you will have to adapt.

3) most of the time, groups produce better results than individuals, despite how smart you think you are.

End of class.

Anyone have similar classes? My intro marketing class was very similar to my management class.

most of my first year subjects were like that, luckily the next few subjects (for me) were more interesting

Most everything that ends in 101 or 102 will fall into this catagory

If you take those principles out of the class then you will have done OK.

When it comes to managing people there is no substitute for actually doing it for real. I manage a team of 16. It is an art rather than a science, but so long as you keep your wits sharp and your eyes and ears open then you can do it, and remember that every person is unique.

Just because it's looks simple doesn't mean it is simple. Moses handed out ten basic instructions written on two pages but people seem to have a hard time putting them into practice.

It is awfully simple stuff to be sure, but you'd be surprised how often even 'successful' folks forget them. I have worked in various different states of corporate America in the past and have to say that I've rarely seen a management structure that has consistently lived up to those three principles.

I would pick up two books and have them next to the "throne" to read for a minute or two. Sun Tzu "The Art of War" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People" Dale Carnagey. You can find info on the web such as http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.html for a sumary of Carnagey's book. Or, http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html for "The Art of War". I have the books and have downloaded the books on my smart phone. I will read bit's and pieces if I have a moment and think of it.

I wish I would have read these books when I was 18 or so and would have been smart enough to understand and put to use what the books offer.

And now for the punchline-

tell us how much that class cost.

Well I guess whether a class is easy for you or not is based on the fundamental fact of whether you have knowldege of something or you just remember it.

Most people go through life doing no more than really remembering math (all those tables from youth) and think nothing of it. They only struggle when they reach a point where that memorization fails and they're actually forced to actually struggle through new problems and really gain some additional knowledge. Hopefully these classes are actually building a foundation of knowledge for you and not just putting a bunch of facts into your brain you are only remembering to regurgitate for tests.

College seems to start off reminding you of what you remember and eventually forces you to use those memories in new situations to expand that knowledge & create new patterns of thought.

You're finding these classes easy because you have a memory base for them, meanwhile they are probably challenging to folks with no memory base to go from. It'd be like an Opera appreciation class for me. I know nothing of Opera - a 101 class would probably overwhelm me since I have no base to build on, where someone who grew up going to the opera with their folks would be bored to tears.

You might want to look up Gandhi's sermons on the Seven Social Sins:

Politics without Principles
Wealth without Effort
Commerce without Ethics
Pleasure without Conscience
Education without Character
Science without Humanity
Religion without Sacrifice

Pretty powerful stuff.

yeah, I am taking a couple classes this semester I feel the same way about.

One thing I have realized about college and getting a degree is that it is not just about knowledge and education, it is also about discipline, the ability to manage time and the ability to set and follow through with deadlines and goals.

I took ping pong.

All of the non-engineering classes I was forced to take were pretty stupid. The only thing they provided for me was an easy class to blow off if I needed time to study or do work for my major.

Managing people it's not about power, as we know it, it's about influence.

Ask questions, know your team, their background (family,kids) and never forget to say Sorry because a bad decision is always better than none at all.

And mainly Ethics.

AndrewWiggin said:

1) don't screw your employees (literally or figuratively)-this is easily 50% of the class.

2) don't sit around and be paralyzed by fear of taking a risk, even if business is good, you will have to adapt.

3) most of the time, groups produce better results than individuals, despite how smart you think you are.

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They have to teach this because many people don't understand it or do it. Many business fail because they miss one or more of these, from the corner grocer to Enron.

Bobtrumpet said:

They have to teach this because many people don't understand it or do it. Many business fail because they miss one or more of these, from the corner grocer to Enron.

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I think that if you don't already know those when you walk into the classroom, you're not going to able to learn them by taking a course.

lamina said:

never forget to say Sorry because a bad decision is always better than none at all.

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That is a point similar to one I sometimes try to make, but it usually comes out wrong.

You often hear the saying "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well." Well, I say "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly!"

The idea is to take action (and probably learn from that) without over-analyzing and delaying to the point where nothing gets done, it gets done too late, or you end up doing a poor job anyway.

There is a balance between barging ahead unprepared and dallying forever.

Sounds like Management 130 I had to take last year, Principals of Management? Very boring class but unfortunately it was required for me.

I'm taking Human Resource Management this semester, and it's almost as bad, but I find Employee/Employer relations a little more interesting.

I remember reading someplace that the upper levels of management in many of the companies on Wall Street are overrepresented by clinical sociopaths. That is to say that the folks that control your money and mine generally lack the empathy to care about the consequences of their actions. That was, interestingly, also the subject of Bret Eaton Ellis' novel American Psycho.

I bring this up because, though these principles of management may seem entirely obvious to a normal, well-adjusted human being, it is equally apparent that there is a culture surrounding American business today that demands that all decisions be quantitative. There is no room for values. Decisions are arrogated to the col logic of the balance sheet.

Perhaps your class isn't as dumb as you think it is.

Protocol said:

I remember reading someplace that the upper levels of management in many of the companies on Wall Street are overrepresented by clinical sociopaths.

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Wow!

There's a well researched point of view!