I have never enrolled in an MBA so I am going out on a limb here when I say that I think MBA thinking is causing many of our problems.
MBA graduates are welcomed by most businesses so they can optimize profits by steering from quarterly business report to quarterly business report by minimizing expenses and maximizing revenue without thought for the ramifications of immediate actions or long term consequences.
For instance, sacking staff to reduce the expense of their salary and leaving a skeleton staff to perform all the work. This might work in the short term, but the existing staff quickly become overworked and possibly sick. Those staff are turned over and replaced as necessary by cheaper staff. There is no loyalty to staff, except possibly those at the top.
Great for short term profits and that's all that matters, to them. The functioning of the business is still going on as best as possible but the business might eventually be sold off or just die and that fits with MBA Darwinian thinking. Survival of the fittest and being cut-throat is all included in MBA business thinking.
We especially see this in how they manage their waste. They just dump it away from anyone who might matter. They grease palms of politicians rather than clean up after themselves. The greasing of palms is more than hobnobbing in the right circles, boys meeting up over drinks, at business meetings all around the world, desirable and enjoyable for those who participate. This might be put down to the cost of doing business, rather than an expense per se, and explained as future savings (or Orwellian doublethink).
That might be great for the business in question but then many businesses are avoiding dealing with their waste it becomes a serious burden to the environment, other humans and other living creatures trying to survive in the waste, and we aren't even talking about CO2 or other greenhouse gases, as much as the MBA graduate might wish us to just not use that term and deny their existence.
But there are corollaries to the MBA thinking, the lawyer blame game - which is preventing Japan from cleaning up the mess of Fukushima. Lawyers for the nuclear power plant are blaming the nuclear power plant manufacturer for the disaster as they play pingpong with legal documents - and still no one has done anything about the disaster. Lawyers are very efficient at playing such delay games and meanwhile we moved on, for most of us it has been forgotten.
Then there is the skill of avoiding responsibility by letting businesses go bankrupt (some that cause massive damage to the environment and the water supply). This is the game Donald Trump loves to play; and Gary Southern tried to play, but at least he got a wrist slap, unlike Rick Snyder. I still can't see what benefit Snyder got from switching the water intake to the polluted source in Michigan. Perhaps hoping the people would drink the pollution rather than let it get into the lake? I don't know, but it seems unlikely.
The only certain loser in MBA thinking are people and the environment; and until we start putting ourselves and our home, this planet, our earth, over profit margins, we will continue to lose and while pollution is kept well out of sight of the rich and powerful, eventually this will hurt them as well. As I read someone say once, when all the water has been polluted, we won't be able to drink oil.
MBA thinking will eventually destroy the very thing it's seeking to protect. Even the world bank is saying pollution is hurting economic growth. One of the universal laws of the universe is everything is recycled. The universe recycles everything, our environment recycles everything, eventually. I don't think our society will be stable until recycling is incorporated into all of our business models. Because our model at the moment is dig it up, use it for a limited amount of time and then throw it away. While we are watching much evolution in technology, we aren't seeing anything sustainable - and while MBAs are probably rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of continuous profit margins, we and our environment is groaning under the weight of them.
This includes the sugars that are included into many of our foods. They are added so we want to eat it and want more of it, despite it causing obesity, tooth decay, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer's.
MBA thinking is killing us. Profits uber alles.
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