A side note on the $700 Billion “bail-out”

Another post on the topic of applying an MBA.

One of the skills that gets tuned (or at least well exercised) in an MBA program is looking at an issue and combining it with other issues then developing a combined solution.  You may have heard of this widely used methodology outside of the MBA world and referenced with the phrase “two birds, one stone”.

I wrote the following when commenting in an e-mail thread about the proposed $700 Billion bail-out.  Keep in mind this is just called a ‘bail-out’.  That’s just a catchy name for the media, but maybe I’ll get into that another day.  For now we can move on to something completely different…

In the future we may look back at this bail out as the point at which we privatized social security.  We all know a couple things from events of a few years ago:

1) In over simplified terms Social Security is not “Funded”, there is no bank account or lock box.

2) The ability of the government to make Social Security payments in the future is based on the ability of the federal government to make either (a) payments from income (taxes in, social security checks out) or (b) to make payments from assets accumulated through the sale of treasury securities, securities that are backed by the good faith and credit of the United States Government.

But what if those treasury securities are backed not just by the good faith and credit of Uncle Sam, but also backed by actual shares of real mutual funds (constructed from traunches of various grades of mortgages) held by the federal reserve?  Isn’t that essentially the same as “privatizing” social security?  I know its not the individual accounts usually associated with privatization theories, but in essence the ability of fulfilling social security obligations in the future would rise and fall with the value of these government held assets.

Conspiracy theorists, start your engines.  Maybe this is all part of a Grand Scheme…

It’s the process, stupid (or stupid process?)

I thought it’d be good to write some entries on how I’m applying MBA knowledge at work.  Long pause.  Yeah, I too then thought that sounded boring.  So all I had to do was figure out a way to write about applying MBA knowledge *without* it being boring.  This of course also assumes this MBA knowledge can be and/or is applicable.

Let’s take care of that last issue first. It is applicable.  Pretty much any past life experience can be applied to things you do today (and will do tomorrow) so that isn’t saying much.  It may not be a direct “you learned X at b-school and apply X at work” type of applicability.  Sometimes the knowledge could be more subtle; like more naturally being patient, thinking through an issue then presenting a counter point (or support when appropriate) when an issue is raised.  The knowledge might be a side effect, like better writing skills.  In my case, you only need to read this post to think you can rule that one out, but my work-related writing has improved.  Think of this writing as just us chatting.

Then there is the process related knowledge.  In the MBA program I went through the school used a very formulaic approach that I’ve mentioned several times and referred to as problem based learning.  Call it what you want it’s a process, repeatable and applicable to many different topics and scenarios.  You probably use many different processes each day and yes, some are discussed in MBA programs.

Some of the processes used in business are not formalized in a document, like individual ‘getting into work and getting started’ process but are carried out in the same way every day.  Others are probably documented in a way that is needlessly complicated (everyone knows how to play Monopoly but probably wouldn’t describe it the way the official rules do, now go read your companies computer security or document retention policies and procedures then see if you do it but don’t describe it like that).  Others may seem made up (see human resources recruiting and candidate evaluation processes).  Sometimes the process itself, with or without documentation, can be complicated (go ask someone in IT how to approve a change to a capitalized software project).

Identifying processes at work and determining how to participate, manipulate or improve them has to be one of the most common MBA knowledge applications I’ve encountered.  It’s also a hybrid of the “subtle” and “side effect” types of knowledge.  There wasn’t a course in it; it came along with a couple years of going through an MBA program.

So for those still in a program (and judging from comments and web stats, there are quite a few of you here), take a moment to think about the process your classes are using.  You may be aggravated by it now, but examining it and working though may turn out to be one of the most useful things you get out of some classes.