Upper Education: Signalling or Learning

[Loren Pechtel]

It's a wide variety of skills with understanding everything, your product, your distribution, sales, marketing, financing, hiring, all human resources, budgeting, etc. There is a ton of things to worry about, though corporate welfare is the lowest And as you go up the food chain, the more you have to worry about all the things combined, not just your small piece in the cog. It's the ones that understand and make the right decisions with regard to everything that make it to the top.

No, it's having the right resources, including people and connections. You actually don't have to understand all the technical details of each business area.

But you do need to understand enough to be able to understand what you are being told by those who know more about it than you do.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No, it's having the right resources, including people and connections. You actually don't have to understand all the technical details of each business area.

But you do need to understand enough to be able to understand what you are being told by those who know more about it than you do.

It could potentially help your bottom line but it might not if your business strategies do not necessitate your understanding of the whole world and so you don't "have to" -- your phrase.

 

[coloradoatheist]

But you do need to understand enough to be able to understand what you are being told by those who know more about it than you do.

It could potentially help your bottom line but it might not if your business strategies do not necessitate your understanding of the whole world and so you don't "have to" -- your phrase.

The good manager is one who has to know when each situation applies and how much he has to ask from his underlying support structure to make sure everything works.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It could potentially help your bottom line but it might not if your business strategies do not necessitate your understanding of the whole world and so you don't "have to" -- your phrase.

The good manager is one who has to know when each situation applies and how much he has to ask from his underlying support structure to make sure everything works.

but according to Loren most managers aren't good.

 

[coloradoatheist]

The good manager is one who has to know when each situation applies and how much he has to ask from his underlying support structure to make sure everything works.

but according to Loren most managers aren't good.

Yes. Because the skills necessary to become a manager are wider and harder and harder to teach them any particular skills. You can't narrow it down to just one skill like being able to find the right people to listen to. That's an important skill, but just one of many.

 

[fromderinside]

Officer, officer. This guy's on something real bad. Think roulette wheel.

Is it the understanding that managers just sit around and just decide who they are going to fire?

Sorry I wasn't paying attention - violating rule six for providing employees resources they need to make manager look good.

Yeah. That'll do it.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Is it the understanding that managers just sit around and just decide who they are going to fire?

Sorry I wasn't paying attention - violating rule six for providing employees resources they need to make manager look good.

Yeah. That'll do it.

Huh?

 

[fromderinside]

This post is an effort to provide a solution to your problem.

Rule 10 is good managers find solutions for employee and management problems.

So

basic rule of good management is for the management to provide the tools necessary for employees to make the manager look good to his management.

If I don't pay attention is am failing to give them(you) something important for them(you) to make me look good.

Rule 6 of providing what employees need from management is attention to their inputs and requests.

Rule 7 is following through on those requests and inputs.

Still Huh?

 

[coloradoatheist]

This post is an effort to provide a solution to your problem.

Rule 10 is good managers find solutions for employee and management problems.

So

basic rule of good management is for the management to provide the tools necessary for employees to make the manager look good to his management.

If I don't pay attention is am failing to give them(you) something important for them(you) to make me look good.

Rule 6 of providing what employees need from management is attention to their inputs and requests.

Rule 7 is following through on those requests and inputs.

Still Huh?

Okay we agree. those are 3 of the skills necessary for a manager along with a long other list of laundry items. But along with that list they will also need to find the balance between them all. It's not easy.

 

[untermensche]

I don't see anything needed that is taught at Universities.

Except unending worship of arbitrary authority.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I don't see anything needed that is taught at Universities.

Except unending worship of arbitrary authority.

Some of the skills are necessary but for most two years would be enough. However college has become extra things, like a moderate maturing semi-vacation, some skills learned, and a social networking environment. And it's costing us a lot.

And to throw in an economic term, I was reading an article that presented the case that upper education is a Veblen good.

 

[untermensche]

Some of the skills are necessary but for most two years would be enough.

What skill goes beyond the high school level?

What is most needed is a good healthy respect for authority and an easy willingness to project authority downward.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Some of the skills are necessary but for most two years would be enough.

What skill goes beyond the high school level?

What is most needed is a good healthy respect for authority and an easy willingness to project authority downward.

So we should list here all the jobs/skills that require more education

Engineering including computer science
Finance
Accounting
law
medical

are a few

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Studies actually show that it's connections that lead to success. That's why I posted before the poster boy for being connected.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Studies actually show that it's connections that lead to success. That's why I posted before the poster boy for being connected.

So if you have social connections, you can't learn the wide variety of skills for management, of which some of out has already come by being able to build social connections?

 

[ronburgundy]

Studies actually show that it's connections that lead to success. That's why I posted before the poster boy for being connected.

So if you have social connections, you can't learn the wide variety of skills for management, of which some of out has already come by being able to build social connections?

It isn't that connections prevent you from possibly developing skills, they just make it unnecessary for success. You can be an entitled proven incompetent idiot and still be successful, even become President. In other cases, the person may have skills but no more than many others, and it is actually there connections that make the differences.
IOW, skills are often unnecessary, often insufficient, or both.

 

[ronburgundy]

I don't see anything needed that is taught at Universities.

Except unending worship of arbitrary authority.

Some of the skills are necessary but for most two years would be enough. However college has become extra things, like a moderate maturing semi-vacation, some skills learned, and a social networking environment. And it's costing us a lot.

College has always been those extra things, and those extra things are good for society and worth the expense. We could do things to increase the efficacy and benefits of college education, and some of that probably should model European countries like Germany and Nordic countries which track students into academic or vocational colleges (not rigid tracking from a young age, though). However, the general emotional, moral, social, and cognitive maturation that a college experience seems to foster (moreso than being in the workforce during those years) is of high value to society. The "extras" you are complaining about are what are likely responsible for the fact that college tends to make people more tolerant, less religious, more accepting of new science that contradicts common assumptions, less committed to traditions in general (which is a good thing), etc.. These effects are likely due to any direct instruction about these things but rather the general context of what a liberal arts education entails, taking courses that expose you to a much bigger, more varied, and changing social world than most kids coming out of high school imagine.

During the Dark Ages, few people went to college and people just learned a focused trade. That cost society much more than the cost of college. In general, public education has been the greatest and most important achievement responsible for most things that make modern Western societies better than 500 years ago or than current societies that lack comprehensive public education (the Middle East, Africa).

And to throw in an economic term, I was reading an article that presented the case that upper education is a Veblen good.

That seems dubious. While elite schools definitely increase demand by being an expensive luxury, it is doubtful that the majority of colleges increase demand for admittance by raising tuition. It simply makes no theoretical sense. Any "data" is likely to be correlational and easily explicable by larger economic confounds, such as economic downturns causing unemployment that make people want to go to college, while also causing budget cuts that force schools to raise tuition.