MBA 症候群

這學期修了一堂Finance II. 簡直是把我折磨的不行這學期的三個作業都是Corporate Evaluation，光是看案例就已經頭暈腦脹，再加上數十張的報表，然後我們就得算出公司IPO 股價。平均一個作業要花上我ㄧ天半的時間， 大家用盡了吃奶的力氣，用了各種Fancy 的統計工具，spreadsheet 作的五顏六色，希望算出一個合理的數據，得到老師的認可，結果教授Jos在學期結束前，寄給全班同學ㄧ封信，附上原文如下，中文大概是說: 同學們呀! 你們花了各種花俏的統計方法，但是常常是見樹不見林，失去了重點。我記得當年統計教授給我的一句話: 當你給一個小孩一把鐵鎚，全世界都是他的釘子。這就是MBA 的通病，不是嗎?

Whenever your often impressive sophistication was technically correct, it was
duly credited with two or three extra points on a scale of 100. Still, I wonder
it was worth it:

I did not let fancy tools and models be substitutes for the more important
simple calculations and qualitative issues. With a high level of sophistication there were more and more opportunities forerror, and a bigger chance to lose the overall picture. Indeed, by resorting tofancy technology, many teams missed some of the more qualitative aspects.
A Statistics professor of mine once said:

“If you give a kid a hammer, he thinks the whole world is a nail”.

He was mocking (and warning) us (his MBA-students) to beware of using too many
and too often, sophisticated statistical techniques, and advised us to tackle
complicated cases with common sense and lots of simple assumptions first.