Here’s a little something to get your Friday off right.
If you’re on the WRK4US listserv, you may have seen Jo VanEvery’s email about this article from three years ago called “The Management Myth” over at the Atlantic Monthly. Its author, Matthew Stewart, has a Ph.D. in philosophy, but also started up his own management consulting business. The article details the history and origins of management consulting in order to debunk the myth that, well, management consultants really known what they’re doing. If you want to get to the juicy stuff (viz. the stuff that pertains most to Leaving Academia readers), skip to the last page for zingers such as, “But what does an M.B.A. do for you that a doctorate in philosophy doesn’t do better?” and “Next to analysis, communication skills must count among the most important for future masters of the universe.” Grad students, that means you!
Moreover, there is an interview with Matthew Stewart here in which he describes how he fell into management consulting. It is a brilliant example of how much a teeny bit of initiative can take your life in a totally different direction (basically, he just mailed some resumes to some consulting firms, and one of them decided to take a chance on him. Yup. That’s what it took). And as it turns out, in addition to his books on philosophy (like Courtier And The Heretic
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