Confessions of management

Am I the only one to notice that most speeches on leadership begin with an observation on the meaninglessness of most of the information put out by the leadership industry? Am I the only one to notice, furthermore, that most of these speeches are themselves largely meaningless?

Last night I attended a meal provided by the university to the "student leaders" at LeTourneau. Technically, I am not an officially sanctioned student leader, but I was invited to attend the meal by an important-looking person. This meal involved chili and grilled hamburgers, a bonfire, and a motivational speaker.

I am barely able to recall anything that this speaker said. I can remember the details, rather; I simply cannot recall the main points. This is what Toastmasters might consider a bad sign.

The speaker, who manages a large local charitable organization, began by observing that talking about leadership is like nailing jelly to a wall (now there's a simile I've never heard before). An Amazon search for leadership, he said, will return 782 results,* and almost all of these products are worthless. I found this encouraging. Naturally, I now expected this speaker to be much different, since he had given his competition such a rhetorical drubbing. Surely this speech would be a little more substantive than the norm.

Yet the whole thing sounded strangely familiar. Yes, I know about William Dembski.** Yes, I am familiar with Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Yes, I am familiar with the egg challenge supposedly made by Columbus to his detractors. Tell me something relevant to something.

Later that night, back in my dorm, Moore asked me directly, "So do you actually learn anything from your management books?" (I am a marketing major as well as a history/polisci major). I considered this and answered that it isn't really a matter of learning anything specific. Instead, one acquires certain forms of abstract thought that will be useful in management, and learns vague terminology to go along with these general concepts.

I would hate being a management student if it weren't so confounded useful. As it is, I hate myself for liking it.

* I found quite a few more than that when I tried this morning.

** I am not sure what Dembski had to do with anything the speaker said. He just found his way into the speech somehow.