One of my first blog posts was in praise of Joel Spolsky whose insights into the software sector from both a business and technology perspective are invaluable. But last month Joel wrote an article for Inc magazine on commissions, taking two opportunities to blame poor commission schemes on corporate MBAs:
I can picture the M.B.A. who worked at corporate headquarters. I bet he reaped a big bonus for coming up with an incentive program that dramatically increased the sales of the high-profit silicone spray.
Meanwhile, did anybody notice that the sales of shoes fell by about the same amount?
Or that I started buying my shoes on the Internet?
Sure, blame the MBA for the success of Zappos!
And then:
...Instead of buying the exciting new products I wanted, I was hurled into a mass of people scamming one another -- and all because of stupid, perverse commission systems that seemed like good ideas to the M.B.A.'s back at corporate.
Why Joel has chosen to single out this with a postgraduate degree in business is beyond me. During my MBA class Managing People for High Performance (MPFHP) [see description of the class] we learned of the pitfalls of poor incentive systems, as well as scheme to motivate people through a sophisticated, multi-tiered reward system and to develop them through feedback, not to mention consideration to
- organizational structure and design
- investment in training
- impact and analysis of corporate culture
and lighting the fire to make implement these changes in a dysfunctional organization.
Joel shouldn't blame the business school graduate (or degree) for the demise of companies with poor incentive schemes; he should be engaging MBAs and MBA students to further improve his company, and to articulate and enhance what makes his people high performers.
There will be some MBA students looking to analyze companies in the MPFHP class beginning in Term 1, 2009. I suggest any company skeptical of MBAs to engage the school for these projects.
