Business Schools Don't Teach Business

They teach corporations. That's not the same thing.

Almost every business school I’ve taught in says it prepares students “for business.”

I’ve stopped believing that’s true.

Most business schools prepare students for one very specific version of business: the multinational corporation.

The cases come from global giants. The guest speakers come from global giants. The frameworks assume global giants. Students spend years discussing companies that employ tens of thousands of people, then graduate into a world where most businesses look nothing like that.

Business is a pyramid.

At the top sit a tiny number of multinational corporations.

Underneath them are millions of startups, family businesses, local manufacturers, consultancies, agencies, restaurants, cooperatives, craft businesses, and small companies employing five, ten, or fifty people.

That is business too.

In fact, that’s where most business actually happens.

Over the years I’ve deliberately moved my own teaching in that direction. I invite founders, family business owners, and entrepreneurs into my classroom. People who sign the payroll, negotiate with suppliers, lose sleep over cash flow, and know every employee by name.

And you know what; I've yet to meet a student who leaves one of those sessions wishing we'd invited another Fortune 500 executive instead.

Not because these businesses are smaller. But because they’re tangible.

They can see every decision ripple through the company. Strategy stops being PowerPoint and becomes something lived every Monday morning.

Ironically, I think these experiences also produce graduates who are better prepared for large companies. They have made decisions instead of only analyzing them.

If business schools want to call themselves business schools, they need to become part of the business community around them. Every local business should know the business school across the street.

Right now, too many don’t.

And that’s a missed opportunity for everyone.