Can do, can’t teach

Hi,

When I was a student, it was snidely remarked by other students, referring to one or other of our teachers, 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.' Having spent a few days visiting academics in the USA, I was reminded of this saying. Academics worship at the altars of precedent and procedure. They engage in more critical rather than speculative thinking. They know the formulae and can apply them to standard situations. But my experience with academics (I wuz one) has taught me that they live in another dimension to me. I live in a zone where anything's possible. They live in a zone where nothing exists unless it has been proven in several double blind tests, under clincial conditions, published in a peer-reviewed journal, and replicated by several other researchers. They think they 'know' what's real. But they live in a world of models and theories - imaginary structures that approximate reality. The practitioners know what's real. It smacks them in the face every day. If your company hires an academic to guide strategy, you'd better hope that they have more than models and theories to offer. You'd better hope they have spent enough time in the 'real world' to know what's what. For every real thinker bearing the title "Professor" - a Porter or a Drucker - there is an army of "professors" professing to know what professionals do, but don't.

Cheers!

Michael