Good morning dear ABC friends,
This morning I want to share with you about the importance and limitation of a Business School, talk briefly about Lagos Business School and let you know about the upcoming ABC’s entrepreneurship School and how you can be trained how to be a successful business owner, in our entrepreneurship school
Let’s get started.
To start with, what is a business school?
If you already know, the above question sounds silly to you, but give me a minute.
For many years, whenever I heard the name, “business school”, what came to my mind was; a school where you’re taught how to be an entrepreneur.
I was wrong!
I am coming back to that shortly.
What then is a business school?
According to wikipedia, ” a business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in business administration or management. Such a school can also be known as school of management, school of business, school of business administration, or, colloquially, b-school or biz school”
That’s what a business school is all about, teaching you the several skills needed to work within a business organization… not necessarily how to own a business of your own.
In fact, most entrepreneurs in the world never had MBA (Master of Business Administration, which is the degree you’ll get from a business school)
Am I here to condemn MBA or business schools?
Not at all. Just trying to clear air, for those who may not understand.
While (for instance) you could learn so many things that will help and improve your business skills in Lagos business school, you’re not basically taught how to be an entrepreneur
The courses you could offer through most business school (including Lagos business school which happens to be one of the best in Africa) include; Accounting, Finance, operation, management, marketing, business law etc.
Upon completion of these courses, you could then take some elective courses such as entrepreneurship, strategy, economics etc.
Depending on the program, you could also participate in internships, co-op/part-time consulting etc.
The Best Business Schools
Among the world best business schools are; London Business School, Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School and our dear Lagos Business School
What use is an MBA certificate?
An MBA certificate could be a very good tool to forge ahead in your career, mostly for employees in the financial sector (bank, insurance or accounting departments).
But does business school actually teaches you how to be a business OWNER?
You just look very well at some of the courses I listed above.
While they are all business related, they are designed to teach you how to manage business, not how to own it.
That’s why a course like entrepreneurship is elective, not a core course.
Stephen, what is the difference between running a business and owning a business?
One is much more technical while the other is very much emotional.
Running a business is a technical thing. In fact, machines are part of the major instrument we use to run business in this century.
The reason while machine could be used to run many parts of our businesses is because running business is a technical thing.
We can just program a machine and it does the technical stuff we want it to do.
This is unlike owning a business.
It’s a whole lot of emotional duties; discovering a great business idea is tough, yet not as tough as taking the risk of venturing out into the cold world of business.
Venturing out requires a great courage (emotion) but not as much as having the tenacity to compete with the tigers and lions you’ll meet daily in your business journey.
Competing in the harsh world of business is tough, yet not as tough as being able to start all over again after you experience a huge failure (which is inevitable to any business owner)
On and on like that, you’ll see that starting a business and becoming a business owner is (probably) 70% of emotional work and 30% of technical work
This is not to say that the technical aspect of becoming a business owner is not important, but to say that the technical skills (which is the major thing a business school will offer you) is not the major pillar to succeed in the business world.
I need to say this because here at the ABC, our mission is to train you how to become a business owner, how to own a business, not just how to run it.
I am glad you understand my point!
In my humble opinion, the world educational system should include some effective entrepreneurship schools, a school where the major goal will be to train our youths how to own business, not just how to run it.
The world is fallen apart because our education system has fallen apart.
To me, it’s very stupid to continue teaching our youths how to be an employee and how to manage other people’s business.
We don’t need a prophet to tell us why there are millions of unemployed youths.
Why I am not here to speak against Lagos business schools (or any other management school), I think it’s high time we start having entrepreneurship school
(hope you know the difference?)
But having an entrepreneurship school is not easy.
Yes. It’s not very easy.
In fact, that’s the reason why most of the world’s successful business owners are self-trained, self-made.
What makes creating entrepreneurship school very difficult?
Because there are so many things involve in being a business owner.
It’s a dogged part. It’s a route of the rugged souls. It’s much much an emotional work than a technical know-how.
It’s easy to learn how to be an accountant because 90% of the accounting work is about knowing how to do them.
It’s a lot easier to work for an insurance company because it’s all about doing what you’re trained or instructed to do.
What makes owning or running a business so difficult is because you never knew what may happens tomorrow.
A competitor could rise up from nowhere and push you out of the market.
You think about what happened in the internet world.
Yahoo! was founder in the 1994 and almost instantly became a champion on the internet.
Yahoo grew to worth over $125 Billion.
Few years later, google came up and became the king.
Some years after, Facebook came up to attack google and by then, yahoo! is already dying.
Yahoo, a company that once worth over $100 billion was sold for something less than $5 billion in the year 2016.
The battle between google and Facebook, nobody knows who will win, or maybe, both of them will loose, since any other competitor could come from nowhere and take advantage of new trend to be the king in any market.
Should you ask, why is it that Yahoo!, Google and Facebook fight in the market, after all they are dealing with different things (mail, search engine and social media)?
The answer is that, they are all making money, majorly from advertisement.
I used the above popular companies to show you how tough business world could be.
I think I know what I am saying.
One day in the year 2009, I woke up in the morning with my business and employees, and slept back at night with nothing.
In cases like this, the managerial economics or business law that your business school professor taught you won’t rescue you.
This is an emotional issue. If you’re not a warrior, you’ll crash.
That’s the reason why it’s very hard to actually have a formal school who is teaching entrepreneurship.
That’s also the reason why it’s very tough to make a business successful.
That’s also the reason why most people cannot be entrepreneurs.
The tick-skin required is not common!
The second reason why we don’t have formal school where our youth could go to learn how to be entrepreneurs is very pathetic, yet I will tell you.
You see, some people (directly and indirectly) are profiting from the present obsolete educational system.
You may not believe it, but that is the truth.
Some people (I mean some powerful and influencial people) are profiting from the present dead school system.
How can that be?
I will explain.
You see, if you understand what it means to be a successful business owner, you will know that it’s not possible to have too many people as successful business owners.
Why?
The tough heart. The doggedness. The self-sufficiency. The dependence spirit. And yes, the stubborness.
Being a business owner is as tough as being a soldier. Now tell me, how will this world be, if there are too many soldiers?
While soldiers are trained for a worthy course, the training they passed through has put in them a tough spirit that could, if misused, destroy.
To have too many entrepreneurs in this world is to have too many smart people.
Smart people are hard to lead (I mean deceived).
Now you see the reason why so many world leaders would rather allow the world to continue in this trend of poverty and unemployment, than to educate the youth about the need to be self-reliance, dogged and creative.
What then am I saying?
You can decide to search for the truth and follow the part of life.
You can decide to train yourself how to be a successful business owner or go ahead getting more and more degrees, so as to help build another man’s business empire.
You can go to business school, to learn how to run business or go to an entrepreneur school and learn how to own a business.
Since I have told you the reasons why the entrepreneurship school are not existing in our present society, what is the way out?
You own yourself the responsibility to search, read and learn how to start, run and own a successful business.
Nobody is available, in the formal school wall, to teach you that.
How then do you go about it?
Go out and buy good business books.
Sit down. Switch off your TV set and read.
Form the habit of reading good business and finance books, written by people who are successful or experienced in the art and science of the business world.