Business leaders can learn to code.

The Harvard Business Review is always a great source of inspiration.  As a young entrepreneur, getting wisdom from the combined academic and business community is always lovely.  This week they even offered up a little bit of humor as they discussed the efforts of the MBA program to teach its students to write software.  This week, I have thoughts about managers trying to understand technology.

Before entering the world of technology and seven years after earning my undergraduate degree, I decided to earn an MBA.  I hoped it would help me advance my career and develop financial security.  Thus began a thirteen-year odyssey of fits, spurts, layoffs, and late checks, which culminated in me receiving my MBA.  Instead of a mortarboard during commencement, I wore a Kofi hat, signifying my twenty years of tribal experience as a business person.

During those thirteen years, I switched careers and became a technical professional.  As I became more involved in technology, I discovered that many who ran technology departments had no idea what they were managing.  The people knew sales and marketing, and some of them understood the company financials, but rarely did they know the difference between UNIX, Linux, and Windows systems.  What made this more maddening is that they made decisions about these systems.  This gave me further incentive to get my MBA because I felt there had to be a need for business leaders who understood technology.  Seeing the rest of the business world catching up with me is excellent.

The current concern about STEM careers and America’s global competitiveness has further accelerated the need for business leaders to understand code.  This is why I like the Harvard Business Review article.  They interviewed eighteen alumni of the the Harvard Business School and asked them if the CS50 class which is titled Introduction to Computer Science was worth the effort.  A whopping 83% said it was.  The class has gotten reasonably popular because, over the last six years, over seven hundred students have taken the course.

I think the best insight that these future masters of the Universe learned is that coding is complicated.  The class required two to three more work than a typical MBA elective.  Learning to write code and solve business problems requires plenty of smarts and hard work.  It is also humbling as you make many mistakes and confront long nights with little sleep and even less productivity.  Many of these students found their way into technology start-ups or IT departments.  I think this is a positive step.  Now, the MBA in the corner office will not believe they are responsible for many magicians on the development staff.

It is also why I founded E₃ Systems.  I became tired of being told by my manager to “…just figure it out.”  I wanted a company where the boss would pitch in to help solve problems.  I also wanted a company that would help other small and medium-sized businesses fix their problems.

Getting my MBA was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  I say the same thing about learning to code.  Being an Entrepreneur, MBA, and software developer is not what I envisioned when I graduated from college all those years ago, but since Terri Hemmert is still doing mid-day at WXRT and Steve Stone is still broadcasting White Sox games, I can’t think of a better way to spend my life’s work.

Until next time.