“In our work with outstanding service organizations, we have found that they invariably hire for attitude and train for skills. Are street smarts attitudes or skills? If street smarts are attitudes, should MBA program admissions offices look for them in applicants? If so, how? Is it more than a matter of just age and experience? If they are skills, should the curriculum be designed to foster them, perhaps through greater emphasis on courses in negotiating skills and increased field experience, among others, on the assumption that street smarts can be taught? The second question concerns just how street smarts are obtained. Is it a matter of the genes? Do they result from experience, therefore precluding most newly-minted MBAs in their twenties from having them? Or does their presence depend on the environment in which one grows up? If experience is the key, how does one get it? Should more MBAs be counseled to become involved in jobs, perhaps in start-ups, where they can hone their street smarts? Or can they be developed in any kind of organizational context? Finally, just how important are street smarts anyway? What does your experience tell you regarding these questions? What do you think?”
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Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge
Subjects: MBA Related, Trends / Analysis
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