Teaching the Bricks

Somewhere in this book (maybe at the garden, maybe at the fourteen cars, maybe at the retired engineer) you probably had the same small, indignant thought I once had: why did nobody teach me this?

It is a fair question with an unflattering answer. Every discipline we train managers in optimises inside a wall. Strategy: beat the competitors in your industry. Operations: perfect your own process. Marketing: know your own customer. Finance: your own balance sheet. Procurement: squeeze your own suppliers. Each is taught brilliantly, examined rigorously, and each takes the wall for granted. In the entire standard curriculum there is no course called "what does your neighbour waste, and what do you waste that your neighbour needs?" The 97 percent (the shared bricks, the full mesh, the two breaks) falls between the faculties, the way value falls between the silos. The education mirrors the economy it produces. Of course it does; the silos built both.