To convince myself that playing fantasy football is not a complete waste of my time and cognitive surplus, I try to take something from fantically watching the score ticker at the bottom of the screen during football games that I can apply to other aspects of my life. Two elements of the fantasy football experience always rise to the top during these episodic affirmations. One, much of life is due to random chance that I can do little to control. We live in a probablistic universe after all, why shouldn't the laws that govern the basis of our physical world apply to a simple sport as well? Two, following the herd is the shortest route to mediocrity. Mindlessly applying the word of a fantasy "expert" or doing what is right based on some consensus of the best player or strategy will only get you so far. You have to position yourself to take advantage of those times that chance falls in your favor.

While I don't expect random chance to be much of a factor in my MBA classes (although you just never know), the probability that I will be dealing with experts of dubious distinction is unity. I know this because I have already encountered a couple of these experts in chapter 1 of my management foundations textbook. I have found a study style that will suit this class quite well, argue against the points these management technicians make about how organizations behave. The tone of chapter 1 runs counter to much of how I would like to lead once I'm in a position to use others to achieve goals (which is their definition of management). This definition of management sets the tone for their analysis, as the rest of the chapter goes on to describe how they are going to teach us how to manipulate people like the software and machines that are used to get so much done in business.

I knew that I would have to built a fort around the perspective on management and other areas of business that I have developed over the years. Chapter 1 warns that one of the challenges of organizational behavior is seperating people from their intuitions on how to manage people and replace those ideas (which are likely based on their experience actually working in organizations) with concepts developed using the tools of social science. What I am defending is not a few cliches about how people behave in organizations, but a philosophical position on the best way to work with people to achieve goals assigned by the organization while pursuing goals that we have given ourselves (which, ideally, will benefit the company and shape the future assigned goals by providing higher level executives with a more complete picture of our organization's capabilities). I have my ideas. We'll see how they withstand the onslaught of formal education. Let the battle begin.