Three Things MBAs Can Learn From The 2008 Election

by Jared on November 5th, 2008

Originally Posted On OwenBloggers.com

Regardless of where you stand politically, I think we can all agree that the 2008 election turned “conventional thinking” on its head in way that very few events in recent history have been able to. As a business student and a huge fan of socio-political trend watching, I also find that there are really interesting lessons we as MBAs can take away from the election, no matter what discipline we’ve chosen.

1 - The Next Generation Has Arrived

3.5 Million new voters were registered this election spanning not only age but also ethnicities.  In fact, according to national exit polls, 68% of voters that chose Barack Obama and 31% that chose John McCain were voting for the first time. To boot, turnout was as much as 89% in some states.

What this means for MBAs is that this election has marked the arrival of The Next American Generation culturally and demographically. Because of the strong impact this generation has shown in the election, what were once talking points for experts in finance, marketing, strategy and human capital will now become more like facts.

The lesson here is that the impact of this generation is no longer abstract for many of us, it’s reality.

2 - Stay On Message, Stay Authentic

If you had to pick a single word that described each candidate’s message, chances are that it would be “Change” for Obama and “Maverick” for McCain. Wait a minute, wasn’t it also “Change” for McCain as well? What about “Country First?”

The fact of the matter is that this election also proved a seminal rule about how consumers view authenticity and marketing. Because of the shifts that kept on being made in his message strategy, McCain lost a brilliant opportunity to capitalize on his own authenticity.

With the rise of new media and the Internet, consumers are becoming hyper-aware of who’s trying to get their attention and are becoming less forgiving to those they believe are just pandering to whatever they think they want to hear. The lesson here is to pick a message, whether in your marketing, strategy or in your mission statement that hits at the very core of your authenticity and then stick with it!

3 - The Black Swan Is Real

Even before you begin business school, you start to deal in probabilities.  In fact much of modern learning is built on confidence intervals, majority populations/outcomes and marginal risk.  What happens if an event lands in the long tail however, where the improbable becomes reality like it did in the recent financial meltdown?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this a black swan and it hit this election like a Mack Truck.  The point of a black swan is though it has a very very small probability of occurring, it’s impact all but wipes out the effects of all the “normal” and “predictable” outcomes.

The lesson here is that risk and innovation go together hand-in-hand and just because a scenario has a very small probability of happening, it’s effects should at least be considered in forward-thinking.

This election has been an incredible ride; one that has kept us glued to CNN for way more hours than some of us would like to admit.  Now that its over, we have to ask ourselves “what’s next?” After all, we are all in this together and regardless of who you voted for, we all have to get jobs come May.

Technorati Tags: Black Swan, Election 2008, Financial Meltdown, MBA, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, socio-political, Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, voter turnout

Technorati Tags: Black Swan, Election 2008, Financial Meltdown, MBA, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, socio-political, Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, voter turnout