The case against credentialism (and experts)

May 16, 2020. The reliance on 'experts' that has characterized the arguments on public policy during the pandemic highlights a problem that was recognized almost fifty years ago. If anything, the problem has only grown worse.

In 1985, James Fallows published The case against credentialism. The article garnered my attention originally due to its opening salvo against MBA programs, described as a corruption of effective business that surrendered real business acumen to a diploma from and elite business school. Robert Samuealeson, the economist columnist son of Paul Samuelson, wrote a similar anti-MBA piece a few years later. As I was teaching an MBA class at the University of Kansas when I read Fallows' piece, I had reason to give it a harder look.

In brief, Fallows had a good argument but he had a total misunderstanding of MBA education. A good example was his contrast with the 'incompetence' of business training via an MBA versus the effectiveness of pilot training programs. Basically, he led out the part that both 'training' programs require balance of knowledge and skill. For pilots, they get both basic flight school ground training and then intensive skill practice either with a co-pilot on a flight or, more often today, a flight simulator. For MBAs, they complete extensive, knowledge-based coursework and, if it is a good program, they have completed several years of serious work experience prior to the program, often in a managerial position.

Fallows basically left out this final part, as do some MBA programs. But to compare the training program and expense for say, a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force and that of an MBA -- even at an elite, very expensive school -- as absurd on several levels. Medical training has a similar expense and skills program that most MBA programs do not provide, and most doctors don't first spend three years as a nurse or physician assistant, developing skills they will elevate with training as a doctor.

While Fallows overlooked this critical point -- while also slamming IQ tests and other indirect measures of 'merit' -- the presidents of universities grabbed this cost difference with abandon, opening up their MBA programs to tens of thousands of students with little or no business experience, zero leadership skills, and poor undergraduate records. This opening up of the liberal arts colleges to 'professional' business training was as much a cash grab by university presidents, wanting to fund other programs off of relatively expensive (i.e., priced higher than other academic programs and an easy add-on to a four-year undergraduate degree, before they became expensive) but very profitable MBA programs. So universities found it most 'profitable' to grow, regardless of their original mission and regardless of the academic preparation and qualifications of their students for any of their programs, graduate or undergraduate. You see this clearly in the absence of Americans from the more demanding graduate STEM programs.

What does this have to do with today's dilemma? First, MBA programs have become weak, profitable cash cows for universities carrying massive administrative overhead and financial aid programs for often useless and/or meaningless undergraduate degrees and programs. Second, the mainstream media have exacerbated the attention to 'experts,' granting them a hallowed place on screen. Instead of judging the value of the expert's perspective based on their track record, the media often trot out experts who support or simply reinforce the pre-conceived conclusion or bias of the 'journalist,' rather than demand data, information and carefully statistical analysis, as well as caveats as to the limitations of their expertise and forecasts. The current pandemic experts are much like the climate change 'scientists,' i.e., academics with a personal and professional bias funded by government money asking them to promote the government's pre-conclusion.

Second, we need to hold experts accountable, to apply true critical thinking to their sound bites, and to report a broader perspective and, often, a contrary opinion from another expert. What is critical here are reliable and valid data and analyses, not degrees, bureaucrats, politicians or elite schools. We need hypotheses to be tested, not just raw counts of questionable data. What exactly does a positive test for Covid-19 mean? How accurate is the test? Who gets tested, and why? How many of those testing positive are asymptomatic, now and over the next 14 days? These questions point out the importance of not just knowledge, but also of skills and aptitude. We need to place less credence with the 'expert's' degree, alma mater or title, and place more emphasis on the quality of the analysis provided, and not just in a six-second sound bite.

Third, we need more perspective and context. Separate from the rich, infamous history of multiple epidemics and pandemics, many of them in the twentieth century, we need to offer a balanced perspective that includes looking forward and to impacts outside the 'medical experts' perspective. How many of the deaths are coming from nursing homes? How can medical directors -- some with no medical degrees or experience -- assure us that the virus is the cause of death when there is no post mortem and there are clear alternative possible causes of death? In any given year, what percent of nursing home residents die -- of any cause? How does that compare to this year? Without a detailed understanding of the true cause of or contributions to death, virus fear and even panic will persist and the work to find a vaccine will be crippled by an incomplete understanding of the role of the virus in contributing to a person's death.

Fourth, statistical significance. If the percent of people being tested positive increases from four percent to six percent, is this a meaningful or even statistically significant difference? Isn't more testing likely to produce more positive tests, especially if those tested are from people who have reasons to feel that they are sick. Test 1,000 people at random and compare that with 1,000 self-selected people, and see the difference, if any, in the results.

Expertise should be based on knowledge applied in an unbiased fashion to data to reach a defensible conclusion. It is not the expert's degree or alma mater that matter. It is not their easily manipulated, often secretive models used to make wild-eyed projections, predictions and claims. There also needs to be a broader perspective, not just medical or physical health. There has to be concern for economic and mental health, for the living, not just for the sick.

Fifth, testing. While testing everyone in the world is a noble idea, it is impractical. Part of the problem is that a negative test result does not mean the person will not contract the virus in the future.

All of these issues are as relevant to MBA, pilot and medical training programs and to the role and use of 'experts' today. Actual performance, effectiveness or results are much more important than the expert's background. 'Merit' is more than IQ, but that does not mean that IQ tests or other standardized tests are either irrelevant or biased in assessing potential for higher education.

On e last thought after fifty years of studying business management. Management and leadership are not the same, yet they are also NOT unrelated. And leadership skills are different from leadership knowledge or skills. Management has more to do with the entire set of resources assigned to the manager's responsibility. And leadership is about influencing people, in systematic, prosocial fashion. Great leaders are also good managers. Not all good managers are leaders.