While discussing our recent MBA experiences, my friend Rob Koh commented on the cargo cults of the pacific islands. For those who drifted off a bit during 8th grade history, Cargo Cults occurred in the Pacific Islands after World War Two.

Islanders would perform increasingly complex rituals designed to bring
about the silver birds that dropped supplies onto their worlds. The
islanders, not understanding THE BIG PICTURE, tended to believe that it was their
rituals that caused the "manna from heaven."

Is business guilty of perpetuating similar rituals? It takes a great leader to point out the difference between cause and effect. It's too easy to believe that your current business model will continue to be the cause of future success.

Business schools can give the impression that models and education are the right "rituals."

Very rarely do great businesses start with an application of Porter
tested, brand synergized, NPV optimized business models. They are most often
started by really passionate people doing what they thought was the right thing to do.

Academia does what science does best - observe natural phenomenon, build models to help understand what happened, and continue to apply those models to the real world.

It's how we learn - and it is how great educators teach. You have to
allow students the chance to be a part of the creation of those theories - to
see what kind of lessons can be learned - before true, insightful knowledge
can be found.

Before we all run off to apply the latest and greatness theoretical
model to the real world, let us pause for a moment and consider those islanders
of long ago. It is not the models that make a business great, it is the
people - the ideas - and the passion.

Models can help us learn and understand, but simply performing them will
not cause greatness to fall from the sky.