The academic world, the corporate world and the real world

MARCH 26 — In the corporate world, there is a proud distinction between the academic world and the real world. 

In the real world, both the corporate and academic world are full of crap masquerading as substance. 

Hypocrisy

In the corporate world, people believe that becoming more “academic” is a good way forward despite looking down on academics. 

This is why MBAs are still in demand and if a director has a “Dr” in front of his name, people tend to nod and behave like Form 1 students in his presence. 

In the academic world, people pay lip-service to “real world” experience but if you don’t regurgitate ─ I mean articulate ─ those theories exactly right, your grades start to choke (as if in the real world people everybody walks around stressing over the difference between what Elton Mayo and Max Weber said about bureaucracy). 

In universities, people brag about their branding with corporations but, alas, complain that education is “becoming like a business.”

In companies, the richest people without qualifications talk s*** about those with good academic credentials but, somehow, will never ignore a candidate’s education when discussing salary (and if their kids are doing a post-graduate course overseas, they won’t hesitate to mention it). 

Essentially, in the real world, both academics and corporate directors simply want to make more money and take more holidays but it sounds cool looking down on the other world whilst secretly hoping you are part of it. 

In this same (real) world, true entrepreneurship and risk-taking is the best form of learning, and the most authentic kind of research is done by those not obsessed with “how much money we can make from this.” 

But damn I’m starting to sound like a panel speaker so kindly ignore that last sentence; in the real world, yes, people are just not as sure as they sound.

The real world has risk and ambiguity i.e. there’s just s*** happening around us which affects us which we can’t pin down, let alone manage. 

Academics find it very hard to represent these concepts on paper, and corporate types live in denial of them.

This is why although I am sure that 99 per cent of academic papers are bulls***, they are at least “safe” bulls***. 

Nobody gets a headache apart from the unlucky sods forced to read those papers. Unlike decisions by corporate big-shots which affect many people (sometimes millions). 

Anyone who has worked more than three to four years will be able to tell of at least a dozen times when “top management” made a decision which was blatantly unfair and/or which caused needless trouble to others ─ but packaged it all up using corporate talk.

That’s the real world.

Theory and practice

In universities, there is no difference between theory and practice. In the corporate world, in theory there is no theory but in practice there is a lot of theory: Just attend any business conference and listen to senior executives yakety-yakety-yak. 

In the real world, constructing theory is part and parcel of responsible practice, and often the best theories always include an “it depends.”

In the academic world, the degree scroll is publicly worshipped and glorified (with, of course, the obligatory “This is the not the end of your journey, it’s only the beginning” quips by VIPs on stages). 

In the corporate world, the scroll is publicly devalued with phrases like, “All those degrees don’t mean anything” but, alas, secretly desired. 

In the real world, the scroll applies only symbolically but such symbolic appearances are part of the real world. In other words, both academic and corporate people often don’t present the real world as the real world ─ and that’s the real world.

When academics get high over academic papers, non-academics find it funny. But when corporate people get high over how much money they make, people don’t find it funny ─ and that’s funny. 

Because both the academic and corporate world understand money differently from the real world. 

In the real world, money is a good friend but a terrible master: we need some, it’s good to have more, but it’s dangerous to have too much. 

This fact (of the inverted U-curve-ness of wealth) is barely present in the academic world, it’s entirely absent in the corporate world, but is fully manifest in the real world. 

Neither the university nor the company will teach you the reality of greed and excess wealth; only reality can teach you that. 

So if you want to learn about the real world, you should ask those people who have lost their jobs, not those who appear in corporate brochures. 

You want to learn about real learning? Don’t ask Dean’s list students; ask those high-scoring students who need to hold down a part-time job whilst being battered and bruised by professors who care more about their own revered theories than about helping said students. 

Likewise, you learn more about parenting from a single mum working a dead-end job than anybody else. 

Get real

In the academic world, people are always comparing qualifications and how many papers they’ve published. 

In the corporate world, people are always comparing salaries and how much influence they have. 

In the real world, only idiots engage in status-oriented one upmanship.

In academic conferences, a few people listen, some clap their hands after the presentation is over ─ and nothing changes. 

In corporate conferences, many people listen, everybody gives a round of applause ─ and nothing changes. 

In university seminars, people who ask questions are trying to impress everyone with their questions. 

In corporate forums, people who ask questions are trying to find out something very specific but never will because there is a fundamental disconnect between what a panel speaker says publicly on stage, how that person behaves in his own office, and how all this is cascaded down to another organisation by a conference participant.

In the real world, people go to conferences primarily for the tea-breaks, the selfies and the exchanging of business cards (which people in the academic world always forget to bring).

In the corporate world and academic world, people talk about openness, respect, vision, goodwill, collaboration, quality, etc. 

In the real world, you never only listen to what a person talks about: You always observe what a person does and what s/he refuses to talk about. 

In other words, the real world is something rarely manifested in corporate talk and academic discourse. 

The real world is all the things you can’t learn apart from experience and all the goodness you can’t buy from a brochure and all the kindness you’ll never receive in an appraisal or on Facebook and all the pain and humiliation you’ll never put on Linked-In. 

The real world is inhabited by professors who secretly fear they’re becoming irrelevant, and by managers who know exactly how addicted to wealth and status they are. 

If something like this comes out in a public stage ─ i.e. if a corporate figure or academic big shot comes out and confesses how he’s hurt many people in his line of work and admit all the lies he’s told ─ then please drop everything and listen carefully. That’s the real world.

This (real) world, thankfully, is also full of people who have put their own necks on the line for others. 

When somebody does that for you, and when the very people who are trying to cut off your neck begin yapping about “academia” and the “corporate world” (while your saviour remains silent), then you finally get a glimpse of the dissonance and trauma which constitutes the real world.

The real world comes with real indescribable pain and joy. Everything else is a college assignment. Or marketing.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.