The Fisherman and the MBA
This little tale has recently been circulating the internet causing a few laughs here and there, with a few comments on lessons for climate changers;Â
An American banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied “only a little while”.
The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish.
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your
time?”The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.
“You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”
“But what then?”
The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is
right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”“Millions.. Then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your Wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
Well, as an MBA who runs a climate change website I have a couple of short comments:
1. It would be great to be in the Fisherman’s position. Often I wouldn’t mind being the Fisherman.
2. Unfortunately we can’t all be Fishermen, because his business model is not scalable. Somebody has to create the wealth to buy his niche quality product.Â
3. The likely reality is that unless he invests in upgraded fishing infrastructure, somebody else will come in and steal all his fish from the sea. From this point of view he lacks a long term competitive strategy.
4. It’s sad, but that’s the way things work in a naturaly competitive world.
5. They taught us this tale in class on the second week of the MBA.
Mark, this is a really well done site. I posted this following on a community forum in Elk Grove, CA so you may get some visitors from Calif. Keep up the great work.
I ran across this inadvertently and I think it’s so well done I wanted to share it. It is UK based so some of the topics are different. It’s an opinion site, where there are people on three teams of thought who present articles and viewpoints. The approach is so much less heavy-handed that we’ve seen here from Gore and Co; it’s refreshing and actually allows one to think rather than react. There is a forum too that’s active.