Nonsense and seriousness can often be bedfellows in creative thinking, and a recent exercise at The MBA School Of MBA Credentials has proven that.
During a heated discussion about brainstorming, one student exclaimed that another had just squashed their idea, to which the offending student retorted with “meow”.
It was not our finest moment of business-savvy discourse but in the spirit of creativity, I asked the class to reflect on the exchange, thus:
Did you ever see a cat go splat?
There was silence in the room, as my students pondered my profound rephrasing of an incident in the genre of a children’s book.
Of course, there is no way we would condone actual harm to animals. Instead, the sense of passionate connection to an idea, much in the same way one loves one’s pets, is what gives this pathos-drenched question its gravitas.
We had, as a class, watched a “cat go splat” as one student’s beloved idea was run over by another student’s competing views.
This prompted the following, high-gain question:
Can MBA Thinking be captured and distilled in the genre of preschooler’s literature?
We discovered, the answer is yes.
A children’s book for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs
That evening, in the weekly, faculty hot tub meeting, we reflected on the day’s incident and were all equally aroused by the idea of crafting a children’s book for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.
It was a profound moment as we, a communal vanguard of MBA Thinkers, sat quietly in the bubbling waters of our meeting tub and realised we were channelling one of the most chilling and awe-inspiring utterances of Vladimir Lenin:
Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.
And so, an idea was born.
We would collectively work with our students to condense important MBA Thinking and concepts into a cheeky book in the edgy style of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants.
You are invited to download your copy of Did You Ever See A Cat Go Splat, below, to read to your pre-schoolers and plant the seeds for great entrepreneurship.
The entrepreneurial shibboleth
A shibboleth is a particular word or phrase that only the “in group” can pronounce correctly, and was used in ancient times as a way of identifying strangers in one’s midst.
In this way, our children’s book is such a shibboleth because many readers will not get past the awkward and abhorrent phrasing.
Only the truly gifted entrepreneur will read beneath and between the lines and gain the insights this book beholds.
Here is the complete text – although the illustrated version can be downloaded below:
Did you ever see a cat go splat?
Think awhile, imagine that
At first it is a normal cat
And then the cat is really flat.
Did you ever hear a fish go squish?
It’s not something you’d really wish,
Cos if you were to eat that fish,
You’d really need a bigger dish!
Did you ever taste a worm, then squirm?
If that’s the case, I’ll reaffirm,
If it was oozy and not firm,
Then spit it out or be infirm!
Did you ever feel a bird unheard?
It had been sleeping, then it stirred.
It should be feathered and not furred,
Cos that would really be absurd!
Did you ever smell a dog’s fresh bog?
A small one or a massive log?
Jump over it just like a frog,
Or else the stink will hang like fog!
As you can see, this book not only distils insights from Philip Kotler, Sir Richard Branson, and Michael E Gerber, it also covers the five senses.
There are many layers in this book and on behalf of our faculty and students, I commend it to you, your children, your school library, and your childcare centres.
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