Avoid Unnecessary Opportunity Costs

This item  from McKinsey about the pitfalls of a growth imperative in the corporate sector stimulated my thinking about schools and our tendency to add more and more programs without considering either the opportunity costs or potential for distraction from our core mission.

"Being ambitious means wanting to achieve more, not wanting to do more. Joe is graduating from high school and has exceptional talents. He is considering which career choice will benefit him the most. Because he is unsure, he plans to study medicine, law, physics, engineering, economics and computer science. That’s crazy, right?

"Companies may not have the physical constraints of one person, but their investment capacity, talent and management attention are all in scarce supply.

"While the student metaphor is of course too simplistic, it is good to stretch a point to preposterous extremes to highlight the human tendency for overconfidence and aversion to making choices."

We see school after school, all with the best intentions, adding program after program without assessing whether it is a true mission-match. Next time, ask yourself what needle you are trying to move by adding something. If the needle isn't integrally related to mission, don't add!