In Malcolm Gladwell’s article “How David Beats Goliath,” Gladwell profiles Vivek Ranadive, a National Junior Basketball coach, who used unconventional strategies to take his team of “underdogs” to the national championship. To accomplish such as a task, Ranadive applied critical thinking to techniques to break down the game into simpler terms and devised a solution that would play to his team’s strengths while exploiting the opponent’s weaknesses. Throughout history, so-called “underdogs” have applied this same strategy to overcome obstacles and rise to great victories, such as, Lawrence of Arabia. Ranadive looked at basketball from an outsider’s perspective. He had minimal knowledge of the game, but couldn’t understand why most teams played the same exact same way every time. It didn’t make sense to him. Sometimes it’s best to look at problems from an outsider’s perspective. You don’t have be conventional and do things the way the establishment tells you. This is how people come up with innovative ideas that change the way we live and how we do business. I can see how the implications in Gladwell’s article can be applied to business and the MBA program here at Capella. Many of the program outcomes of the MBA program teach us the same skills that Ranadive used to take his team the championship. He applied foundational knowledge across core disciplines, integrated information from differing perspectives, and provided solutions through critical thinking and analysis. These skills will help in my future education and career.
References

Capella University. (2014). MBA program overview. Retrieved from http://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/mba6004/CourseAlignmentMap/wrapper.html
Gladwell, M. (2009). HOW DAVID BEATS GOLIATH. New Yorker, 85(13),