Quotable Ideas for the Economics Classroom

From the AACSB e-newsline B-school quotables page come these thoughts:

Leaders must inspire change from the top. Success happens in the minds of people and you can have all the systems in the world, but if you really want to have change it must happen in the minds of your people.

Woodroffe said if companies were to become more entrepreneurial, they had to be willing to accept failures.

The one thing that's common to entrepreneurs is that really successful people don't go around succeeding all the time. Sometimes they fail.
--Simon Woodroffe, founder, Yo! Sushi UK restaurant chain, speaking to an audience at the University of Auckland Business School

Running a classroom is like running a business in some ways. Instructors must be leaders. Change must happen in the minds of your people--your learners. Sometimes you fail.

Yep, no wonder that former teachers sometimes go on to success in the business world. We've seen all the things that can happen in the economy happen in the classroom.

Economics 101 classes probably don't pay enough attention to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship studies. Yes, we teach that there are four resources, land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship, then quickly move on to the concept of production possibilities and its graphs.

Since entrepreneurs are such interesting people, it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend a bit more time discussing them. A good way to break the ice on this topic is to survey students about their plans for future businesses, followed up by questions about the qualities of successful entrepreneurs.