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The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

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The cover of the current Conde Nast Portfolio trumpets its list of "The 73 Biggest Brains in Business." As in the typical list of this sort lately, actual businesspeople are not much in evidence.

Quick business readers, there's extra credit if you can identify the following people and their impact on business.

• Zaha Hadid
• Yue Minjun
• Jonelle Procope
• Karl Lagerfeld

How'd you do? I recognized two of those names, knew something about one of them, and was totally puzzled about what that one had to do with business. Guess I'm going to have to work on my cultural literacy.

This is part of the new fad that the "MFA is the new MBA." It's the latest Magic Stone for business: rub it and all your business problems will be solved. Profits and morale will soar. Stress will evaporate.

Daniel Pink was quoted as saying that "the MFA is the new MBA" in a New York Times article about the importance of the using the right brain in our computer-driven age. Pink originally floated it as a Harvard Business Review Breakthrough Idea in 2004.

As I understand it, the idea is that you'll be better at business if you're "creative." Knowing something about business is apparently optional.

We have MBA programs to thank for this. For a couple of decades now, they've been cranking out graduates who are better equipped to analyze businesses than lead them. Those same graduates are familiar with all manner of sophisticated tools, but find it very hard to think outside the algorithm.

So now the pendulum of fad and fashion has swung to the other side and we're looking to creative types to save us from our analytical selves. But the fact is that being creative is not enough for business success.

Creativity has to be turned into innovation and applied to the craft of business. That means that it's important to gain some knowledge of that craft, including understanding of the basics of accounting, production and marketing.

The best proof of that comes from the world of advertising. Think of all the "creative" and award-winning advertisements and web sites you've heard of that never sold a thing.

Now, that doesn't mean that creative types like artists can't be good at business. JMW Turner didn't just revolutionize landscape painting. He also revolutionized the way artists produce and market their work.

Sometimes, a person coming to business from another field will ask things that would be too "dumb" for a businessperson to ask. Sometimes they see the basics of business un-cluttered by jargon and businessspeak.

One of my favorite descriptions of what a business does comes from celebrity chef and restaurant owner, Mario Batali. He described his restaurant business this way: "We buy food. We fix it up. And we sell it at a profit."

That’s a hard description to improve upon and it shows that Mr. Batali knows something about business, not just making great dishes.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.