Macy's CEO would love more emphasis on Math

Please see below for Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren's comments on Math:


Q. Anything you would like business schools to teach more? Less?
A. In our business, there’s not enough emphasis on math. Coming out of college, we really like to have kids who like math, study math and get it. And so I’d like to make sure that there is an emphasis on math. I think there is a strong emphasis on marketing already, and we want that and we need that. But to me, the math piece is weak in most business school educations, and I’d like to have more emphasis on that.
Q. But somebody might say, “That’s what calculators are for.”
A. And that’s exactly the problem. Because when, at least when I was in school, we didn’t have the computer technology that we have today to do a lot of the work for us. And so I think there’s logic that has to go into this. And I don’t think you should actually have to have a calculator for every decision that you make that has numbers attached to it. Some of that should just come to you quickly, and you should be able to quickly move to your instincts about that being a good or not good decision.
And I think that just knowing how to manage people for the situation and individually, managing them differently — what I would call situational management — is really important. You really have to have some instincts there to adjust to get the most out of people and the most out of different situations. I don’t know how you teach that; I just want to make sure that it’s known that it has to be different, and you have to make adjustments.