In July, The Times published a story under the headline “Masai survival lesson is the business for bosses”, which recounted how Changemaker International, a management consultancy, had taken a group of Masai warriors to the Institute of Directors (IoD) in Pall Mall to offer business leaders a masterclass in strategy and leadership.

You may not remember the piece. It was quite small. And summer was some time ago. But I do, because I researched the story further and discovered cringe-making video footage of the seminar, during which the warriors sang a selection of hunting and cattle-raiding songs to the IoD's grey suits, and Changemaker International's website, which claimed, excruciatingly, that the Masai could provide lessons for business because they've developed “strategies and leadership skills in truly hostile environments, where the consequences of bad decisions are not reflected in profit and loss figures, but in life and death”.

Even by the moronic standards of management fads, drawing parallels between business and a tribe of nomadic pastoralists, famous, among other things, for being able to throw clubs accurately from up to 70 paces, was daft. But I chose not to write a column about it. Why? Because there was no point. I've been moaning about idiotic management thinking for yonks and it has made no difference. You point out the fallacy of comparing business to rugby, or to cricket, or to motorised toilet bowl racing, a few people write in saying they agree, the people behind the book or seminar in question write in to complain you're incapable of “thinking outside the box” and the whole miserable cycle continues.

But our recent economic woes have provided hope. Suddenly, it's OK to say that bankers are greedy, that executives pay themselves too much, to admit that you find large parts of banking and finance utterly incomprehensible. My hope is that this new frankness will extend to woolly management thinking and I'd like to encourage it by finally writing that piece explaining why the Masai have little to teach British business.

Which is not to suggest there are no parallels between Masai culture and Western commerce. Apparently, oral law covers many aspects of behaviour in the tribe, and it's the same in business, where everything from what you leave in the office fridge to what you do when you bump into your boss in the loo is governed by convention. Also, I read that pregnant Masai women are excused from heavy work such as gathering firewood, and we have maternity leave in the West.

But Changemaker International doesn't actually make these points. Its argument, as put forward by Anthony Willoughby, the “explorer, photographer, business consultant and author” who invited the eight Masai warriors to the IoD, claims that “in today's increasingly arid economic climate, companies that can think nomadically by clarifying their cattle [customers and capital], defining green pastures [market opportunities] and then focusing on getting the two together will ultimately be more successful”.

I've read this statement 47 times now and still have no idea what it means. What exactly is a “market opportunity”? Does he mean “marketing opportunity”? Or a “commercial opportunity”? And if a business's customers/capital are the equivalent of the Masai's cows, does that mean customers and capital are the same thing? I'm no accountant, but I don't think they are. And what does “clarifying cattle” mean? Washing them? Or identifying them? I wish Willoughby would clarify what on earth he is wittering on about.

One can find slightly more comprehensible statements from other Changemaker International experts, but they're not much more encouraging. The gist of their argument appears to be that business could learn from Masai culture because it conveys the importance of: (a) mutual respect and finding long-term solutions to problems; (b) everyone in an organisation having a say; (c) sticking to what you're good at; (d) being courageous in leadership; and (e) change.

Which is all very well. Except that these “lessons” are bland. You could draw similar management lessons from almost anything - staring at a goat or a brick wall for two hours, for instance. Also, they are based on the massive assumption that the Masai tribe is an organisation that businesses would want to replicate. And while there may be many admirable things about them (the Masai stood against slavery and have an enlightened attitude towards the environment), as an organisation they are failing. Not only in the business sense, but even on their own terms. The Masai suffer from high rates of infant mortality and, according to Survival International, the tribe that “once dominated the plans of East Africa” is now “confined to a fraction of their former range”.

What we have here is not only an example of fuzzy management thinking, but an illustration of the paradoxical attitude liberals have towards tribes. Even though some of these primitive cultures practise things that would make most right-thinking Islingtonians choke on their sushi - the Masai engage in wife-lending and female circumcision - because the tribe is African, and is in itself threatened, they feel a need to study it and revere it.

It is absurd. Western capitalism may be experiencing a rather concerning confidence crisis, but I don't think we're yet at a stage when we need to seek inspiration from a declining culture where boys are required to undergo a painful circumcision ceremony performed without anaesthetic, where warriors are not allowed to touch a woman's head, because it is seen as demeaning, and where the cow is a central currency unit. We're in an awful mess, but I still believe in our economic system enough to say that we should be teaching the Masai about business, not the other way round.

sathnam@thetimes.co.uk

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