Mainstream notions about management and management training tend to be disingenuously affirmed by torrents of circular logic and self-referential affirmations. The effect is to constrain our ability to discern, much less examine, the assumptions upon which most of those shibboleths are based. Anyone who dares to try to damp this tide of sophism is labeled as an iconoclast and marginalized.
So, the rest of us should be especially relieved when some are able to break through the static and get their voices heard. A key one of these is Henry Mintzberg, a professor of management and a genuine student – rather than mere anecdotal theorist – of the field. He is the author of “Managers Not MBAs: A hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development.”
The first part of this carefully argued but engaging and readable book is a refreshingly frank and penetrating assessment of the assumptions underlying the current MBA movement in the United States. After beginning with a brief history of the evolution of business education in America, he sets the tone for the remainder with his observation that
. . . the United States alone now produces upwards of a million people per decade who believe that they have the capacity to manage by virtue of having spent two years in an academic school of business.”
The rest of the first part offers Mintzberg’s devastating analysis of why that belief is misplaced. For example, he begins a discussion of how business education has become corrupted by insisting
We simply cannot afford to have a society of elitist leaders trained in analysis and promoted on “fast tracks” beside the daily work of making products and providing services. All of this undermines our organizations and our social fabric as well as our educational institutions.”
But recognizing that a cocktail of hard skills centered on analysis doesn’t answer the needs of the modern clamor for “leaders,” the system attempts to jury-rig those into their programs, also. However, Mintzberg concludes the first part with this dismal conclusion:
The business schools have never ceased to make the greatest fuss about the very things they are least able to deliver.”
The second part is devoted to presenting a program that Mintzberg was involved in developing, and which he, obviously, believes is a solution to the needs of business and managers – not an antidote, but a replacement, for the current approach to management training in America. It is an insightful presentation of a carefully considered management development system that serves both to offer viable alternatives to the problems outlined in the first part of the book, and to further highlight the seriousness of those problems.
The first part alone is worth the price of the book. Whatever your own position may be on MBA programs in particular, and US business education departments in general (especially postgraduate) – even whether or not you have such an education yourself – you will benefit from a reading of it. The entire volume is particularly recommended for hiring managers and HR training developers.
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Today’s tip: Speaking of iconoclastic examinations of traditional approaches to education, have you noticed how many of your managers and employees are taking advantage of full or partial on-line programs? For many, it is the only practical way to get an education at all, given their individual circumstances, and for others it is actually a superior method to sitting in a classroom plodding along at a uniform pace with people of various skills in different aspects of the training. These programs have come a long way from the diploma-mill era (as did their brick-and-mortar predecessors). And now, a group, the Online Educational Database, has come along to provide ranked ratings of the best online programs. Stop by to check out this promising and interesting development.
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Hi Jim,
(full disclosure: I have an MBA – http://www.stthomas.edu)
You’re tackling an age-old conundrum today! I remember my grandfather, who had an 8th grade education and worked as a machinist for Seeger Refrigerator (precursor to Whirlpool). He told plenty of stories about how he and his co-workers had to bail out “those college boys with their books” when trying to solve a problem.
The best approach I’ve encountered is the 70-20-10 model. I did a post last June titled “100% Career Management” about this model. Mike Lombardo and Bob Eichinger wrote The Leadership Machine (2000), addressing how best to develop leaders “for any future.”
* 70% On-the-job experience. Some examples: Leading an enterprise-wide project; taking a short-term assignment in another state or country; influence senior managers to make a difficult decision.
* 20% Social Learning. Some examples: participating in communities of practice; having/being a mentor; engaging in industry trade groups.
* 10% Formal training. Some examples: internal training courses; formal university education (MBA!); attending seminars; reading books.
This means that there is inherent value in an MBA: the 10%. Coupled with great colleagues, mentors, and social networks (20%), and a variety of on-the-job assignments (70%) = a great manager.
Best,
Joe
Hello Joe,
I remember that post. The formula is a bracing reminder that we can’t just spring fully developed as managers from the isolation of an educational cocoon and bypass everyone who has been doing the work and learning the business.
I would expect that the greatest part of the value of that 10% provided by the MBA is in its preparing us to be able to benefit from the other 90%.
I’ll have to pick up that book.
Thanks for your visit and the tip!
What a great review of a great book! Bravo, Jim.
I love your lead: ” Mainstream notions about management and management training tend to be disingenuously affirmed by torrents of circular logic and self-referential affirmations.”
Years ago, when I was actually hiring management trainees, I thought that the degree was vocational. You learned a bit about accounting and a bit about marketing and a bit about strategy, but nothing that we couldn’t teach you in a tenth of the time for a nano-fraction of the cost.
In the intervening decades, the MBA degree has become a) a ticket to be punched and b) a degree that teaches you how to analyze organizations but not how to manage them. It certainly doesn’t teach you how to deal with all those pesky people who will show up at work every day.
Joe, I love that formula. It’s an improvement on my original Apprenticeship Model because it separates out the Social Learning and identifies it as a special component.
Hello Wally,
“Those pesky people” – yes, that seems to be a real problem for many of these types, and one they work hard to resolve, either by simply not factoring them in to their calculations, and then retaliating against them for upsetting their planning, or by offering putatively hard-nosed “this is business” style explanations for their thoughtlessly disruptive – even reprehensible – management initiatives, often followed by punitive reassignments of those who “don’t get it” or layoffs.
This sometimes (far too often) describes those who have fully bought in to the hype about themselves promulgated by many of these institutions. Most, though, decent enough sorts, are able ultimately to see that their solutions are insufficient to the full range of factors playing on them – those pesky people – and have to spend some time unlearning and then relearning how to be a manager. At this point, it is unfortunately not at the bargains in time and cost that you could have offered had you gotten ahold of these people first. This reeducation also comes at a cost to their careers, and even to the organization.
Your apprentice model, enlivening Joe’s formula, is such a great approach. But what high-speed academic at which top-drawer school could make a glamorous career promoting it? It seems we’re left with appealing to managers’ common sense, and trying to help them ground their decisions in real work and real results. It’s a tough struggle against those who have captured an elitist cache while offering what we all want: shortcuts to success.
Thanks for your kind comments about the review!
Actually Jim, I have some hope. Last week I reviewed Ram Charan’s latest book, Leaders at all Levels. The title is a bit of a misnomer, the book is about developing high potential leaders. But Charan proposes a model that he calls an Apprenticeship Model, which is very similar to my own. What gives me hope is that Charan is a solid and thoughtful corporate citizen, a guru that many in top management listen to. He brings a lot to the leadership development party from his with several top corporations, including GE. And he’s saying what people like Joe and I and others have said for a while, that the primary way that leaders develop is on the job and that you can accelerate that development and make it more effective by being conscious about developmental assignments, mentoring and feedback. After a decade or so of writing about leadership as an apprenticeship trade, it seems like that model may be one of the big ideas in the winds of the day.
That would be wonderful for companies and developing leaders alike. But if we start now, we’re looking at a generation before the model really takes hold.
On a slightly different note, you’ve written about how corporations seem intent on taking the wrong things from the military. The idea of learning on the job, developing those under you, and taking occasional educational assignments would be a good thing to take.
Wally, I saw your review, of course. I am a little chary (no pun intended with Charan), as I think you are also, of the overwrought absorption with development of managers only at the top. Also, I don’t usually find much charm in the sort of approaches that give lip-service to “all levels” but then turn out really to be focused on celebrities at the top. Also, I wrote a series on Karma Capitalism that took a critical view of the thinking of Ron Charan and others on the putative social obligations of top managers.
On the other hand, I did for the most part like his book, co-written with Larry Bossidy, “Execution.” Putting all this together with your review of “Leaders at all Levels” and your comment above about sensing a change in the wind in this regard, it’s clear I need to read this new book. So, on the list it goes.
It’s difficult to get people all worked up about grounding their succession planning in the training and development of entry-level managers, but maybe this, as you say, is an indicator of movement in that direction.
As for using the military as a guide for business, the example you give is right in the ballpark of the sort of way I agree that it can be usefully done. My main concern is using military captains – especially premodern “warrior-kings” – as models for CEOs. The military organization, though, is worth study by civilian management. And I’m with you all the way on this one: no one does “succession planning” from the ground up like the military!
I guess the main point of this rather long response is that I’m encouraged to hear your sense of promise about this development as promoted by Charan – I look forward to reading the book – and thanks!