Yuko Shimizu on Harvey Mintzburg's new book: Managers not MBA's
Congratulations! You have a sparkling new degree, highly prized in this world. You have learned a great many things about business. You have invested two years of your life, not to mention lost wages and a small fortune in tuition, in this impressive undertaking. As a result, you are fully qualified to go out and become a menace to society.Posted by Jim at June 10, 2004 02:11 AM | TrackBackGranted, this isn't fully the fault of your school. Nothing personal, but full-time MBA programs by their nature attract many of the wrong people--too impatient and analytical, with little experience in management itself. These may be fine traits for students, but they can be tragically ill-suited for managers.
Conventional MBA programs then compound the error by giving the wrong impression of management: that managers are important people disconnected from the daily work of making products and producing services; that managing is largely about decision making through analysis; that managers pronounce deliberate strategies for everyone else to implement; and worst of all, that by sitting still in a classroom for a couple of years, you are now ready to manage anything.