Published by Soundview Executive Book Summaries, P.O. Box 1053, Concordville, Pennsylvania 19331 USA© 2004 Soundview Executive Book Summaries • All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited.

A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing andManagement Development

MANAGERSNOT MBAsTHE SUMMARY IN BRIEF

Every decade almost 1 million MBAs graduate into the economy. After twoyears of classes they expect to manage people who have many times the amountof knowledge gained through intensive personal experience. Those without thecredentials are increasingly relegated to the “slow track” and subjected to theleadership of those who do not have the legitimacy to lead. The MBA was firstintroduced in 1908 and went through its last serious overhaul in the late 1950s. Itis time for a change. The current system ensures that the wrong people will geteducated in the wrong way with the wrong consequences. There is a better way.Professor Henry Mintzberg has designed a program, the International Masters inPracticing Management, that addresses many of the problems associated withtraditional programs that profess to develop managers, but instead produce ana-lysts ready to apply one-size-fits-all techniques no matter the context. By integrat-ing reflective, analytical, worldly, collaborative, and action mindsets, this philoso-phy will not only improve managers, but also their organizations and society.

Concentrated Knowledge™ for the Busy Executive • www.summary.com Vol. 26, No. 12 (2 parts) Part 1, December 2004 • Order # 26-29

CONTENTSWrong PeoplePage 2

Business or Management?Page 2

Wrong TrainingPages 2, 3

Impressions LeftBy MBA EducationPage 3

Wrong ConsequencesPages 3, 4, 5

The Soft UnderbellyOf Hard DataPage 4

Masters of British AirwaysPage 5

New MBAs?Pages 5, 6

Developing ManagersPages 6, 7

New Ways for DevelopingManagersPages 7, 8

Developing True SchoolsOf ManagementPage 8

By Henry Mintzberg

FIL

E:L

EA

DE

RS

HIP

What You’ll Learn In This Summary✓ What is wrong with today’s management education.✓ What kinds of people make good managers and why they are not in

business schools.✓ How art, science and craft are all components of management, but busi-

ness schools focus mostly on science.✓ Whether MBAs are ready to perform in the boardroom once they make

it in the door of an organization.✓ How graduate business schools are corrupting education, managerial

processes, existing organizations, and even social institutions.✓ How most attempts at innovation of the managerial development

process only change the delivery of the same inappropriate material.✓ How an entirely new model, the International Masters in Practicing

Management, teaches managerial practices instead of test-taking and knee-jerk decision making.

®

Wrong PeopleConventional MBA programs do not work because

they pretend to create managers out of people with noexperience or expressed leadership. Leadership is a nat-ural quality, and teaching it to someone who has nevermanaged is like teaching psychology to someone whohas never met another human being.

More art than science, when management is mixedwith craft or experience, it becomes a practice.Inexperienced students cannot appreciate the practice ofmanagement, so they focus on the science, or analysis,that is the basis of most MBA programs. Management istreated like a profession that can be learned withoutexperience and then applied in every situation.Management is actually a facilitating activity thatdepends on the immediate context.

At Odds With ManagementThough business schools require work experience

from applicants, it is an average of only four years, andtheir experience is rarely managerial. This particular agegroup is typically seeking independence from familyand roots, which is at odds with management that focus-es on accepting responsibility, not throwing it off.Traditionally impatient, analytical and controlling peo-ple self-select to apply just so they can move up, andworse, often move out of the one area where they havedeveloped experience. The GMAT encourages good

test-taking, not good management, and it introduces itsown bias for science over art and craft.

In 1971, Sterling Livingston wrote that few people hadthe will to manage — to foster success in others overtheir own success. In 1932, Alfred North Whiteheadlabeled the zest for business, which is different from thezest for riches, as another important characteristic. Theformer is about getting the most out of resources, the lat-ter about tapping the energy of people.

Those with the zest for business, but not the will tomanage are the problem. Such people are numerous inMBA programs. They make good investment bankers,financial analysts or consultants, which is what many ofthem have become. Unfortunately, those who aspire torun large corporations are likely to fail in executivepositions.

We need leaders with human skills, not professionalswith academic credentials. In the larger organizationsespecially, success depends not on what managers them-selves do so much as on what they help others to do. ■

Wrong TrainingOnce you have the wrong people, there is no right

way to develop them. Business students receive a falsesense of management and propagate it in organizations.The ill-conceived pedagogy becomes so entrenched thateven when the right people are sent to executive MBAprograms, they learn the wrong things.

MANAGERS NOT MBAsby Henry Mintzberg

— THE COMPLETE SUMMARY

For Additional Information on the author,go to: http://my.summary.com

Published by Soundview Executive Book Summaries (ISSN 0747-2196), P.O. Box 1053, Concordville, PA 19331USA, a division of Concentrated Knowledge Corporation. Published monthly. Subscriptions: $195 per year in U.S.,Canada and Mexico, and $275 to all other countries. Periodicals postage paid at Concordville, PA and additional offices.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Soundview, P.O. Box 1053, Concordville, PA 19331. Copyright © 2004 bySoundview Executive Book Summaries.

Available formats: Summaries are available in print, audio and electronic formats. To subscribe, call us at1-800-521-1227 (1-610-558-9495 outside U.S. and Canada), or order on the Internet at www.summary.com.Multiple-subscription discounts and Corporate Site Licenses are also available.

SoundviewExecutive Book Summaries®

GREER MCPHERSON – Contributing EditorDEBRA A. DEPRINZIO – Senior Graphic Designer

CHRIS LAUER – Senior EditorCHRISTOPHER G. MURRAY – Editor in Chief

GEORGE Y. CLEMENT – Publisher

Soundview Executive Book Summaries®2

The author: Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor ofManagement Studies at McGill University in Montreal,Canada. He was named Distinguished Scholar for the Year2000 by the Academy of Management, and won itsGeorge R. Terry Award for the best book of 1995 for TheRise and Fall of Strategic Planning.

Copyright © 2004 by Henry Mintzberg. Summarizedby permission of the publisher, Berrett-Koehler, 235Montgomery Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94104-2916. 464 pages. $27.95. ISBN 1-57675-275-5.

Summary Copyright © 2004 by Soundview ExecutiveBook Summaries. www.summary.com, 800-521-1227,610-558-9495.

(continued on page 3)

Do researchor whatever.

Business or Management?

NOZest for Business (after Whitehead)

YES

Will

to M

anag

e (a

fter L

ivin

gsto

n)YE

SNO Do deals, or run your

own small business.

Consider the public orsocial sector; get experienceas a manager, then studymanagement.

Consider big business:get experience as a manager,then study management.

The first graduate studies in business were offered byDartmouth in 1900, followed by the first MBA programat Harvard in 1908. As other programs grew, the busi-ness community was not enthusiastic and the focusbecame academic. Case studies emerged midcenturyand were much more popular with students for theirpracticality, but business research began to flag.

In the 1950s, interest in academic research picked upagain, and the focus was on business over management.Business programs taught distinct functions, such asfinance, entrepreneurship and marketing, but they didnot teach management. Management was finally addedas “strategy,” but instead of viewing it as a synthesis of

business knowledge and soft skills, it became anotherfunction to analyze.

Managing by analysis was narrowed to decision mak-ing, and became the norm. Much of decision makinginvolves soft skills to identify problems, consider options,and set up holistic solutions. Professors either can’t ordon’t want to teach soft skills, and young students aren’tready to learn them. The business school programs focuson what they can do — evaluate choices — a very nar-row view of management. Students are encouraged toanalyze by learning generally applicable techniques, butnot by taking responsibility for specific situations.

Pedagogy of the MBA● Lecture. Professors stand before the students and

tell them how the real world is, but unfortunately thereal world is experience.

● Business Games. Teams of students make decisionsabout pricing and production for simulated businesses oncomputers, but suffer no consequences if they are wrong.

● Projects. Students conduct fieldwork projects andconsulting assignments in real companies, but withoutcommitment or responsibilities, the projects are mean-ingless.

● Case Studies. Students read a 10- to 20-page discus-sion of a business situation with a protagonist at a cross-roads, having to make a decision. This method promotestoo much sitting around and talking — not action.

Do, See, Feel and ListenBusiness school teaching methods develop leaders

who think, when this world requires us to do, see, feeland listen. The programs broaden students’ knowledgeof business and financial analysis, but narrow their per-ceptions of management. ■

Wrong ConsequencesThough it is possible for some of the right people to

get educated the right way within business schools,these programs are so rarely recognized that it barelymatters. The fact remains that training elitist leaders inanalysis and promoting them on fast tracks underminesour educational institutions, organizations and socialfabric.

Corruption of Educational ProcessThough business school programs claim to teach busi-

ness discipline and understanding, they often focusmore on fitting in and competition. Getting into the best

3

Managers Not MBAs — SUMMARYWrong Training(continued from page 2)

Impressions LeftBy MBA Education

✓ Managers are important even though they aredisconnected from making and selling. The higher upthey are, the more important they are, even if theyonly arrived yesterday.

✓ Managing is decision making based on system-atic analysis. It is more science than art, and certain-ly no craft.

✓ Data for decisions come from brief cases orreports. To make decisions, numbers are massaged,words are debated, and perhaps ethics are consid-ered.

✓ Under managers, organizations are segregatedinto discrete functions of finance, marketing,accounting, etc., each with its own set of techniques.

✓ Managers pronounce strategies to combine thefunctions. Though mysterious, these strategies areunderstood by those who learned industry analysisand have formulated many such strategies in a class-room.

✓ The best strategies are clear, deliberate andbold like the heroic leaders of the most interestingcases.

✓ After a manager formulates a strategy, all theother people must implement it or take action.Managers must always control this process, butnever engage in it.

✓ Implementation is hard because businessschool graduates embrace change, but most othersresist it. Managers have to bash bureaucracies andempower whoever is left.

✓ To become a manager or a leader who gets tosit at the top, you must first sit still in businessschool for two years. That enables you to manageanything.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries®

(continued on page 4)

For Additional Information on case studies and their drawbacks,go to: http://my.summary.com

school and networking reign over management, whilelearning to increase shareholder value triumphs overcustomer needs and product quality. Despite expandingclasses in ethics, MBA graduates are becoming less andless concerned with the topic. School gives the studentsconfidence, but not enough competence. Graduates arearrogant enough to get to the executive suite, but are ill-equipped to handle it. Combine the suspect educationwith the mindless drive to market MBA degrees likeaction films and it is no surprise business schools can’tfocus on developing responsible managers, businesspeo-ple and citizens.

Corruption of Managerial PracticeThe fact that so many MBA graduates make it to

senior positions means that its effect on the practice ofmanaging is enormous. Some of the commonalities ofthe MBA career path are unsettling:

● Gateway to the Real World. MBAs typically leapdirectly into consulting or investment banking wherethey have great opportunities for analysis and tech-niques, but little responsibility for implementation ordirect management. The MBA is a status symbol givingstudents money and their hiring employers a way toscreen for interest in business, if not loyalty.

● End Run Around Management. Increasing num-bers of MBAs get into managing by going around it,straight into executive positions. They never make orsell anything, just involve themselves in functions thatare not industry specific. The people who get thesedegrees are often impatient, aggressive and self-serving.Launching them into important positions without con-text only encourages them to rely on this behavior.

● Managing Out of Balance. MBA training shouldbe a balance of the techniques and experience of craft,the art of insights and vision, and the science of analysisand assessments. Traditionally, the training is light oncraft and art, leaving science to take over and propagatea calculating and dehumanizing environment.

● Performance of Prominent MBA CEOs. Thoughthey can get to high positions, MBAs cannot necessarilyperform there. MBAs constitute approximately 40 per-cent of CEOs in Fortune 100 companies, but familiarlists of the most admired business leaders — Buffett,Kelleher, Dell, Gates, Welch and Winfrey — do notinclude MBAs. In fact, CEOs with MBAs tend to havepoor execution and people skills, exactly where theirselection and training are weakest.

Corruption of Established OrganizationsThere are two ways of viewing interaction with the

economy and its performance:● Exploitation — Short-term improvement thriving

on focused attention, precision and discipline. This isthe calculating management style fostered by an MBAeducation. Removed from context, MBAs tend toexploit other people’s experience in the absence of theirown.

● Exploration — Experimentation that thrives onserendipity, free association, and relaxed control. It isrisky, and success is neither assured nor often achieved.Exploration focuses on the creativity of the journey,while exploitation focuses on the final goal.

Businesses need both of these types, just aseconomies do. Without exploration, there is nothing toexploit. But two corresponding types of managementhave emerged — professional and entrepreneurial —and they do not necessarily mix well. MBAs tend togravitate toward and do best in industries where theycan control and fiddle with old technologies, such asmarketing consumer goods. They can apply the sametechniques to several products. The problem with MBAsis that they are apt to focus on one aspect — marketing,finance, or development — and throw the whole compa-ny off balance.

MBAs and EntrepreneurshipEntrepreneurship is now being taught in business

schools, but like all other disciplines, it is taught assum-ing that the uninvolved CEO is responsible for every-thing. Entrepreneurs are typically artistic and visionary,and they rarely attend MBA programs.

MBAs are not known for their success as entrepre-neurs. They may start their own low-tech businesses inconsulting, real estate, or financial services, but they arerarely capable of the dedication and risky behaviorinherent in entrepreneurship.

Managers Not MBAs — SUMMARY

Soundview Executive Book Summaries®4

Wrong Consequences(continued from page 3) The Soft Underbelly of Hard

Data — An MBA’s Best Friend✓ Hard information is often limited in scope, fail-

ing to encompass noneconomic and nonquantitativefactors.

✓ Much hard information is too aggregated togive insight into what is really going on behind thenumbers.

✓ Much hard information arrives too late astrends and performance become facts. Often, man-agers cannot wait.

✓ A surprising amount of hard information isunreliable. Something is always lost or subject todistortion in the process of quantification.

(continued on page 5)

Often, entrepreneurs are unable to run their successfulorganizations properly. This is typically the time when aprofessional manager is brought in and introduces thebureaucracy of formalization and centralization. Thoughboth are necessary, problems arise when managersbecome distant, disconnected and inflexible. MBA pro-grams promote centralization and so do their graduates.As they spread throughout the economy, they areresponsible for the rise of bureaucratic management in atime, especially in high-technology industries, when weneed to nurture teamwork, collaboration and networks.

Corruption of Social InstitutionsThese destructive effects of an MBA degree have their

most damaging effects on society at large. The membersof the professional or business class are becoming theleaders of our economic entities while those they leaddo not respect them or believe they have the right tolead. Society is becoming stratified into a credentialedclass and an experienced class, when in fact leadersshould be varied and chosen for their qualities beyondcredentials and affiliation.

Society is also leaning toward a selfishness that isembodied in the corporations that ignore social respon-sibility in favor of narrow shareholder value, and thatregard CEOs as the sole generators of economic perfor-mance. These managers and heads of business are inpowerful positions to make decisions to either thwartsocial needs or consider them. It is unsettling to knowthat they have learned lessons that include the idea thateverything has a price, that everything needs to be blackor white, and that companies are not responsible for thequality of life of their employees.

An Insidious BeliefAdditionally, there is an insidious belief that a business

education, which barely teaches business management,is adequate preparation to manage in the governmentaland not-for-profit sectors as well. The hierarchical,money-focused model does not work well in the socialsector where people work in teams and volunteer theirtime. Meanwhile, turning the government into a businessturns people into customers instead of citizens. ■

New MBAs?Given these widely recognized problems with man-

agement education, which are many, there have beenmany modifications and make-overs in recent years to

create better MBA programs.Most MBA programs offer the same program: func-

tional courses in the first year, such as finance, quantita-tive analysis, and international business, and then elec-tives that are listed under the same headings. Perhapsthere is a required strategy course as well. It has beenthis way for decades, and programs keep developingnew variations. Executive MBAs take practicing man-agers who have significant experience, and teach them acurriculum designed for people with no experience.Modular curricula integrate functions and intensifylearning by teaching shorter, interconnected modulesover the course of the semester and only giving onegrade. Internet, CD-ROMs, and video conferencingdo not change the degree so much as they make theprocess faster. The digitalization of information onlyleads to more analysis and less management. Distancelearning mixes residential sessions, downloaded lec-tures, and bulletin boards. Yet another way to changethe MBA is to add the words international and globalto describe the students, faculty or location.

Real InnovationImagine someone from Ghana announcing that man-

agement practices and controls exercised in Accrawould work just as well in New York. That is essentiallywhat the United States does. Americans assume theirmanagement systems are the best. But there are innova-tions in business management occurring around theworld. Other economies have designed their own sys-tems of management and are successful without import-ing the American way.

Managers Not MBAs — SUMMARY

Soundview Executive Book Summaries®

(continued on page 6)

5

For Additional Information on the uncertain success of CEOs,go to: http://my.summary.com

Wrong Consequences(continued from page 4) Masters of British Airways

The author gave a speech at the British Academyof Management at which he suggested that the inno-vation of MBA programs dedicated to single compa-nies was taking innovation too far. Jonathan Goslingof Lancaster University was involved in such a pro-gram with British Airways (BA) and invited theauthor to visit while the students prepared their“Strategy Projects.” One involved BA sourcing in theFar East, another designed a strategy for GatwickAirport, and the other dealt with a threat from anAmerican airline. The author was impressed with thetopics and how they combined the conceptual think-ing of the university with the practical problems ofthe company. These were not students playing con-sultants in the “real world” or experienced managersdiscussing other people’s cases. They were man-agers involved in issues they were investigating andso were acutely aware of what they did not know.

Japan traditionally has theoretical business depart-ments in its universities directed at undergraduates.Japanese businesses have taken on the job of developingpracticing managers themselves. MBA programs arerare, and though corporations used to sponsor some oftheir managers to do MBAs in the United States, theyhave been cutting back because the graduates had trou-ble fitting back into the local business culture and hadan inclination to quit the company.

Germany has been successful since WWII as well, andmany of its companies became famous for quality andlogistics. Though MBAs are rare, German business lead-ers experience discipline-based training in their under-graduate programs, and many get doctorates. As in Japan,the focus of management is in the firm, not the professionitself. Unlike Japan, which moves its best recruits aroundto get to know different parts of the company, Germancompanies tend to promote in a single function.

France has the equivalent of graduate businessschools, but mostly the prestige goes to graduates of“grandes ecoles” in business, engineering, etc. thatfocus on the equivalent of undergraduate education.Graduates are snapped up and move fast, much likeAmerican MBAs. Graduates from the Ecole Nationaled’Administration are so influential that they tend tooccupy a high proportion of France’s leadership posi-tions — both political and business.

The United Kingdom ranks second in graduatingMBAs after the United States. Big-name schools tend topick up changes and trends in America and adopt them.Smaller, lesser-known schools have made developmentsin highly specialized MBA programs that focus on onefunction or industry so that the “A” in MBA stands foraccounting or aerospace. Additionally, a large majorityof English MBA students stay on the job, so programsare designed more for practitioners with experience. ■

Developing ManagersDespite management education’s attempt to bypass

experience, most development does happen during thetime a manager is actually working. There are manyopportunities for organizations to develop management,and to use education more effectively to do it.

Development in PracticeManagement education, management training, and

management development exist on a continuum of expe-

rience. The first is academic and rooted in general theo-ries and concepts unrelated to the field where they willbe practiced. The second involves consultants and train-ers who teach a vocational version of the first, usingtechniques and skills to match general knowledge withpractice. Management development approaches theneeds rooted in practice in specific organizations. Anorganization draws on whatever it finds appropriate tofurther develop its own managers.

There are several options to consider when designingmore effective management development strategies,including:

● Sink or Swim: This is the most typical way for newmanagers to arrive on the job and struggle to find somehelp. Although they have had managers as models, thereis little specific preparation for the new role, and sink-ing is common. Development is seen as a personalresponsibility, and it is up to the new manager to read abook, listen to a CD, or take a class.

● Moving, Mentoring and Monitoring: Manage-ment is a practice like any other, so it needs an appren-ticeship. Some companies offer on-the-job (OTJ) train-ing in rotation and mentoring programs. The developingmanager then receives feedback.

● Management Development Buffet Table: Theseare off-the-job courses and programs offered by outsideproviders but available on site, on disk, on the Web, andon screen.

● Learning in Action: Traditionally, this is a way toget managers to work together on projects, learn aboutthe world of work, and take time for reflection. Thetrouble comes if companies use it as a way to get workdone, which takes the focus off of development.

● Corporate Academies: Organizations are creatingin-house corporate universities to focus on the develop-ment of their managers and other personnel. They areintended to develop people for a particular organization,not conduct research and grant degrees to the businesscommunity at large.

These development methods all focus on different areas— experience and the job, education and the person, andresults and the corporations. They should be balancedtogether judiciously to develop managers in practice.

Development in Management EducationInstead of starting with what untrained youths are

taught in management education, we should start withwhat leaders and managers need to know. Conventionaleducation impedes learning, and something more engag-ing and less controlling is needed to educate the rightpeople for management in the right ways to achieve theright consequences. Here are eight propositions to fixwhat’s wrong in management education:

Managers Not MBAs — SUMMARY

Soundview Executive Book Summaries®6(continued on page 7)

New MBAs?(continued from page 5)

For Additional Information on the meaning of international andglobal business education, go to: http://my.summary.com

1. Management education should be restricted topracticing managers. Instead of having students self-select into business school and then emerge onto the fasttrack, have organizations choose their most promisingmidcareer leaders who are old enough to have experi-ence, but young enough to benefit from education.

2. The classroom should leverage the managers’experience. Managers should remain on the job whilethey learn in school so that their experience is as majora force in the classroom as the instructor’s teaching.

3. Insightful theories help managers make sense oftheir experience. Education should be hands-off.Managers have to be exposed to theories so they canlearn to be thoughtful and express themselves.

4. Thoughtful reflection on experience in the lightof conceptual ideas is the key to managerial learning.Learning is not doing. Learning is reflecting on doing. Itinvolves wondering, probing, synthesizing and connect-ing all in a struggle to do things better the next time.

5. “Sharing” their competencies raises the man-agers’ consciousness about their practice.Competencies such as leadership or negotiating are hardto teach and therefore hard to fit into management edu-cation. They are best learned on the job. But if man-agers in a classroom share how they have practiced dif-ferent competencies and what worked or failed, they canlearn from comparing their experiences.

6. Beyond reflection in the classroom comes learn-ing from impact on the organization. In order for man-agement education to approach leadership, it must encour-age managers to get beyond the benefit for themselves. Ifan organization sends an individual for education, theobligation and commitment go both ways. The learnerswho go away should return as management teachers.

7. All of the above should be blended into a processof “experienced reflection.” The managers bring expe-rience to the classroom, where faculty members intro-duce concepts, theories and models, and reflectionoccurs. The resulting learning is carried back to the job,where it impacts behavior, providing further experiencefor reflection back in the classroom.

8. The curriculum, the architecture and the facultyshould be shifted from controlled designing to flexiblefacilitating. The idea that teaching should be divided intodiscrete chunks — operations, ethics, etc. — is ridiculous.Programs should weave together values and attitudes, sto-ries and ideas, and use engaging methods of learning tohold participants responsible for reflecting together on

their experience. Instead of controlling the process, facultymembers should collaborate and learn as well. ■

New Ways for DevelopingManagers

Along with a group of colleagues from Canada,England, France, India and Japan, the author developeda novel plan for management education to showcase theideas in this summary. Though the attainment of knowl-edge and the enhancement of competencies are impor-tant, they wanted their program to help people becomewiser human beings in addition to becoming moreeffective managers. They developed the InternationalMasters in Practicing Management (IMPM), which istrue to the eight propositions for an overhauled manage-ment education presented in the previous article.Though parts of the IMPM can be found in other pro-grams, the whole package cannot.

Five MindsetsThe design of the IMPM program focuses on five dif-

ferent mindsets, each taught in a different two-weekmodule. The modules include reflecting back over expe-riences since the last module, program time to considerthe impact of the learning back at work, “white time”when nothing is scheduled so that people can discussissues they have not had enough time for, and field stud-ies where participants visit local operations of compa-nies represented in class.

Module I: Managing Self — The ReflectiveMindset. Participants develop a reflective mind byfocusing on themselves, their work, their world, andhow to use experience to become more constructive anddiscerning.

Module II: Managing Organizations — TheAnalytical Mindset. Instead of traditional analyticalteaching, this module offers different perspectives onanalysis, studies specific frames commonly applied inbusiness, and integrates a new point of view.

Module III: Managing Context — The WorldlyMindset. This module encourages the participants tounderstand that the effects of the external environment— government and legal trends, social trends, interna-tional developments, etc. — affect the company.

Module IV: Managing Relationships — TheCollaborative Mindset. This module focuses on creatingmeaning with shared space for emerging relationships.

Module V: Managing Change — The ActionMindset. This module focuses on leader-driven macrochange, middle management micro change, and person-al change.

Managers Not MBAs — SUMMARY

Soundview Executive Book Summaries® 7

Developing Managers(continued from page 6)

(continued on page 8)

For Additional Information on managerial competencies,go to: http://my.summary.com

Though a great deal can be done in the classroom, theessential philosophy of the IMPM requires that much ofit happens back on the job. The participants are expect-ed to write Reflection Papers to examine how thelearning from the modules fits into their work experi-ence. Groups of participants and faculty who are in thesame geographical area get together between modulesfor Tutoring, so that they can provide support and linksto learning. The participants do Self-Study to get them-selves up to speed for the Analytical Module.

The Managerial Exchange pairs participants acrosscompanies and countries, who spend a week togetherafter the second module. Ventures are action learningthat the participants undertake to affect change in theirorganizations. Finally, in order to justify the degree andmake participants and others take the program and itslearning seriously, the participants must do a MajorPaper. It is not quite a formal thesis, but it is a substan-tial assignment including review of serious literaturesupported by in-depth study.

Impact of the LearningThe IMPM offers a unique opportunity for the devel-

opment of managers, but is it worth it? With this degree,the employers pay, but some might think they shouldn’tbecause employees are too mobile and busy to merit theinvestment. However, if companies believe in develop-ing leadership as much as they say they do, they shouldview the fees as an investment in operations rather thanan expense from the management development budget.

The IMPM has the added benefit of developing a bet-ter organization at the same time it develops better man-agers, instead of as a consequence. Change occursthroughout the length of the program and the IMPMparticipant returns to the organization and shares his orher learning with others.

The IMPM program has been in existence for eightyears, and the retention rates have been quite high.Many companies seeking a new kind of managerialdevelopment send more people back every year.

Moving Toward Broader DiffusionBecause of the benefits of the program, it is essential

to move toward broader diffusion of the Masters ofPracticing Management (MPM) instead of the MBA,which focuses on better decision making through train-ing in analysis — in general rather than in a particularcontext. The MPM focuses on the practice of managingin context. It strives to make better managers, by mak-ing craftspeople instead of analysts.

The author and his colleagues are currently planning

to expand the concept of the MPM by increasing thenumber of cycles offered by the partner schools.Similarly, the practices are extended by the people whohave the degree and continue teaching back at theirorganizations. This extension will lead to infiltration, aconcerted effort to change existing programs, and thento differentiation and applying the learning of the MPMto other sectors. ■

Developing True SchoolsOf Management

Management schools need a tuneup. They have beenstandardized and honed to such a degree that they weak-en what they intend to create. Business schools functionlargely as starting schools when they should be morebalanced as starting schools, developing schools, andfinishing schools. There can also be specializing schoolsand enhancing schools. The old models of research,degrees, teaching and tenure should be swept away asnew forms of learning develop.

Specialized Masters Programs in Business could bedesigned for specific functions and industries so stu-dents get what they need and learn it in-depth instead ofgetting what they do not need.

Masters Programs for Practicing Managers couldbe directed at midcareer managers with significantexperience and junior people in their first managerialjob.

Development Programs for Practicing Managersshould become more innovative — not standardized,pared-down sources of easy money for universities.

Bachelors Programs to Educate should not try totrain managers who have never had any experience.They should provide a liberal arts education provokingthoughtfulness.

Doctoral Programs for Adults should encouragecandidates to master the research literature and meth-ods, but also to stand on their own two feet, and breakaway from conventions.

More Research and ScholarshipDespite students’ pleas for more practical materials, we

should encourage more research and scholarship in busi-ness education. Business education should be insightfuland accessible to the practicing managers who will needit, not a retread of what is taught to people with no expe-rience. Management is everywhere is society, because somuch depends on organizations. It is paramount that ourleaders are equipped to helm them. ■

Managers Not MBAs — SUMMARY

Soundview Executive Book Summaries®8

New Ways for Developing Managers(continued from page 7)

For Additional Information on how participants reacted to theMindsets, go to: http://my.summary.com