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Management Guru Henry Mintzberg on why MBA degrees do not produce good managers, and how to do it better. What should you really be learning? The culmination of his thinking on this theme over his distinguished career, Managers not MBAs is Mintzberg at his provocative, engaging, and brilliant best.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

INTRODUCTION This is a book about management education that is about management. I believe that both are deeply troubled, but neither can be changed without changing the other. The trouble with "management" education is that it is business education, and leaves a distorted impression of management. Management is a practice that has to blend a good deal of craft (experience) with a certain amount of art (insight) and some science (analysis). An education that overemphasizes the science encourages a style of managing I call "calculating" or, if the graduates believe themselves to be artists, as increasing numbers now do, a related style I call "heroic." Enough of them, enough of that. We don't need heroes in positions of influence any more than technocrats. We need balanced, dedicated people who practice a style of managing that can be called "engaging." Such people believe that their purpose is to leave behind stronger organizations, not just higher share prices. They do not display hubris in the name of leadership. The development of such managers will require another approach to management education, likewise engaging, that encourages practicing managers to learn from their own experience. In other words, we need to build the craft and the art of managing into management education and thereby bring these back into the practice of managing. Follow the chapter titles of this book into the chapters, and you will read about management education--Part I on what I believe is wrong with it, Part II on how it could be changed. But look within the chapters, and you will read about management itself--again what I believe is wrong with it and how it could be changed. To pick up on the subtitle, here we take a hard look at the soft practice of managing, alongside that of management development. There are plenty of books that provide soft looks at the hard practice of managing. I believe we need to face management as it is, in a serious way; it is too important to be left to most of what appears on the shelves of bookstores. Easy formulas and quick fixes are the problems in management today, not the solutions. I have written this book for all thoughtful readers interested in management education and practice: developers, educators, managers, and just plain interested observers. I mean this to include MBA applicants, students, and graduates, at least ones who harbor doubts about this degree. If what I write here is true, then they especially should be reading this book. 2 Readers interested in management education will get the messages about management practice as they go along. Readers interested in management itself--this hard look at that soft practice--can focus on particular parts of the book. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 contain the essence of this material. Before reading this, however, I suggest you look at the introduction to Part I and the first part of Chapter 1 (pages Part One-"EXPERIENCE" IN MBA ADMISSIONS) as well as, from Chapter 2, pages Management By Analysis-Infiltrating Ethics, The Case for Cases-Secondhandedness, and The Impression Left by MBA Education. Beyond Chapter 6, I recommend pages 259-Proposition 7. All of the above should be blended into a process of "experienced reflection." and especially Toward Engaging Management-Table 9.4 TWO WAYS TO MANAGE in Chapter 9, pages Module I: Managing Self--The Reflective Mindset-Table 11.1 DIMENSIONS OF THE MODULES in Chapter 11, and pages Developing Managers IV-IMPact and Does the IMPM Benefit? in Chapter 13. I should add that there are all kinds of illustrative materials in the boxes that accompany the text. Reading these will give much of the flavor of my arguments. Part I of this book is called "Not MBAs." Some people may see it as a rant; I wrote it as a serious critique of what I believe to be a deeply flawed practice. If you have anything to do with MBAs, whether hiring them, supporting them, teaching them, or being one, I urge you to read this, if only to entertain some dark thought about this ostensibly sparkling degree. And if you are a manager or have anything to do with managers (who doesn't in this world?), I hope that reading this will open your eyes to a vitally important activity that is going out of social control. The chapters of this first part flow as follows. What I call conventional MBA programs, which are mostly for young people with little if any managerial experience ("Wrong People," Chapter 1), because they are unable to use art or craft, emphasize science, in the form of analysis and technique ("Wrong Ways," Chapter 2). That leaves their graduates with the false impression that they have been trained as managers, which has had a corrupting effect on the education and the practice of management as well as on the organizations and societies in which it is practiced ("Wrong Consequences," Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6). There has been a lot of hype about changes taking place in prominent MBA programs in recent years. Don't believe it ("New MBAs?" Chapter 7). The MBA is a 1908 degree based on a 1950s strategy. The real innovations in management education, mostly in England but hardly recognized in America, serve as a bridge from the critique of Part I to the positive ideas for "Developing Managers" in Part II. There is a great and unfortunate divide between management development and management education. While a full discussion of management development would require a book unto itself, the presentation of a framework of basic practices ("Management Development in Practice," Chapter 8) can open up vistas for management education. 3 The discussion of the book to this point suggests a set of general principles by which management education can be reconceived ("Developing Management Education," Chapter 9). These principles have been brought to life in a family of programs that can take management education and development to a new place, by enabling managers to reflect on their own experience in the light of insightful concepts (five aspects of "Developing Managers," Chapters 10 through 14). No one can create a leader in a classroom. But existing managers can significantly improve their practice in a thoughtful classroom that makes use of those experiences. All this suggests that the business schools themselves need to be reconceived, including a metamorphosis into management schools ("Developing True Schools of Management," Chapter 15). But will these agents of change be able to change? Excerpted from Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development by Henry Mintzberg All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Two decades ago, Mintzberg, a professor at McGill University who was then teaching MBAs at MIT, discovered a profound "disconnect between the practice of management... and what went on in classrooms." Since that time, he has dedicated himself to the problems of management and management education, both of which he believes are "deeply troubled," and the latter of which has become the wrong that he, with help from colleagues around the world, must right. Using words like "arrogance," "mindless" and "exploitation," Mintzberg outlines just what is wrong with MBAs (the people and the degrees) and why the degree he's developed is rooted in the real world and, as such, is far more relevant and valuable to students, companies and the business world at large. Strong economies are based on good management, not on good business schools, Mintzberg believes, and because the top companies employ the top MBAs and the top MBAs (not to mention the mediocre and bottom-level degree-holders) are, or so he says, the products of an out-of-touch and unrealistic graduate program, then the effects of this miseducation can be felt far beyond the classroom walls. Mintzberg's argument is clearly researched and set forth in a progressively logical and even convincing way. Managers and manager wannabes will be intrigued and can certainly learn a thing or two as long as they, as Mintzberg himself urges in his teachings, consider the source of the education. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Mintzberg (McGill Univ.) is highly respected in the field of management education and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the subject of how best to train managers. The premise of his book is that traditional MBA programs fail because they train people who have no experience in management. He believes that "only those who already have managerial responsibility can be educated and developed as managers...." The book is divided into two sections. The first section is a very comprehensive critique of traditional MBA programs and suggests that their emphasis on case studies and business functions is too limited and not appropriate for practicing managers. The second section discusses the International Masters Program in Practicing Management (IMPM), a program created by Mintzberg and colleagues in England, France, India, and Japan. The IMPM is a multicultural program that allows experienced managers to come together and discuss problems and solutions specific to their organizations focused around five mindsets: reflection, analysis, worldliness, collaboration, and action. The program is conducted via such methods as traditional classroom activities, reflection papers, and field studies. The book is very thorough and extensively researched, and presents a unique and forward-thinking approach to management education. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Research and professional collections. G. Klinefelter American Intercontinental University

Booklist Review

Conventional MBA programs train the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences, states this academic and author, who here examines and proposes drastic change in our traditional form of management education. He believes MBA programs are schools of business that pretend to develop managers, and he addresses such issues as what can be done to develop managers in a serious educational process, offering a critique of MBA programs and an analysis of the practice of management itself. Mintzberg's recommendations include program changes, as well as his observations on faculty tenure, prima donnas, and entrenched thinking. He believes MBA programs have failed to develop better managers who should be improving their organizations and thereby creating a better society. This book offers an important perspective for the global MBA community, which serves its students, business, and society in general. Although some may disagree with the author's views, at the very least his insight should\b foster discussion and lead to action, as appropriate. --Mary Whaley Copyright 2004 Booklist