Synopses & Reviews
The trouble with ""management"" education, says author Henry Mintzberg, is that it is business education, and leaves a distorted impression of management. In Managers Not MBAs, he offers a new definition of management as a blend of craft (experience), art (insight), and science (analysis). An education that overemphasizes science encourages a style of managing the author calls ""calculating,"" or if the graduates believe themselves to be artists, the related style ""heroic."" According to the book, neither heroes nor technocrats in positions of influence are useful - what's really needed are balanced, dedicated people who practice a style that can be called ""engaging."" Such people believe their purpose is to leave behind stronger organizations, not just higher share prices. Managers Not MBAs explains in detail how to cultivate such managers, and how they can transform the business world and, ultimately, society.
Synopsis
In this sweeping critique of how managers are educated and how, as a consequence, management is practiced, Henry Mintzberg offers thoughtful and controversial ideas for reforming both.
"The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences," Mintzberg writes. "Using the classroom to help develop people already practicing management is a fine idea, but pretending to create managers out of people who have never managed is a sham."
Leaders cannot be created in a classroom. They arise in context. But people who already practice management can significantly improve their effectiveness given the opportunity to learn thoughtfully from their own experience. Mintzberg calls for a more engaging approach to managing and a more reflective approach to management education. He also outlines how business schools can become true schools of management.
Synopsis
Mintzberg explains in detail how to cultivate balanced, dedicated managers who practice a style that can be called ""engaging,"" and how they can transform the business world and, ultimately, society.