However, like the financial wizards that gave us "securitized" debt, we all know that they will continue to pocket the cash and never be held accountable. This book is truly insightful and in addition is well written and frequently funny. I would recommend it for any manager and particularly as a gift for any recent MBA recipient. Excellent book about how MBA education with its present emphasis on case studies, text books, and pre developed formulas and theories from profs who have never worked in organizations or businesses doesn't work.
The modern business world is exceedingly complex, and requires managers and leaders who are not afraid of change, understand the need for learning, and can make a difference. One look at the sorry state of our business schools suggest that their prexisting formulas for change aren't working! This is just Mintzberg selling his overpriced MBA Just give it a pass The book was sent on time and fast, however, the book is in a very bad shape, the cover is damaged and some pages are folded.
Shawn Wilson (Author of Research Is Ceremony)
It seems that some one fight with the book rather than reading it! Mintzburg writes eloquently and authoritatively on the limits of, and some misleading beliefs about, the MBA degree. According to him and others such as Jeff Pfeffer the degree with it s almost exclusive focus on analysis does not help the MBA student who lacks real world managerial experience to become an effective manager, I believe this way of characterizing analysis is misleading and too one-sided!
Analysis is used for many valuable reasons by all knowledge workers including successful 21st century managers! Analysis can be conceptual or empirical-- Mintzburg omits substantial discussion of the empirical. According to Mintzburg Warton, Harvard, and perhaps Stanford are guilty of teaching MBA students merely how to "throw" standard models and techniques at managerial problems.
To the contrary, good professors at these schools will include in their teaching the elements of analysis and synthesis that can be successfully applied at all almost all stages of managerial work-- not just the use of standard templates "thrown" at every situation. Instead of teaching analysis to mostly inexperienced MBA students who have not yet managed Mintzburg advocates management is an art and craft that can not be directly taught, but that practicing managers can improve their skills and insights by taking an educational program it is decidedly not an MBA based on their situated experience.
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He does opine that MBA degrees teach basic business vocabulary but not management per se whereas the new degree he advocates and in fact is being offered by a consortium of five schools including his own, Mcgill in Montreal, Canada is more valid and enriching for experienced managers than traditional MBA programs. He also claims that MBAs have skrewed up the world and that people such as Bill Gates who doesn't even have a bachelor's are superior in their managerial performance to MBAS.
However, MBA programs can and are being improved and that there are many alternatives including Mintzburg's. Mintzburg states many partial truths and builds a "federal case" to support his point of view. In my judgment the best managers tackle their work by a combination of deep analysis, synthesis and tacit factors based on their experience. What I don't want to see in higher education is a divorce between analytic and practical skills. I don't think that Mintzburg wants to see this either since one of the five recommended modules in his International Masters of Practicing Management is analysis.
Too much analysis at the wrong time is of course undesirable, but too little or avoidance of analysis may lead to the failing to identify and tackle tough managerial problems.
And the role of analysis is often intended as the preliminary step i. After all, one of the blessings of a manager's tacit knowledge is that some of it may be converted to explicit knowledge in which form it may be analysed, systemized, improved upon, and communicated to other stakeholders and customers of their organizations.
Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development
The wet-behind-the-ears MBA who comes in and ruins the company is a stock figure in popular culture, but Mintzberg is the first thinker to put his finger on exactly why so many MBAs are so clueless and destructive. He makes a very convincing case that you simply can't teach management in a classroom. You can teach general business skills, but management is something that has too many intangibles--it's an art more than a science--and is very industry-specific: But MBAs are taught that they can just apply their little case studies to any situation, and consequently they come in and make boneheaded decision after boneheaded decision, not knowing how the business they're "managing" actually works.
Does that mean management education is simply impossible? Mintzberg argues that once someone has displayed an aptitude for management you can definitely develop that ability through management education programs that draw on and build on managers' real-life experiences.
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He describes how he and some colleagues developed just such a program. The book is surprisingly entertaining, considering the potentially dry subject matter. The is something Mintzberg undoubtedly feels strongly about.
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He writes with considerable passion, surprising wit, and his usual exceptional clarity. Highly recommended to anyone who cares about contemporary management. See all 12 reviews.
Want to see more reviews on this item? Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. See Complete Table of Contents. Thoughtful and controversial view of MBAs. Definitely to read before deciding to enroll into a MBA program! You'll learn what MBA does, what it does not, what it should do and how it should do it. You will also discover more about your own motives for doing a MBA and what managing is and how to learn managing. Apr 05, Pascal rated it it was ok. A lot of good points are made throughout the book however you can't help to put it into perspective when you know that Mintzberg himself has put his own kind of, very expensive, MBA in production.
Most of this book reads very auto promotional to me Aug 14, John rated it liked it. Shall be read by middle management.
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Henry Mintzberg writes prolifically on the topics of management and business strategy, with more than articles and thirteen books to his name. His seminal book, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, criticizes some of the practices of strategic planning today and is considered required reading for anyone who seriously wants to consider taking on a strategy-making role within their organization.
He recently published a book entitled Managers Not MBAs Managers Not MBAs which outlines what he believes to be wrong with management education today and, rather controversially, singles out prestigious graduate management schools like Harvard Business School and the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania as examples of how obsession with numbers and an over-zealous attempt at making management into a science actually can damage the discipline of management.
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He also suggests that a new masters program, targeted at practicing managers as opposed to younger students with little real world experience , and emphasizing practical issues, may be more suitable. Ironically, although Professor Mintzberg is quite critical about the strategy consulting business, he has twice won the McKinsey Award for publishing the best article in the Harvard Business Review.
In he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In he was made an Officer of the National Order of Quebec.
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He is now a member of the Strategic Management Society. He is married to Sasha Sadilova and has two children, Susie and Lisa. Books by Henry Mintzberg.