Mintzberg quotation “managers not MBAS”

I.           Introduction

This is an essay written on Mintzberg quotation “managers not MBAS” that both management and management education are deeply troubled, but that neither can be changed with out charging the others.

Mintzberg describes a very different approach to management education, which encourages practicing managers’ to learn from their own experience. No one can create a manager in a class room. But existing managers can significantly improve their practice in a thoughtful classroom that makes use of that experience. He call upon practicing Managers learns from their own experience and the need to build the art and the craft back in to management education and in to management itself.

Based on the above mentioned points these essays will adders the issue from three areas of theory; management learning, leadership and innovation. It also look in to assertion assumption and implication of Mintzberg’s idea from the above three theory perspectives and finally its implication on my own management practice and its challenge to my thinking of current practice.

II.        An overview of management practice

It would be necessary to have what the concept of management mean before proceeding to what I mean management practice.

Management can be defined by   some writers as follows.

According to Wikinedia, the free encyclopedia, Mary Parker Fallet (1868-1933) defined management as “ the art of getting things done through people where as Henri Fayol (1916) considers management to consist of seven functions: planning organizing, leading, co-ordination, controlling, staffing and motivating.

Fayol writes on the basis of his own practical experience of management where by many managers today still find it useful way of thinking about aspect of their job and it is widely quoted. He also breaks management function down in to fine distinct elements:

-      Forecasting and planning; that is looking in to the future and drawing up action plan.

-      Organizing building up the material and human structure to the undertaking.

-      Commanding; maintaining activity among personnel.

-      Co-ordinating; unifying and harmonizing activity and effort.

-      Controlling ensuring that things confirm to rules and instruction. It is a logical and rational analysis of what need to be alone.

Further more, another thinker whom the issue of this essay concerns Henry Mintzberg, identified ten distinct roles which he grouped in to three areas.

1. Interpersonal roles:- that is to be as a figure head representing the organization, as a leader: matching the need of organization and individuals, as a liaison maintaining horizontal relationship out side the organization.
2. Informational role:- receiving Information about internal and external events, disseminator of this information and as a spokesman, giving information to outsiders.
3. Decisional roles:- As entrepreneur initiating changes  disturbance handler, making decision in response to unanticipated events, as resource allocatior of people  equipment, time and soon, as a negotiator with others over commitment of resource.

Mintzberg’s observation about managers differs according to the level of management where by not all of these role apply manager’s to job and some may be slightly different. Liaison with in the organization may be more important to lower level management than CEO where as external relationship is more important to CEO’s than middle level managers’.

It may be still useful for mangers to think about which role their job does involve.

Mentzberg’s categories can be a good staring point for managers for identifying different possible aspect of manager’s role can help to clarity what it is that managers may need to learn.

Therefore to be effective manager’s if would be better to learn in which managerial role that need to spent their time differently some suggest that the biggest contribution to effectiveness come from communication and followed closely by human resource management.

Since the concern of this essay is about the practice of management based on Mintizberg’s quotation “ Managers not MBA’s if would be relevant to see the issues mentioned above as practice of management drawn from experience and the ideas of management thinkers like Mintizberg himself. In the next part of the essay will tray to discuss, the assumption assertion and the ideas of Mintizberg quotation in nutshell.

III.     Critical evaluation of Mintzberg’s managers not MBA’s

As it is pointed out in the quotation; Mintzberg assert that conventional MBA classrooms over emphasizes the science of management while ignoring its art     ( insight) and denigrating its craft ( experience ), leaving a distracted impression of its practice. We need to get back to a more engaging style of management, to build stringer organization, not bloated share price. He is calling for another approach to management education, where by practicing managers learn from their own experience. He need to build the art and the craft in to management education and in to management itself.

He examines what is wrong with current system conventional MBA programes are mostly for young people with little or no experience. There are the wrong people programes to train them emphasize analysis and technique these are the wrong ways they leave graduate with the false impression that they have been trained as a managers which has had a corrupting effect on the practice of management as well as on organization and societies.

According to Mintzberg management education is really business education offering specialized training in the function of business rather than general education in the practice of management. As a result thousands of MBAs converge on the business world with little firsthand knowledge of customers, workers products or process but are expected to “ lead” those who have indeed gained that knowledge in the only way possible through personal experience.

We can’t manage the workers employee of 21^st century with management style that was developed in the early 1900s. According to Mintizberg point of view “MBA programes not only fail to develop managers but give their students a false impression of management that, when put into practice, is undermining organizations.

He also criticized full time MBA programes for relying too much on theory, while offering students too few experiential learning opportunities. He pointed out that business schools enroll students who are not experiences enough to absorb management concepts; don’t provide authentic management experience; and don’t offer the appropriate experiential laboratory in which to learn leadership.

There is also the issue of “confidence” is a word that appears repeatedly in reports by MBA graduates about the benefits of their education. There programes certainly boost confidence. But do they baost competence of put differently, can a manager, let alone a leader, be created in a classroom.

Mintzberg in his book argues no management is not a science, nor a profession; it is a practice, rooted in experience.

Claiming that management and leadership is being taught barely experienced students sitting still in a business school for couple of years in quite simply a sham.  Confidence with out competence breeds arrogance, another worked frequently associated with MBA’s. If the business schools were really doing their job, were truly creating leaders their graduates would be known for their humility, not their arrogance.

IV.       The issue of Mintzberg quotation & its theoretical perspective

As it is pointed out in my introduction in this essay I tray to see three theoretical areas which support the idea in the quotation: there are leadership management, management learning and innovation.

As I have mentioned above whether MBA’s boost confidence and competency.   It was mentioned above that confidence with out competency breads arrogance. So that what competencies do we need for twenty first century managers?

At the starting of this essay. I had explained the managerial role which was suggested by Fayol and Mintzberg since those roles are very important and it should be seen with the competencies needed for managers of our era.

In a fast changing environment, where the future is uncertain and creative endeavor is much more likely to be forth coming from committed staff, the part of the manager’s job concerned with opening perception, nurturing staff and encouraging networking become much more central. There days the changing role of managers call for new competencies.

According to Morgan (1991/b). the competencies need for the modern manager are; reading the environment, proactively, visionary leadership, human resource management, remote management skills, using IT to transform, managing complexity and contextual competencies are necessary skills that modern managers need to learn and develop.

These competencies are much related with the issues pointed in Mintzberg’s quotation about engaging managers.

If MBa’s create a manager it should create and a manager or leadership who able to have the above mentioned competencies.

A key creative competency (and the beginning of wisdom) is the ability to view situation from different perspective. This requires a certain mental flexibility to take an overview (helicopter thinking) .

Practice in management art need to have a mental model and broad perspective offered by system thinking what was used by kanter (1991) the analogy of a kaleidoscope.

Kaleidoscope thinking involves taking an existing array of data, phenomena, or assumptions and being able to twist them, shake them, look at them up slide down or from another angle or from a new direction – thus permitting an entirely new pattern and consequent set of action.

 This is the point related with what was pointed out by mintzberg as they digout impressions beyond reaching facts, by listening more than talking, seeing and feeling more than sitting and figuring “ therefore creative managers need perceptual skills in their relationship with people.

To see the art of management from innovative point of view; those individuals  who are “ Boundary crossers, change agents and change markers have the following common characteristics; leadership qualities ability to see connection between things, intelligible language for complex ideas, passion and persistence and recognition that change can be tedious and painful.

Therefore developing the above pointed characters and creativity learning and development are all now taking far greater prominence in the role of modern managers. All these are beyond MBA’s it need to have creative engagement that link theories of MBA course with practical experience in the art of management.

V.          My own view about quotation and the challenge to my thinking and assumption.

As to my under standing a key problem in management is the intense richness of the subject area is ill fitted to our own context the why managers work and their role will defined on the range of variables such as:

The country they work in, the nature of the organization they work for (NFO or for profit organization), the level they are working at ( whether they are working in a particular specialist function or are general managers), it specialist, the specialist they work with.

Based on the above pointed out context it has become necessary to understand management problems from multiple perspective so that art of management need practical experience of the context and the theories that fit to particular situation of where some one is working in.

To have competency needed for the modern managers the issue suggested by Mintizberg is necessary due to the changing role of todays managers from traditional way of doing things.

As it is allowed mentioned above we do not create leaders or managers in classroom rather the working environment and the experience will create a competent  manager or leaders.

As it was mentioned in the quotation Mintizberg is suggesting about the dedicated people who practical a style of management that can be called engaging managers these peoples as to my understanding they are creative managers that bring out the creativity in their staff they stimulate and sustain an open atmosphere where the split of collaboration prevails, and they see part of their job as protecting a team from un necessary obstacles (i.e facilitating rather than controlling proceedings). The managers role is to act as a bridge of understanding coalescing the team in to action around the common purpose, and gaining commitment to bring out the best in the team.

Therefore practice in art of management need a style of management that faster innovation and being change in the life of an organization. I think this what Mintizberg argues about MBA’s. If MBA’s required to get a repetition it should  bring the needed right person  with confidence and competencies which is required to be eligible as a modern manager with good thinking skills and creative endeavors.

Finally I agree with the idea of Mintizberg by saying that theory with out practice.

And his approach to management education learning from own experience is what today Management role require is.

VI.       Practical implication of Mintizberg idea to my current practice

I started MBA course OUBS in May 2005 since then I had gone through different courses with a lot of theories.

Under OUBS teaching approach I find by my self that it is different way of teaching management science and art of management in which every course encourages to learn from owns experience and even doing assignments from own challenge that managers encounter in their work place.

According to my opinion the teaching Methodology in OUBS looks to me like what Mintizberg suggesting to be.

Since learning is the essence of every day living and conscious experience; it is the process of transforming that experience in to knowledge skills, attitude, values, and beliefs. It is about the continuing process of making sense of every day experience thus, the effective management learning which the OUBS  introduced is some thing that solve what to be identified by mintizberg as trouble to management education and management it is the way to build art and craft back in to management.

It is about learning through practice “Kolb learning cycle” process for enabling awareness of knowledge tacit  knowledge or theory in use that is embedded in our actions. Reflection can be an active means of driving our learning with the aim of extending our knowledge and potentially transforming our thinking about specific action.

Therefore the practical implication of mintizberg quotation to my current managerial role is it is about thinking how to develop competency and capacity through linking theories with the practical context of my own work place. It is a valuable way of learning from experience because theory by it self could not make some one manager or leader.