An MBA in the wrong hands can be a lethal weapon
All MBA graduates should have skulls and crossbones stamped on their foreheads, along with warnings that they are not fit to manage. They are the products of schools that specialise in t eaching the wrong things to the wrong people. Few MBA students have ever run anything and you cannot teach them to do so in a classroom.
So says Henry Mintzberg, the veteran management writer and long-time scourge of the Masters of Business Administration degree. His views usually attract a hysterical response from MBA s - and who can blame them? They have spent more than $120,000 on their MBAs and here is Prof Mintzberg declaring them worthless.
Prof Mintzberg, who teaches doctoral students and practising managers (but not MBAs) at McGill University in Montreal, has been poking business schools in the solar plexus and tearing buttons off their shirts for years. He has now thrown them to the floor and given them a sustained kicking in a soon-to-be-published book, Managers not MBAs*.
Here is a sample: "Trying to teach management to someone who has never managed is like trying to teach psychology to someone who has never met another human being." Here is another: " The dangerous people, especially in this hyped-up society, are . . . those whose confidence exceeds their competence. These are the people who drive everyone else crazy. MBA programmes not only attract significant numbers of such people but encourage their tendencies."
There is more of this, but Managers not MBAs goes beyond polemic. The book is also a rousing manifesto for the thoroughgoing reform of management education and how we think abou t it. (It is also published outside the US by Financial Times Prentice Hall, a sister company. Anyone who thinks this affects what I say about it should refer to my description of Who Moved My Cheese?, also published by an FT sister company, as "the world's stupidest management book".)
Prof Mintzberg has two arguments with the conventional MBA course. The first is that it attempts to teach management out of context. Management is a difficult, uncertain business. Wha t people learn, as they manage, is how little they know.
Few MBA students, Prof Mintzberg argues, enter the classroom with the humility that comes from experience. They may have worked for a while but few have been managers. The case studie s they argue about bear no relation to anything they have done.
Put this way, Prof Mintzberg's argument amounts to little more than saying education is wasted on the young. Which of us would not get more out of university now than we did at the time? Doesn't everyone have to start somewhere? How much do medical or law students know?
The difference is that medicine has an established knowledge base and law a corpus of cases, to which all practitioners refer. What makes for good management is less certain. Second, when their classroom work is done, doctors and lawyers enter the bottom of their professions, all too aware that their education has barely begun.
MBAs are urged to set their sights far higher. "All around the world, in virtually every industry, Harvard Business School alumni are 'daring mighty things'. From starting companies, to helping developing nations industrialise, to making a difference in the non-profit sector, to managing money on Wall Street, HBS graduates are shaping the global economy," says the school's website.
Indeed, the principal purpose of doing an MBA is to bypass all those drudges patiently queueing at the bottom of the corporate escalator. In Prof Mintzberg's view, much of the sicknes s of corporate America and its loss of public esteem have their origin in the MBA view of the world: calculating, analytical and convinced that management skills can be transferred from one company to another, without the need f or long immersion in any particular industry.
Few MBAs go directly into management. Most begin as consultants and investment bankers. But, Prof Mintzberg says, many then find their way into top management positions. There are suc cessful MBAs, Lou Gerstner of International Business Machines among them. But others have damaged the companies they went to. Enron was a prodigious hirer of MBAs, including Jeff Skilling, its chief executive. Executive MB As - courses for more experienced managers - are, in Prof Mintzberg's view, an improvement, but they largely fail to capitalise on the students' experiences. Executive MBAs, he says, teach the right people the wron g things.
The best management development happens when experienced managers come together to learn from each other - to discuss common concerns and visit each other's companies. Much of this in novative management education, he says, happens not in the US but in the UK. Schools such as Ashridge and Warwick pioneered the collaborative approach for experienced managers and Prof Mintzberg and his colleague s have built on it in partnership with Insead and Lancaster business school.
At this point, MBAs are entitled to snort: which has the more impressive economy - the US or Britain? Persuasive as Prof Mintzberg's argument is, this is its central flaw: the MBA deg ree is hugely successful and so is the country that invented it. In 1958, 4,041 people graduated with American MBAs. By the end of the 20th century, 100,000 a year were doing so. Those graduating from the top schools earned two to three times more than they did before. And whatever corporate America's difficulties, the US still has the most powerful, innovative economy on earth.
Prof Mintzberg argues that the peak of success is precisely the time to change. Isn't that what business schools tell companies? Perhaps. If MBAs really are that bad, companies that h ire them will suffer, demand for business school graduates will fall and people will study archaeology instead. The market may not be perfect but, if Prof Mintzberg is right about MBAs, it will eventually do its work. Berrett-Koehler $27.95
可以"致命"的MBA
工商管理硕士(MBA)毕业生都该在自己前额烙上骷髅图海盗标记，再加上他们不适合做管理的警告词。他们是商学院的产物，这些学校专把错误的东西教给错误的人。MBA学生中极少有人有任何管理经验，而你无法在教室里教他们如何管理。
这些话是亨利o明茨伯格(Henry Mintzberg)说的，他是资深管理学作家，而且长期以来一直在抨击MBA学位。他的观点经常引发MBA们歇斯底里的回应，而谁又能怪他们？他们为自己的MBA学位花费了超过12万美元，可是来了个明茨伯格教授，把他们说得一钱不值。
明茨伯格教授在蒙特利尔麦吉尔大学(McGill University)教博士生和实习经理(但不是MBA)，多年来，他一直在攻击学院，并把他们说得一无是处。如今，他在即将出版的《要经理，不要MBA》(Managers not MBAs)*一书中，把商学院摔在地上，不断踢它们。
举个例子："试图把管理学教给一个从未进行过管理的人，就好比把心理学教给一个从未接触过其他人的人。"另一个例子："危险的人就是……那些信心超出能力的人，尤其是在这个亢奋的社会里。这些人会把所有其他人都逼疯。MBA课程不仅吸引大批这样的人，而且对这种倾向予以鼓励。"
还有更多这样的例子，但《要经理，不要MBA》不光是在抨击。该书还是一份惊人的宣言，呼吁对管理学教育以及我们看待这种教育的方式进行彻底改革。(该书也由《金融时报》的姐妹公司Financial Times Prentice Hall在美国之外出版。任何人若认为这会影响我对该书的评价，都应该参考我对《谁动了我的奶酪？》(Who Moved My Cheese？)一书的描述，我称那本书是"世界上最愚蠢的管理学书籍"，该书也由FT的一家姐妹公司出版)。
明茨伯格教授对传统的MBA课程有两个论点。第一个论点是，这种课程试图脱离环境来教授管理学。管理是一件困难、不确定的事。在管理过程中，人们会认识到，所知是如此之少。
明茨伯格教授声称，在走进课堂时，很少有MBA学生带着来自经验的谦卑。他们可能已工作了一段时间，但很少有人做过经理。他们所讨论的个案研究，与他们做过的任何事情都没有关系。
这么说吧，明茨伯格教授的论点无异于宣称，年轻人受教育是一种浪费。在我们之中，有谁如果今天上大学，会不比从前在大学就读时学得多？难道不是每个人都要从某个地方开始吗？医学或法学学生又知道多少？
区别在于，医学有个已经确立的知识基础，而法学有案例大全，这些都可供所有从业者参考。而如何成就良好的管理却不太确定。第二点，当医生和律师完成他们的课堂作业时，他们就从职业的底层做起，他们非常清楚他们的教育才刚刚开始。
人们敦促MBA们将眼界抬高些。哈佛商学院的网站上有这样一段话："在全球各地，在几乎每个行业，哈佛商学院的校友都是'敢作敢为的大人物'。从开创公司，到帮助发展中国家实现工业化、改变非营利性部门的面貌，再到在华尔街进行投资管理，哈佛商学院的毕业生在不断塑造世界经济面貌。"
的确，读MBA的主要目的，就是要绕过所有那些在公司等级阶梯底层耐心排队，等候升迁的苦干者。按照明茨伯格教授的观点，美国企业的大部分弊端，以及它们之所以失去公众尊敬，都源于MBA式的世界观：精明、善于分析，并确信管理技巧能从一家公司搬用到另一家公司，而无需长期侵淫于任何特别行业。
极少有MBA直接进入管理层，多数人都从顾问和投资银行家起步。但明茨伯格教授说，很多人随后就设法获得了高级管理层职位。也有MBA取得成功，IBM的郭士纳(Lou Gerstner)就是其中之一。但其他一些MBA已对他们就职的公司造成损害。安然(Enron)是MBA们的大雇主，公司首席执行官杰夫o斯基林(Jeff Skilling)就是其中之一。在茨伯格教授看来，为较有经验的经理人提供课程的EMBA是个进步，但从很大程度上说，这些课程未能利用学生的经验。他说，EMBA是把错误的内容教给合适的人。
当经验丰富的经理们聚在一起相互学习，讨论共同关心的问题并走访各自的企业时，管理学就得到了最好的发展。明茨伯格教授说，大多数此类创新式管理教育发生在英国，而不是美国，阿什里奇管理学院(Ashridge)与华威大学(Warwick)等学校率先为有经验的经理人提供了这种协作途径。明茨伯格教授及其同事已经以此为基础，与欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)及兰开斯特商学院(Lancaster)建立了合作关系。
对此，MBA们有资格嗤之以鼻：谁的经济更强大？美国还是英国？尽管明茨伯格教授的论点很有说服力，但其论点的核心缺陷就在于此：MBA学位极其成功，发明这一学位的国家也一样。1958年，美国有4041名MBA毕业。到20世纪末，每年有10万人获得MBA学位。那些毕业于顶级院校的MBA，其收入比就读前高二至三倍。而且，无论美国企业遭遇怎样的困难，美国仍是世上最强大、最具创新能力的经济体。
明茨伯格教授声称，成功之颠就是变革之时。那不就是商学院告诉企业的话吗？可能是。如果MBA真的那么差，雇佣他们的企业就会遭殃，对商学院毕业生的需求就会降低，人们就会转而研究考古学。也许市场并非完美无缺，但如果明茨伯格教授有关MBA的观点是正确的，那市场最终会发挥自己的作用。
