Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development [Hardcover]

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. More than ever CRITICAL THINKING is or at least should by a vital part of managing and a necessary prerequisite to successful action. Managers must ANALYZE ideas, procedures, technology, and sometimes plans!-- yes high level plans Although massive strategic planning is limited (see, for example, Mintzberg's "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning"), some high level analysis may be vital to dissolve ill-conceived problems.

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. 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.e. UNDERSTANDING ILL-POSED PROBLEMS) to synthesis (allowing the possible to become the actual with much IMPROVEMENT and BENEFIT to the organization, its stakeholders and the customers). 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.

Does that mean management education is simply impossible? No. 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. 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. He writes with considerable passion, surprising wit, and his usual exceptional clarity. Highly recommended to anyone who cares about contemporary management.