Is it time to retrain business schools? (article)

Question

Interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15school.html?em

refurb · Answer

I'm too lazy to read the entire article, but I would fathom to guess that what people are taught in school had VERY little to do with our current financial crisis.

I'm sure the culture at the various companies played a much bigger roll.

RF

isa · Answer

Ha. The article pretty much says that b-school places too much emphasis on teaching technical skills/management and not enough on teaching leadership. Though they don't explicitly say it, the argument seems to be that because they never learned leadership in bschool, they couldn't build a culture of "good" decision-making in the workplace, which is what led to this crisis.

Rubashov1 · Answer

Strange that one of the biggest complaints is a focus on maximizing shareholder value in the curriculum. Shareholders have come out the worst so far with the screw ups of the current financial elite.

That said, the comments on this article are the best part, not necessarily for their correctness (although I do agree with many of them), but for the overwhelmingly negative consensus regarding business leaders and business schools. I'm hopeful it is something that we can each play a part in reversing.

Toubab · Answer

Most people (myself included) have a dim view of "business leaders" and MBAs in general because they're seen as money-grubbing crooks who are just looking out for their bonus packages with no regard for long-term interests at stake. (See this week's latest outrage at AIG.)

So I agree - I hope we can all try to reverse this trend. But how many of us are just paying lip service to this idea? How many folks here, for example, are willing to weigh social and environmental value on par with economic returns on the job, in your workplace? How many folks would be willing to ask shareholders, for example, to sacrifice a little profit in return for a more ethical way of doing business? Because ultimately, that's what it will take... no matter how much "re-tooling" goes on at B-schools.

cdnaudit · Answer

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/busin ... ol.html?em very interesting article.. there have been threads on similar subjects I think

zonk · Answer

Merged these threads.

AlexMBAApply · Answer

The whole focus on "leadership" is precisely what's WRONG.

"Leadership" means different things to different people -- especially in different contexts.

In business, "leadership" ends up being self-serving. In other words, as an executive I "lead" others to fulfill my own agenda.

It ends up being about self-interest, and not about serving others.

This may end up being semantics, but important semantics nonetheless. The emphasis really should be on TEAMWORK.

Why?

Teamwork implies a sense of collective responsibility. That each person isn't just after their own self-interest (self-interest is a given, but for an organization to work properly it needs more than just the sum of self-interested leaders) -- but that they are contributing to something greater than themselves.

That is the fundamental problem with business education and frankly the whole mentality in the business world that has got to change.

In most professions, self-interest is a given (we all want to put food on the table, and between more money/power and less money/power, we would prefer more money/power). However, there is a fundamental ethos that grounds every profession. In medicine, it's about healing and treating others in need - there's a sense of service. In law, there's this fundamental belief in protecting the integrity of our legal system (and that regardless of their billing rates they are ultimately serving the legal system). In education, there is an ethos of shaping young minds / inspiring young people to achieve their dreams. In the military, it's serving your country and fighting for your fellow soldiers. In many team sports, what binds a team together isn't the individual million dollar contracts, but an atmosphere in the locker room where the players are playing for each other.

In other words, while there is self-interest in just about any profession, there is also a sense of selflessness and service to others that is embedded in the ethos of those professions - fundamental assumptions that are either explicitly or implicitly conveyed.

And this is something that is fundamentally lacking in business education AND in the business world. It's basically a bunch of NIMBYs (not in my backyard) where there is ONLY self-interest and no sense of service or contributing to something that is larger than themselves. When all you have is self-interest (I only care for my own little lot), there is a complete lack of collective responsibility, and that's when things break down and when organizations like AIG create such a mess - because if every single person is only responsible for their own thing, than NO ONE is responsible for the whole thing.

It's promising that more MBA types view the importance of this -- it's part of a larger sea change in this generation of young people perhaps that makes me optimistic.

But schools have to make it far more explicit - that business CAN be more than just self-interest. There can be a sense of service.

And that starts with hammering in the concept of teamwork. The "Wiki" mentality. That no one is larger than the group. That no one's agenda or self-interest is larger than the group/organization they are serving. Start there, and moments of leadership will emerge - different individuals will rise to the occasion at different times. And more importantly, those "moments of leadership" will be grounded in the interests of the group as a whole far more than in furthering an individual's own agenda or self-interest.

In a way, this is where Harvard is absolutely wrong (and their focus on "leadership" will only make the problem of self-interested NIMBY-minded grads), and where other schools like Kellogg, Stanford, Duke and Michigan have it right (and hopefully others will follow suit with a more "team-oriented" ethos).

Business schools need to graduate people who know how to SERVE, not how to lead.

Because whether it's business/financial system, global warming, healthcare policy, education policy, or any of the big issues we face today, it takes more than having individual "leaders". It takes a collective effort.

liubhs02 · Answer

With the economic crisis, b-schools are reevaluating their curriculum to be less focused on the share-holder value, but more on long-term success. I think it's a good step towards a better management education. Do you think it will also affect admissions decision to candidate who demonstrates long-term thinking in their essays?

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15school.html?

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15school.html?

zonk · Answer

Merged and moved, since this is topical. Plus, people keep posting it to the application board.

Jerz · Answer

I agree with much of what Alex said. I also think that one of the reasons why business schools focus on quantitative skills and more mechanical business methodology type knowledge is because a classroom or formal educational program is a very poor place to learn leadership. Sure, most business schools have leadership programs, and you can learn leadership theory in a classroom, but the most effective way to learn to be a leader is to actually lead. Personally, I don't have a problem with business school teaching theory and "hard" skills, and leaving the learning of leadership to on-the-job development after graduation.

nink · Answer

Letters: The Retooling of Business School Many reader responses to NYTimes article "Is it time to retrain b-schools" https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/busin ... f=business

Is it time to retrain business schools? (article)

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