Business schools tout themselves as thought-leaders, but they only appeared on the scene after the mass production industrial model had been proven. We shouldn’t expect leadership from our academic institutions, with their profitable business schools, until we have a proven new organizational model for the post-industrial era. Actually, business schools may be to blame for our current economic problems. According to renowned management professor Henry Mintzberg:
From where I sit, management education appears to be a significant part of this problem. For years, the business schools have been promoting an excessively analytical, detached style of management that has been dragging down organizations.
Every decade, American business schools have been graduating more than a million MBAs, most of whom believe that, because they sat still for a couple of years, they are ready to manage anything. In fact, they have been prepared to manage nothing.
The current economic situation is the result of an utterly failed management model. It’s obvious when you compare Japanese automakers with the “Big Three” in North America – the same materials, the same technology and the same base of workers, but DIFFERENT management. Yes, it’s management’s fault.
Mintzberg also says that, “Management is a practice, learned in context.” That means that book-learning is not enough. Thomas Malone’s The Future of Work and Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management are two good books that look at the need for new management models. They’re a start. What’s missing from both are practical models to implement and that is one of my key interests in consulting. I think that adding the framework of wirearchy and the practical examples of natural entrepreneurship would be useful. Since both of these are completely ignored by business schools, I take that as a positive indicator. However, we still need to try these models, frameworks and ideas in the context of managing real businesses. That’s the challenge.
I believe that future management models can find inspiration and clues in web-based service companies as well as small, community-based businesses. A networked society means that businesses have to be nimble and small-thinking because every individual transaction is unique. One bad experience can go viral. Lack of transparency is mistrusted. Command and control matters less and less. Look to business models that understand the importance of community.
Any new management models will have to break down long-standing silos between departments and let people connect on a more human level. We are not “human resources”. We need models that keep everything at a human scale, so biological metaphors, instead of mechanistic or military ones, may be more appropriate. This is the kind of thinking that the Internet Time Alliance is extending: tearing down the training department and instilling human performance into the organizational DNA. Learning is not something that is ‘done to you’ and management should not be an external force but instead an internal motivational driver of the organization. Once again, look at the definition of wirearchy:
a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology
This would be a good foundation for the next generation of business schools.
Almost a year ago today, I wrote a really similar piece. (April 5th). I wish more had changed since then. I didn’t know the concept of Wirearchy back then but it’s pretty much exactly what I was trying to say.
My article was called from “Human Resources to Human We-sources.” Cheesy I know, but I was trying to convey that people aren’t resources and that the world had changed. Here is an excerpt of how I positioned it with the We Are Smarter Than Me book publishers:
* “Resources” are things you consume and discard; “WE sources” are people’s knowledge, expertise, and wisdom which are renewable and improved through extension by others
* “Resources” are outside of you (them or “other”); “WE sources” are inclusive, not just of “I” and “you,” but “us” and “them” too
* “Resources” are finite and thus tied to economic models and management principles based on scarcity; “WE sources” are more abundant and thus part of an economic and management model predicated on abundance
* “Resources” are passive recipients of direction, rather than empowered motive forces within the company; “WE sources” are sources of direction, and are viewed as the principal actors in a WE company
* “Resources” are controlled and managed; “WE sources” are inspired, trusted and empowered
* “Resources” are discovered and recruited, often at great expense to the company; “WE sources” are found through connection, relationships, and conversation
* “Resources” are judged on productivity, efficiency, and cost; “WE sources” are judged on initiative, impact, inspiration, and innovation (the new social “I’s” to replace the old personal “I”)
Anyway, just thought you might like a like-minded angle on this stuff. I loved your comment that “learning is not something that is “done to you.”” Great stuff as always.
Dave
I think we have to name it before we can change it, Dave, so that’s part of my mission. I like “We sources” – a good term for subversive learning wascals ;-)
I too really like the intention and supporting ideas / examples of the notion of we-sources … way to go, Dave !
Another vote for ‘we sources’, David!
Harold, I have in the past been vocal in my criticism of business schools and still am. The days of their being arbiters of knowledge are long gone. They obviously cannot keep up with the stream of up-to-the-minute collective intelligence and quality analysis available via RSS and Twitter.
On reflection, I am not being entirely fair. Colleagues and I were instrumental in seeding action learning Master’s programmes in a UK business school. Despite some initial resistance the work-based, action learning programmes are now well established.
Although knowledge content (tools, frameworks and approaches) is important, that is not what makes this hugely practical, action learning programme effective. It is the doing, talking, reflecting, experimenting, failing, succeeding, grappling, learning together and deep cameraderie that develops among the executives that makes it effective.
These senior people then take their experience back into the workplaces, influencing how things are done in their organisations.
At least one business school is thankfully beginning to get it right. For the reasons you have outlined, I think it is probably in a minority.
Thanks, Anne Marie. Would you be able to share the name of that UK Business school that practices action learning?
Hi Harold
Yes, it is Kingson University – http://www.kingston.ac.uk. Others of the ‘new’ universities offering work-based degrees include Middlesex University http://www.middlesex.ac.uk/ and Glasgow Caledonian http://www.gcal.ac.uk/.
As is the case when innovating anywhere, it has taken some time. I helped get the work-based Master’s validated in 2001 with programmes available across all faculties, not just the business school. I left the university 5 years ago but remain working in partnership.
I have enjoyed the most interesting period of my working life over the past three years, having been involved in the work-based Master’s collaboration between Kingston Business School and the Academy of National Economy in Moscow (http://www.ises.ane.ru/en/about_us/programm/).
It is not easy and we make lots of mistakes but for me work-based action learning is the only way to go.