Managers not MBAs, Diverse roles, complex tasks, people-focused, decision-makerspptx

Mintzberg's view on managers and management.

1. Managers not MBAs - Mintzberg Shoaib Ul Haq Jan 2023 1

2. What is management? It is not a science (systematic knowledge through research) It is not a profession Can you imagine a ‘guest manager’? It is a practice. The task of becoming aware, attending to, sorting out, and prioritizing an inherently messy, fluxing and chaotic world of competing demands that are placed on a manager’s attention. How to create order out of chaos? 2

3. Three poles of management 3

4. 4

5. What best describes your management style? 5

6. Main argument The way business schools conceptualize ‘management’ and ‘management education’ is deeply troubled. MBA overemphasizes the science of management while ignoring its art and belittle its craft (learning by doing). Silo-type disciplinary mentality (Finance; marketing; operations) More engaging style of management, to build stronger organizations, not bloated share prices. Build the art and craft back into management education. Practicing managers need to learn from their own experience. 6

7. Wrong people “It’s never too late to learn, but sometimes too early” (Brown) “I was stuck in my career so I decided to do an MBA” Trying to teach management to someone who has never managed is trying to teach psychology to someone who has never met another human being. Conventional MBA programs are mostly for young people with little or no experience. Young, inexperienced, out of workforce Selected by test scores and GPA instead of emotional intelligence; will to manage These are the wrong people. 7

8. Wrong people People are motivated to earn high salaries and to attain high status instead of managing. Business schools can, sometimes, produce the zest for business ( get the most out of resources ) in students. However, zest for business is not the same as the will to manage ( tapping the energy of people ). 8

9. Will to manage vs. the zest for business? 9 Leaders of multinationals Investment bankers, financial analysts, consultants Do not become a leader Public & social sector organizations

10. Right people Practicing managers who have already experienced a confusing variety of managerial problems. Only in relation to their own stock of experience can the practice of management be assessed, evaluated and learnt from. 10

11. Organizations are complex phenomena 11

12. Concept of the business school 12

13. Wrong ways Programs to train MBAs emphasize analysis and technique. MBA = Management by Analysis Reducing management to decision making and decision making to analysis People are now human resources; crazy for optimization Graduates leave with the false hope of being trained as managers. Negative effects on managerial practice. Synthesis not just analysis No one can create a manager in a classroom. But existing managers can significantly improve their practice in a thoughtful classroom that makes use of that experience. 13

14. Wrong ways B schools: Neat business specialisms Reality: management is an integrative practice Myth 1: Management is universal instead of particular Myth 2: Management is objective and neutral Myth 3: Precision, finality and completeness is better Myth 4: Management is strategy Theories and frameworks are supposed to represent reality but they take on a reality of their own We eat the menu instead of the dish 14

15. Wrong ways “In the garden of Eden, Adam saw the animals before he named them; in the traditional education system, children named the animals before they saw them” (Whitehead) MBA students are taught concepts and theories before they have ever encountered live managerial situations. Misled into believing that they know about management. 15

16. Wrong ways Not enough integration across subjects Too much emphasis on analysis of a certain kind Too little emphasis on soft skills Too passive a role for students Students: ‘vessels to be filled’ by instructors who are too directive No real innovation in pedagogy and not much differentiation in approach 16

17. Pedagogy Simulations and games: make decisions about prices and production on a quarterly basis to compete for profit and market share. Case studies are only useful for well-defined problem solving Keep the boys talking Formulation and implementation are not separate; in reality, they go hand in hand What is the most urgent problem facing practising managers? How to frame and define the problem? 17

18. Knowledge Knowledge is important but even more important is a heightened sensitivity to local situations. Management achieves outcomes through people People have desires, aspirations, anxieties, preferences and fears that are not always expressed Patience and keen observation needed A headful of knowledge might often get in the way of understanding human inclinations 18

19. Education “that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding” (Pierce) Lack of ethics in business school teaching; Unrestrained promotion of self-interested short- termist calculation Self-destructive consequences (Enron, Arthur Anderson, WorldCom) Manipulation of accounting numbers and jacking up stock prices is NOT leadership. A rumor can do the same Business education is an industry which sells credentials and teaches a certain language Students are ‘customers’, are given choices, are assured high starting salaries Forgot their purpose; learning and scholarship Forgot their responsibility – promote a more balanced understanding of the roles and responsibilities of management in society 19

20. Education “higher education is a vision, not a calculation. It is a commitment, not a choice. Students are not customers, they are acolytes. Teaching is not a job, it is a sacrament. Research is not an investment, it is a testament” (James March) We train MBAs to measure everything, develop procedures for everything, and control everything. This results in bureaucracies. Hierarchical chain of command; impersonal rules Division of labor and specialization; clear lines of authority Merit based decision making 20

21. 21 Bureaucracy = A system of administration in which power/work is divided among different departments and officials.

22. MBA mindset Arrogant students Think they know more than they actually do Think their high GPA implies managerial success Shareholder wealth maximization at all costs Glorification of self-interest and greed Erosion of social/ethical values Corruption of managerial practice Students mostly choosing consulting, investment banking careers where they don’t have to actually manage Students unable to exercise judgment Trapped by quantification and analysis-paralysis 22

23. IMPM: Int Masters’ Program for Managers (Mintzberg) Run by a consortium of 5 different universities Take practicing managers; Create a reflective space Re-examine and re-evaluate practical experience In-depth understanding of real dilemmas and predicaments of management practice Integrating education with work Endure the open-endedness and ambiguity of an unfolding managerial situation With willpower, giving up is not an option 23

24. Critique of Mintzberg What is your critique of Mintzberg’s ideas? Power and role of business organizations in a market capitalist political economy Wider sociological implications of the MBA degree Exaggerated importance of experience 24