Le Blog’Ich

For the second time around, I have to defer to someone else’s words, which is painful as it is somehow going against the very premise of this blog… But I should also know that when faced with greatness I should shut up, and boy is the latest piece by Henry Mintzberg on the failures of Management great.

While is there is no real breakthrough idea in this article (cf the one published a few weeks ago on this very website here as well as those on downsizing here and productivity here), it is just very well written and goes straight to the point, concisely and efficiently.

My favorite piece (quote):

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. (…) Management is a practice, learned in context. No manager, let alone leader, has ever been created in a classroom. Programs that claim to do so promote hubris instead. And that has been carried from the business schools into corporate America on a massive scale.

I agree 100%. And I should know, I sat in those classes myself and have been thinking along those lines for quite a while. Leadership is about you as an individual, your values and the type of person you aim at becoming (if you want people to follow you), rather that about concepts and formulas that one can learn from a book.

But Mintzberg obviously can write that much better than I. Full article is here. “Enjoy” (in some twisted masochistic fashion !

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: business, Business School Failure, Capitalism 2.0, Downsizing, HENRY MINTZBERG, leadership, Leadership 2.0, LinkedIn, Management Failure, MBA 2.0