Business School Educ LO6172

Dr. Ivan Blanco (BLANCO@BU4090.BARRY.EDU)
Fri, 22 Mar 1996 15:39:33 -0500 (EST)

Replying to LO5929 --

> From: Martin Wood <mwood@ukmkwt.cig.eds.com>
> John commented:
>
> > What you are seeing goes back to the remarkable institution known as
> > the "business school". Here people believe in very simplistic ideas,
> > carefully stated, to preserve everything that already exists, except
> > the personnel in the company.
>
> John, this may be true for some US business schools, but please don't
> assume it universally applies to all MBAs.
>
> Here in the UK, the top schools recognise that real life is never that
> simple. And they place as much emphasis on the 'soft skills' (such as
> understanding different perspectives or communicating effectively) as the
> traditional 'hard skills'. I would hope that other European schools do the
> same, but I don't have enough personal knowledge of them.
>
> Perhaps it is a cultural thing ... I see the MBA toolbox of models and/or
> frameworks as a starting point for making a business decision, not
> something that the real world must conform to before I can turn the handle
> and crank out "the answer".

These days I have not been too involved in the discussions, but
could not let this one go by without doing anything about it!

While I think that the American MBA's toolbox is starting point, I
also think that the tools are too simplistic (sometimes very unrealistic),
and very inflexible. They are based on theories that were developed under
conditions that do not exist enymore. Most of the framework on analyses
taught in most schools of business, graduate and undergraduate, were not
developed with the dynamic world we face today in mind. Most of those
models do not take into consideration concepts and new tools such as
TQM/CQI. systems thinking, employee empowerment (liberation?), learning
organizations.... I am, or have been involved in four different MBA
programs, and the tools we emphasize make me ... sick ..., sometimes!

-- Ivan,

--

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