SIVA SIVANI INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT SECUNDERABAD

A SYNOPSIS ON MANAGERS NOT MBAs BY HENRY MINTZBERG

SUBMITTED BY:Krishna Chaitanya (19004) Rajeev Kumar (19028) Sahauddin sha (19042)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR About the Author:- Henr y Mintzberg is Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal ,Canada. He was named Distinguished Scholar for the year 2000 by the Academy of Management, and won its George R.Terry Award for the best book of 1995 (The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning). Mintzberg is the author of twelve previous books including The Nature of Managerial Work, Mintzberg on Management, Strategy safari, and Why I hate Flying.

ABOUT THE BOOK Managers Not MBAs offers thoughtful developers, educators, managers, and interested observers, including MBA applicants, students, and graduates, authors serious critique of the MBA process and its distortion of managerial practice. Moving from the critical to the constructive. He believes that both management and management education are deeply troubled, but that neither can be changed without changing the other. He asserts that conventional MBA classrooms overemphasize the science of management while ignoring its art and denigrating its craft, leaving a distorted impression of its practice. We need to get back to a more engaging style of management, to build stronger organizations. This calls for another approach to management education, whereby practicing managers learn from their own experience. We need to build the art and the craft back into management education, and into management itself. Author examines what is wrong with our current system. Conventional MBA programs are mostly for young people with little or no experience. These are the wrong people. Programs to train them emphasize analysis and technique. These are the wrong ways. They leave graduates with the false impression that they have been trained as managers, which has had a corrupting effect on the practice of management as well as on our organizations and societies. These are the wrong consequences.

He describes a very different approach to management education, which encourages practicing mangers to learn from their own experience. 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.

CONTENTS Introduction Part-1: NOT MBAs 1. Wrong People 2. Wrong Ways 3. Wrong Consequences

Part-2: Developing Managers 1. Management Development in Practice 2. Developing Management Education 3. Developing Managers

Conclusion

Introduction This is a book written for two key audiences, those who provide education for managers and those responsible for the development of managers. Mintzberg argues that the effective practice of management is part art (innovative use of the imagination), part craft (hands-on deep understanding of the particularities of a business) and part analysis and synthesis (bringing together an understanding of the business and of its context and the implications of alternatives). Management education, as expressed in the typical MBA, has elevated the last. This book is broadly divided into two parts in which the first part deals with the problem faced by todays MBA in the work field and the second part deals with how to overcome these problems in an unconventional manner.

Part one: - Not MBAs Chapter One: - Wrong People There are no natural surgeons, no natural accountants these are specialized job that require formal training, in the same way the management Put differently, trying to teach management to someone who has never managed is like trying to teach psychology to someone who has never meet another human beings. Managing them is a difficult, requiring all sorts of tacit understanding that can only be gained in context. Trying to teach it to people, who have never practiced is worse than a waste of time-it demeans management. There are two ways of teaching wrong people:1. Teaching management to someone without experience. Where management is science or profession .We could teach to people without experience it is neither. Management is regarded as a science, art and the craft.

Hence a person without experience lacks the art of the managing and hence craft as well. 2. Teaching management to an experience person in the same class room with inexperienced one is like pulling them back. As long as the discussion is confined to theory, the person without experience is as like others, but as soon as discussion turns to application the student would be lost. There should be a will to manage and the zest for business, rather than only taking up the courses. Chapter Two: - Wrong Ways There is no right way to develop wrong people. The MBA programs not only fail to develop managers but give their student a false impression of managing that, when put into practice is undermining our organization and our societies. In this chapter the focus is on wrong or inappropriate ways of functioning of MBA institution. MBA programs are full of theory and lacks real practical exposure. For the sake of change and in an attempt to give students better practical exposure, they came up with case studies, but these cases also failed to produce desired outcome. These cases are just complimenting theory, and very often written by institutes own faculty rather than by experts from the industries (business experts). Hence they loose quality and proved inappropriate method to develop real manager. In simulation games, institutes try to give real exposure to student of different situation, but they are predefined and fixed and the real time situation is quite different.

Chapter Three: - Wrong Consequences I:-Corruption of the Educational Process MBA programs can train some of the right people in some of the right ways. But because these programs are rarely wised, they create all kind of negative consequences. These extend beyond the graduates who become managers into the organization they manage and out to a world shaped by these organizations. Mostly of the first year of the program it is this on course content but thick on student attitude. Most of student packing about exam and stomping out of course they do not like. And the last of the year irrespective of all right and wrong attitude and all mistakes, most of them receive a P (or pass) and the year is over.

Almost same happens in second year. But what about the exposure to the real world of managing. Most of the business schools, lack this thing and hence and results are not that much productive as it should be. The way the management education is going, not providing real competence to the budding managers and this lack of competence lead them to arrogance Confidence Competence = arrogance Due to its attractive nature MBA program also attracts some person with wrong attitude to word business as a result the business suffers.

Wrong consequences II: - Corruption of Managerial Practices With so many people receiving the MBA these days and so many of them making it to senior position the influence of the degree on the practice of managing has become enormous. Majority of the management institution produces mercenaries instead of managers. By meaning mercenary refers to the people who work merely for money. This has become a common trend that MBAs want more money for fewer days of work. As the same time they also lack commitment and loyality to their employers. By several researches it has been proved that more than 76% of the MBAs dont want to stay with one employer for more than 2 years. And situation is worsening with the emergence of more number of management institutions. Companies see the MBA schools as the bottling plants. According to them, the product is about 90% done before we ever get it. We put it in a bottle and we level it. Consulting and banking has been the more preferred sectors for MBAs. Apart from these sections they prefer FMCG sector, due to its high and rapid demand. But unfortunately, like the products of FMCG sector, managers themselves have also been transformed into Fast moving managers. The speed of there movement is even greater than the technology itself. What is bad in these practices is instead of proving themselves in one place, they move from business to business and from industry to industry, not

staying around for consequences. This is like the education they received; they keep solving new problems without having to face the consequences of implementing the previous ones. Wrong consequences III: Corruption of Established Organizations Growth of any economy depends on two factors, Exploration, and Exploitation. Any country first has to explore or search the resources available in the country and then they have to utilize or exploit these resources in an effective way to achieve a greater pace of development. The same is true for any organization. But due to faulty practices of the management institutes and continuous production of incapable mangers, there is less exploration and more exploitation. A disbalance in these two results in an ugly corporate face and an unhealthy society. Quality of managers should not be judged merely on the basis of their salary or what they do with their respective organizations. But the criterion for that should be what value they are giving to the society and what their organizations are contributing towards GDP of the nation. The author is also not happy with the Entrepreneurial Potential of the upcoming mangers. According to him they are just serving for the already established organizations and are not ready or capable enough to bear the risk of entrepreneurship. In a survey of 100 entrepreneurs in America, only 3 of them were MBAs, and 2 of them were from same organization. Part II Developing Managers Management Development in Practice Management development can be achieved through a proper mix of the following three, namely: a push of management education, management training and the pull of management development. The management education provides with theoretical and conceptual knowhow of the management world. This education provides a foundation for an inexperienced student and complimenting the practical knowledge of working or experienced students.

Management training offered by independent trainers, consultants and various institutions to overcome the problems of the real working climate. Management development is provided by the organizations on whatever they find appropriate to further the development of their managers, increasingly in search of real customization. Author compares the todays corporate world with the river, where in order to survive one has to swim, otherwise he would sink. And only swimming is not enough, pace is also an important determinant. Developing Management Education The author has suggested management education: following propositions for developing

1. It should be restricted to practicing managers. 2. The classroom should leverage the managers experience in their education. 3. Sharing their competencies. 4. Flexible curriculum and the faculty. Apart from all these recommendations management institutions are now adopting the recent advances in technology to provide the students with better access to the latest informations and corporate exposure. The institutes are also being global by having international ventures, international students and international faculty. Developing Managers I. Five Mindsets To develop a full fledge potent managers; first step is to taming their mindsets in the right direction. The author has suggested working on following mindsets to develop effective managers: 1. Managing Self: The reflective Mindset

2. 3. 4. 5.

Managing Organization: The Analytical Mindset Managing Context: The Worldly Mindset Managing Relationships: The Collaborative Mindset Managing Change: The Action Mindset

II. Learning on the Job According to author this is the real learning for the managers, because any theory, case, project and simulation game and model can not give the real picture of the real world of management. On the job training (OJT), is not a new concept in the business world. Many organizations facilitate training to their staff in order to improve and develop their efficiency. On the job learning depends partly on the way of instructing and mostly on the attitude of the employee/staff. Hence in order to become the true manager, one has to open ones mind in all aspects.

III. Impact of Learning Development is the outcome of the learning. To develop better managers we need to develop our organizations as well. First we have to identify what impact we want to produce, depending on that we have to develop the methods to produce the desired impact. Learning reflects by the changed behaviour and personality of the learner. If we are able to transform learners into actors or the potent managers, then the purpose of training is justified. Conclusion The book criticizes the conventional practices of management institution author prefers experience over just theoretical feeding for the managers. At the same time he wants to develop the soft skills of the students with the

conceptual foundation of the management. At the same time he is also constructive. He suggests various methods to develop the management education to produce potent managers. Author suggests that we need to built true schools of management, so as to train the students in a right way. First we have to tame the mind set of the budding managers to nurture them in the right direction.