 Larry Blumsack Founder, President "Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation." Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Arts-based training for business growth Zoka Training® focuses on individuals, work groups or specific business or product challenges through a hands-on, highly interactive and experiential based program through * Training * Coaching * Consulting * Facilitating * Workshops * Keynote Speaker About Zoka Institute For critical thinkers, creative problem solvers and collaborators Zoka Training teaches individuals a skill set that can influence any organization's bottom line - the fine art of developing creative solutions through collaborative, upside/down thinking. By focusing on exploring ideas rather than identifying problems, Zoka Training unlocks hidden creative potential by showing individuals how to think outside their preferred styles and focus their creative energy – thus turning knowledge workers into inspired thinkers and solutions-driven contributors. Volume 3 Issue 7 May/09 |
Hi %%First Name%%, What is an MBA worth today? The answer lies in the June, 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Joel Podolny, the former dean of the Yale School of Management, former business professor at Harvard and Stanford and now the dean and vice president of Apple's Apple University nailed it in his article on trust – "The Buck Stops (and Starts) at Business School." He goes on to state "Unless America's business schools make radical changes, society will become convinced that MBAs work to serve only their own selfish interests." An MBA is not worth much today according to articles and letters to the editors in a number of publications that include the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, etc., etc. The integrity of the MBA has been devalued in light of the mismanagement and bad management of this country's financial institutions the ilke of Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehman, manufacturing giants like GM and Chrysler, and fraudulent failures like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. So what is behind all this backlash as business schools across the U.S. are feverishly reevaluating their MBA programs? Like many others Dean Podolny is angry about; "The inattention to ethics and values-based leadership in business schools The disciplinary silos in which business schools teach management That many academics aren't curious about what really goes on inside companies. They prefer to develop theoretical models that obscure rather than clarify the way organizations work. Many also believe that a theory’s relevance is enough to justify teaching it." I (Larry) always ask business school guru/professors if they ever ran a business or managed a large group of employees. Rarely, is the typical answer. Podolny asks, "How did we get into a situation in which MBA's are part of the problem rather than the solution?" He goes on to write "The degree of contrition at business schools seems small compared with the magnitude of the offense." He recommends the following of what must business schools do to regain trust; FOSTER GREAT INTEGRATION – Courses must reflect a mix of academic disciplines and link analytics to values. APPOINT TEACHING TEAMS – Faculty from both "hard" and "soft" disciplines must discuss material in the same classroom. ENCOURAGE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH – B schools need to cultivate a more eclectic approach to research. STOP COMPETING ON RANKINGS – Schools should stop pandering to rankings. They need to communicate that money is not the only reason to get an MBA. WITHDRAW DEGREES FOR VIOLATING CODES OF CONDUCT – To be a true professional, schools must not just establish but also enforce a code of conduct, as doctors and lawyers do. Podolny ends his article "… in a world where MBAs have been directly or indirectly responsible for destroying so much value, business schools can't point to isolated examples of leadership and scholarship as justifications for their existence." For more information contact me at lblumsack@zokainstitute.com. Click here to go to the website. Regards, Larry 617-489-1933 |
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