Managers, not MBAs - Has Mintzberg finally lost it?

Getting through the first page of chapter two, I decided not to buy the book. Mintzberg contends that in order to qualify to receive managerial education, a person should have worked as a manager...

Hello?! What company would hire you as a manager without a management degree nowadays? By Mintzberg's standard, one would never even get a chance of management studies in today's market. Talk about being out of touch with reality...

 

Henry Mintzberg has been forwarding that theory (in one form or another) at least since I was an undergraduate business student almost 15 years ago. I think the quote back then was teaching management to someone who has never worked is like teaching psychology to someone who has never met another person.

 

That I fully understand... but he must also look at the reality in today's market. Idealism doesn't work these days necessarily.

 

Actually didn't work that great 15 years ago either. I graduated in 1992 and it was almost impossible to find a job back then with a degree, without one forget about it. I remember sitting in Strategic Management talking with a guy whose plan was to get a job as a McDonald's manager, work 2 years and apply for MBA programs.

Interesting point is that I was talking to my neighbour last weekend who did his MBA full time (at McGill incidentally) and he said no way would he recommend a full time MBA, the other students didn't have the experience he did and he felt he would have benefited more from a part time program.

I agree with your point that you have to be realistic in the marketplace however. I did my degree with a management major, and I certainly would have gotten more benefit from my management courses with some real world experience. But there is no way I was going to get that experience without my degree.

Maybe I should have studied finance.

 

Many other professions require internship, practicum or a combination of work related experience.

I think this may apply to MBA as well.

So before a person can be conferred am MBA degree he needs 300 hours of approved managerial experience, this can be in a form of internship, of employment etc.

I know that in order to get Masters in Psychology in CA a person needs internship and approved hours etc.

Practicing managers may be exempt, specialy if they have years of managerial experience.

Learner

 

I have some sympathy for the Mintzberg position. How can a classroom teach something like... how to talk an employee out of a crying fit? Much of management consists of reconciling an ideal financial model to a messy and deeply flawed reality.

It's very easy to get a management job in food service or retail. They're definitely not very fun jobs, and restaurant assistant managers frequently make less than tipped people like waiters and barbacks. But if someone did that before they went to get their MBA, they would at least know whether they had it in them to be a manager, or if they preferred to switch to a different skilled job track.

 

What I get from reading Mintzenberg's ideas is that somebody with a MBA and zero experience shouldn't be in a management postion due to not really understanding the business in which they work. I agree with that part.

Where I think he is flawed is that many of the top MBA schools require an applicant to have professional experience prior to being accepted into program. Because of this, graduates from these programs already have experience to go along with their degrees.