Home > Can Management be Taught?

Can Management be Taught?

"The assumption that we can take people who have never managed, bring them into a classroom and teach them management is utterly wrong."

- Henry Mintzberg

Shubhang Shankar of IIM A and Varun Rao of IIM B debate this issue

The question of whether management education should be limited to candidates with prior experience in a work place cannot be answered without first answering the more fundamental question, what is the objective (or in MBA-speak, deliverable) of management education? At first glance, it seems irrational to restrict any particular field of education on the basis of something as unconnected from academic merit as age. The proponents of having students without work-ex in management schools argue on a number of planks, the prime one being the freshness of high quality talent just out of premier undergraduate schools, a claim which rests on the premise that being scholastically inclined inherently makes one a good manager.

The latter view is particularly in vogue in Indian management education, especially when one considers the top rung schools like the IIMs, which pride themselves on selecting the best and brightest from the country's best undergraduate institutions like the IITs through a rigorous entrance process and subjects them to an exhaustive programme that teaches concepts in economics, business mathematics, organisation theory and even communication, convinced that after two years, they have produced thought leaders who are ready to contribute significantly to the firms they join and society as a whole.

This approach is in keeping with the traditional Indian view of education, and in particular science, as instructive rather than exploratory. However, management cannot be reduced to a science, resting on a few universally valid axioms, but is instead an art of making tradeoffs between often conflicting demands. It would perhaps be more accurate to describe management as decision theory. Still, no matter how useful mathematical modeling may be to giving structure to thoughts, in the real world, managers have to take critical calls based on incomplete information on many variables and after viewing the results from different stakeholder perspectives. The role of judgment becomes critical to operating successfully under such demanding conditions. However, such understanding comes only through experience, there is no almanac that can anticipate and prescribe solutions for all possible problems that can arise in business. Only someone who has actually spent time in real world work environments can understand what works and what only looks elegant on paper, what can be implemented under the pressure of looming deadlines and what would require a drastic change in the organisation.

However, the one aspect that managerial education stresses least upon and which is actually likely to have the greatest significance in any manager's career is inter-personal and group effectiveness. It is well documented that the best managers are those who can inspire others to achieve shared objectives and rally all members of a team to optimise the group's achievements. Most managerial frustrations can be traced to the inadequacy of theoretical concepts in coming up with solutions that can convince skeptical superiors and subordinates. Experienced candidates are far more likely to know the problems likely to emerge in trying to implement solutions that require substantial inter-departmental cooperation and can adapt their thought processes appropriately to consider not just their personal views on an issue but also incorporate the viewpoints of others. A good manager is thus a manager of emotions, not just people. This, again, is not a skill that can be taught in a classroom, even allowing for the group project work that takes place in B-Schools, but can be picked up only after actually being in a workplace.

In conclusion, one can say that the primary objective of management education is to augment decision making, by serving as an aide to analytical skills picked up during prior formal schooling. Viewed in this paradigm, it becomes clear that management education would be most effective as a two-year apprenticeship, allowing managers who are aware of real world compulsions to fine-tune their judgment and thought processes by arming them with analytical tools, not the other way round of equipping them with sophisticated tools and then sending them out to the workplace to make sense of their limitations in the real world, a sure shot way of fuelling managerial frustration. In numerous surveys, alumni of Business Schools say that precious little of what they were taught in class was of any use to them. In the light of the above arguments, it hardly comes as a surprise that the tools that are taught are of limited validity in the real world. It's high time we made MBA education relevant to the needs of contemporary managers. And the first step towards identifying the true needs of mangers would be to enroll working managers in our MBA programmes.

On March 6th, 1429, a 'poor shepherd girl' presented her services to King Charles VII of France, offering to lead an army to drive out his enemies, the English, and reclaim the lands they held. Despite the objections of experienced generals, the King appointed her to command an army. In less than a year, Joan of Arc had reclaimed Orleans, the Loire valley, Rheims, and seen her king crowned in the hall of the Kings of France. So effective was her leadership that when she was captured by enemy troops, they were "overjoyed", more so than if they had taken 500 combatants, for they had never feared or dreaded any other commander... as much as they had always feared this maiden up until that day.

Not bad for someone who had never been a general.
Few generals are effective simply because they learnt their trade from a book. The effectiveness of a commander consists of two elements - technical skills, the tactics of war and the ability to employ them in one's service; and leadership. Management also consists of two elements - the technical skills, or toolboxes; and the element of leadership. Toolboxes, most people agree, can be taught in classrooms. The question is: can leadership?

Joan of Arc wasn't an effective general because she knew war. She was an effective general because she could inspire. Her soldiers followed her because they thought she was a 'saint'. She required them to attend church regularly, and to give up swearing, looting and harassing the civilian population. They became more disciplined and more confident of their own self-worth, as well as that of their cause. At the end, she had an army of holy warriors - dedicated, effective, and sharing her vision to see Charles VII undisputed king of a France free from the English invaders.
In effect, she created a vision and communicated it to her people.
That is what leadership is about.
Can creating a vision be taught in a classroom? No. It has to come from a person's own beliefs. But can we learn about the need for vision in a classroom? Yes! People have ideas and beliefs. What management training can do is teach you how to transform those ideas, those beliefs, into something that people can take as a source of inspiration. That isn't as difficult as it sounds. Every seminary student training to be a priest is taught how to communicate a vision - the vision of Jesus Christ - to people.

As people, we have the capacity to be inspired. We have the capacity to share vision. In fact, many of us go through life looking for inspiration, for a vision to be part of. After all, what is Maslow's 'self-actualization' need really about?

Management training tries to equip people with a toolbox of techniques to use for various management situations. It also tries to find what in them can make them effective leaders. Part of this process is showing them the power of vision; another part is to help them learn how to envision and how to communicate their vision to others. Part of it is also to show people how to do consciously what they have always done subconsciously - inspire. It is not always effective, just as not every priest is able to convince people to convert. But it can be; and that is why we need the classrooms.