Online MBA Forum

It seems to me that this conversation about MBAS and professional management is absolutely crucial to the evolution of what we call the knowledge economy. If you are going to employ good specialists who are competent in their own areas you should not be thnking about management in terms of control - after all, the knowledge resides in the specialist.

What you need to think about is the relationships that have to work in order for each specialist to do the things that need to be done to make the organization function according to the strategy worked out by senior management.

This puts a whole different complex on management, no longer are we thinking in terms of management and workers, but how best to co-ordinate the differing functions of the structure. This is really radical thinking if we consider that relationships involve feelings and personalities - something that tends to be discounted by old style management.

Maybe we could see MBA programs including psychology and sociology, and even personal development.

I wonder what business culture would be like if the MBA had not been invented? Even twenty years ago, the MBA was beginning to have a real impact on the way that businesses and other large organizations were managed. Today, using MBA graduates has become so essential that large corporations have their own MBA programs, or organize MBAs under their own banner.

Before this multi-subject education, most managers came from either a financial or an engineering background - the two major areas in product oriented organizations in the pre-marketing days. This meant that what we refered to as management was largely about administration and control.

Modern management is much more about planning and enabling, allowing people to know their role in the organization and then giving them the resources and the space to get on with it - well this is the ideal anyway. MBA education gives graduates the tools to do this job, and the understanding to be able to implement it in the organization they are working in.

I have a colleague who teaches on a multi-cultural MBA. His classes are mostly made up of Chinese, Thai and Middle-Eastern students, although all classes are in English and the same program is offered to all domestic students here in New Zealand.

We were talking about all the problems that accrue from this mix of cultures, and how it affects his delivery of his part of the program. He tells me his biggest problem is discussion - most of the Asian students find it difficult to express their personal opinions in public, and are rather inclined to repeat his teaching back to him. The Middle Eastern students are quite good in discussion, but they find it difficult to do group work with the necessary organisation and personal disciple - they all want to have control of all parts of the project.

However, by the end of the MBA program he tells me that it is much harder to tell the students apart through their behavioral patterns. He says that co-operation has become simply the norm for most people, and discussion groups are lively, vigorous and opinionated.

My last entry about working with people who have MBAs started me thinking about how you deal with situations where either you feel that your manager is not as capable of doing his job as you are (aorund 95% of us) or where you want to progress and there is no obvious way ahead.

These situations are difficult for all of us, but having put in the investment of time effort and money into a professional development program such as an MBA must exacerbate these feelings even more. I suppose the only way you can really deal with them is by considering the experiencial learning that you are gaining. Ultimately of course you have the right to leave your job and find another one at the level that you believe you can function at, but this can be easier said than done.

Managing careers is usually a matter of compromise, and gaining an MBA, although it might make the odds somewhat more in your favor, doesn't take this necessity away.