My comments yesterday about MBA courses not being strong on the soft skills started a train of thought in my mind overnight. I tried to identify who, of the people I know who have an MBA, is good at people skills - and the answer is a very small proportion.
In fact there is one person I know who after his MBA went on to do a PhD in Industrial Psychology. His thesis was about how the organisation deals with people, and he very firmly came to the conclusion that the answer was not very well, but that this has to change as the economy starts to have to deal seriously with knowledge workers.
But he himself says that he does not naturally deal with people well, but that he has had to force himself to exhibit the appearance of understanding but that he does not necessarily feel the right things. I suggested to him that this was, at least, as start. But I'm not quite sure.....
I've been noticing on several reports about MBA courses that although they get good reports for analytical skills and for developing skills in synthesis, they get not so good reports about the "soft", people skills.
Many managers come from a background of engineering, IT and finance - all analytical areas. Relatively few come from HR and sales, the traditional soft areas. So there is a real need to add soft skills to people who already have the analytical skills.
However, MBAs tend to be designed and delivered by people in the hard areas, so they have a vested interest in keeping themselves in jobs, and are not so keen to do much other than put in some window dressing.
In a world where the average CEO spends around 95% of their time talking to people, we are going to have to start addressing exactly this point. I wonder if the pressure from industry is going to get strong enough to make a difference?
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