Managers, Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development

Henry Mintzberg

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004 - Business & Economics - 464 pages

In his new book, Henry Mintzberg offers a sweeping critique of how managers are educated and how management, as a result, is practiced, and makes thoughtful-and controversial-recommendations for reforming both. Management, Mintzberg writes, is a practice that blends a great deal of craft (experience) with a certain amount of art (insight) and some science (analysis). Because conventional MBA programs are designed almost exclusively for young people with little if any managerial experience, and hence little art and no craft to draw upon, the programs overemphasize science, in the form of analysis and technique. Graduates leave with a distorted impression that management consists entirely of applying formulas to situations, which has had a corrupting, dehumanizing effect not just on the practice of management, but also on our organizations and our social institutions. Turning to how managers should be developed, Mintzberg describes in detail a set of innovative programs designed to address these shortcomings that he and a group of colleagues have put into practice - the International Masters in Practicing Management (IMPM). Finally, he outlines how business schools can transform themselves to become true schools of management. Managers Not MBAs presents the kind of bold, iconoclastic thinking readers have come to expect from the man Fast Company magazine called "one of the most original minds in management."

What people are saying

Review: Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development

User Review  - Vince - Goodreads

Mintzberg spends a lot of time telling us what's wrong with the MBA and then a lot of time telling us why his IMPM is better. But, in spite of too many words and a bit too much idealism, we can ...

Review: Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development

User Review  - Pascal - Goodreads

A lot of good points are made throughout the book however you can't help to put it into perspective when you know that Mintzberg himself has put his own kind of, very expensive, MBA in production. Most of this book reads very auto promotional to me...

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• PART: 5
• Not MBAs: 6
• Wrong People: 9
• Wrong Ways: 20
• Wrong Consequences: 69
• Corruption of Managerial Practice: 81
• Corruption of Established Organizations: 120
• Corruption of Social Institutions: 142
• New MBAs?: 162
• PART TWO Developing Managers: 195
• Management Development in Practice: 197
• Developing Management Education: 238
• The IMPM Program: 276
• Five Mindsets: 292
• Learning on the Job: 313
• Impact of the Learning: 333
• Diffusing the Innovation: 359
• Developing True Schools of Management: 377
• Bibliography: 417
• Index: 437
• About the Author: 463

About the author

Henry Mintzberg, author of several seminal books, including "Mintzberg on Management" and "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, " is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University and professor of organization at INSEAD, in France.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Managers, Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development; Berrett-koehler Series
• Author: Henry Mintzberg
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004
• ISBN: 1576752755, 9781576752753
• Length: 464 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Development / Business Development; Business & Economics / Management; Business & Economics / Training