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Managers Not MBAs: Debating the Merits of Business Education

Ricardo Semler Henry Mintzberg SM '65, PhD '68: September 20, 2005; Running Time: 58:41

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Most MBAs aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, suggests Henry Mintzberg. “Management is where art and craft and science meet,” and most MBA programs are simply “training in analytical skills for analytical jobs… like investment banking and consulting.” Whatever you do, don’t confuse an MBA with a license to manage. “If people want to be managers, there’s a better route to it: get into an industry, know it, prove yourself, get promoted into a managerial position—and then, go to a program that uses managerial experience explicitly—not other people’s cases, but your own experience.” Ricardo Semler proposes that the jury is still out on whether management constitutes a science, but Mintzberg counters emphatically: “There are no natural surgeons. But there are all kinds of natural managers, people who are hugely successful and never spent a day in management class. It’s not a science or a profession. It’s a practice.” Mintzberg finds appalling the “depreciation of leadership” in the U.S. -- witness FEMA’s debacle during Hurricane Katrina and “the self-serving nature of chief executives these days.” Mintzberg recommends a “natural managerial program,” where “soft skills” and ethical approaches blend imperceptibly with analysis. “The idea you can parachute in and manage anything is absolute nonsense,” Mintzberg concludes.

Lecture Details

Location: E51-345

About the Speakers

Ricardo Semler

President, Semco S/A Author

Ricardo Semler heads up the Brazilian company, Semco, which is involved in such diverse ventures as manufacturing mixing equipment, making cooling towers, managing Latin American properties, and environmental consulting.

Semler has authored two best-sellers, Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace and The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works.

Semler is a Harvard Business School alumnus, and has been named Brazil's Business Leader of the Year two times.

Henry Mintzberg SM '65, PhD '68

Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies, McGill University

Henry Mintzberg researches and develops new approaches to management education. He works with partners around the globe on leadership and management programs.

Mintzberg received a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University, an S.M. in Management from MIT and a Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management.

Mintzberg has 140 articles to his credit and his most recent book is Managers not MBAs. He is also and Officer of the Order of Canada.

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