OPPapers.com

Book Review - Manager's Not Mbas A Hard Look At The Sodt Practice Of Management By Henry Mintzberg

Organization Behavior – I
Assignment – Book Review
(Managers not MBAs, A hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development– Henry Mintzberg)

Mayank Sinha
Roll No 88
Section B
PGDM 2009-11

Exposition of a critique

The leitmotif of the book is that the practice of management can only be learned by the action-reflection model. Management is the practice of getting the right things done, individually and collectively, and learning happens not just by doing but by being able to gain conceptual understanding while doing it. Management competence, as a practice rather than a profession, cannot be taught in the abstract, but is best learned in context through a combination of action and reflection. In management, a so called “layperson” with relevant skills and experience can outperform a so called “expert” trained in a sought after MBA program. Mintzberg describes management as a “practice that has to blend a good deal of craft (experience), with a certain amount of art (insight) and some science (analysis)”. However, the majority of MBA programs focus on the scientific approach, which results in what Mintzberg calls the calculating style of management.

Part 1

The first part of the book titled “Not MBAs” is a critique of the way management education is imparted by conventional MBA programs across the world.
The current business education paradigm emphasizes learning in the form of decision making by systematic analysis, in the context of business functions.
True decision making involves identification of the issue, diagnosing the problem, ascertaining possible solutions and evaluating them to select the best one. Determination of the problem that needs to be solved is a more important requirement of decision making, and it cannot be done through systematic analysis.

It is a given that managers need to have a grasp of business functions. However the knowledge of business functions is...