Talking about strategy » business schools

MBAs not learning to avoid crises

Kim Warren — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:40:17 +0000

In MBA Students Aren’t Learning to Avoid Future Crises from Net Impact, 90% surveyed blame short-term business focus for the crisis … and fewer than a quarter think their courses help them avoid future crises. Still not seen any sign of strategy approaches to help with this, as featured in my recent presentation, which offers some suggestions.

It seems today’s MBA students, if not all those they follow, are pretty smart.

Losers from the down-turn

Kim Warren — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:25:39 +0000

Whilst business schools are seeing more applications by analysts and execs being down-sized from banks and other sectors, I see from the Economist [Giving advice in adversity] consulting firms are not faring so well. I hope they were expecting this and prepared their staffing plans for it over the last couple of years, as it’s exactly what happened after the dot-com bubble. Last time round some messed up so badly they withdrew MBA job offers within weeks of making them, and I am told Harvard B School actually banned some from hiring there as a result – now there’s strategic mastery!

Anyone experienced similar this time round?

Ethics vs. competence

Kim Warren — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:25:54 +0000

I took the trouble to post a query on one of the Academy of Mgmt discussion lists, asking what colleagues felt we had failed to do to allow professionals to graduate with the basic strategic incompetence [as well as financial] to bring about the current global crisis. Replies so far seem to focus almost entirely on the issue of ethics – not at all on what those people actually learned or didn’t whilst in our tender care. Whilst the ethics issues are important and challenging, we don’t know how much this contributed to the problem vs. simple incompetence … which is both clearer and more tractable. It seems unlikely that everyone involved in bringing about this crisis knew exactly what they were doing and nevertheless pursued it dishonestly.

As educators, we can’t reasonably be held responsible for immoral behaviour by our graduates, since we clearly don’t condone it!, Society at large might, though, reasonably want to know why we didn’t make sure they got the basic professional skills needed to not mess up on this huge scale.

So .. what should they have understood, why did the education we gave them fail, and what are we going to do differently to ensure the next generation don’t perpetrate the same foolishness?

Winners from the down-turn?

Kim Warren — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:39:19 +0000

Good to know that, as in earlier tough times, applications at business schools are running at record rates [+20% on last year in one case I heard of] . Let’s hope – really hope! – they get taught some solid, professional strategic management skills while doing their MBAs, so they don’t repeat the awful errors of [...]