12 June Management Education (...a waste of time.)

[Paul Terlemezian]

Many years ago in the late 70's and early 80's I had the opportunity while at DEC to attend a two-week "residential" program for mid-level managers - each summer for 5 consecutive years. There were several variations - the one I attended was called MOSO - Management of Service Operations. The participants were District Managers (they had P&L responsibility) and managed managers.

 

The faculty were professors from Sloane School of Management (MIT), Harvard, Standford and other great schools. The courses were case-study MBA content and classes ran all day long and into the evenings and weekends. The only breaks were for sleep, late night poker games and massive quantities of comfort food.

 

Today, I still apply the content I learned back then. Part of what stuck with me was the theme echoed by many of the professors. They enjoyed teaching "real managers" much more than their MBA students. MBA students and "real managers" would come up with the "right" answers in about the same amount of time. But then the difference occurred. The MBA students would say - "next problem please." The "real managers" would say - "Determining the "right" thing to do is easy - now let's talk about actually doing it and how reality requires that we "alter" our choice. The ensuing discussions were where the real learning took place.

 

Drucker's message for today is that Management Courses for people without a few years of management experience are a waste of time.

 

More so today than ever (and it was true 30 years ago) - we learn from our peers and the instructor learns as well. How else would they know how "theory works in the real world?"

 

One of the major benefits of classroom learning was the peer learning that occurred during class, in breaks and at mealtime. Social learning has helped bring back this element which was diminished  by traditional elearning.