Managers not MBAs : a hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development

In this sweeping critique of how managers are educated and how, as a consequence, management is practiced, Henry Mintzberg offers thoughtful and controversial ideas for reforming both.';The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences,' Mintzberg writes. ';Using the classroom to help develop people already practicing management is a fine idea, but pretending to create managers out of people who have never managed is a sham.'Leaders cannot be created in a classroom. They arise in context. But people who already practice management can significantly improve their effectiveness given the opportunity to learn thoughtfully from their own experience. Mintzberg calls for a more engaging approach to managing and a more reflective approach to management education. He also outlines how business schools can become true schools of management.