7 steps to an MBA that matters: 4) the teaching MBA

(Clara Lovett’s commentary fired a round over the B-school trenches. It made me think that we need an MBA attuned to “the rise of the rest”. Seven steps followed – here’s a discussion of the fourth.)

4) Set up the teaching MBA that will equip practitioners actually to teach others, rather than create personal or corporate wealth

The theory we’re trying to construct here seeks to release the wealth creation capacity of the rest of the world and presumes that there may be some common ground of management and business knowledge that can be adaptable across most cultures, both locally and globally. At the same time there will be some management knowledge that is essential locally but not transferable globally. We just need some simple vehicle(s) to pass it around!

One idea might be to unleash experienced managers to be MBA replicators in places where “the rest” dwell. Thus the idea of the teaching MBA…

There’s always a scramble on for good faculty in MBA programs. Having led/taught/contributed in places ranging in accreditation from AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA to nada, I have noticed a few things…

• PhDs don’t necessarily teach well
• “Lead-butt scholars” don’t necessarily teach well
• Knowledge is bigger than peer-reviewed journal articles (see “Is peer review dying”) What will the new knowledges look like?
• In general, the more experienced the teacher/manager, the more students learn (even PhDs can do this if they have great consulting portfolios)
• Stories are central to learning management (some folks call these “case studies” but we know what they really are)
• Generally we learn best by teaching others
• Relationships are important

So to introduce a radical thought – let’s design an MBA that turns experienced managers into global teachers. While we’re at it, we could target managers who are retiring and who would be open to developing a second career paying back the mortgage on their MBAs, (once they get them).

The question of the moment is though the concept may work, what would that MBA look like? To explore that we first must sketch out a theory of functional management. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it (WikiWikiWeb) as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.

Let’s start by proposing that functional management is the simplest, locally-contextualized management solution that could possibly work. More on this to follow…

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Previous posts in this series:

1. Re-orient your worldview
2. Live with “the rest” for a while
3. Don’t assume that a U.S. model is right, good or appropriate anywhere else
4. Set up the teaching MBA that will equip practitioners actually to teach others, rather than create personal or corporate wealth
5. Figure out functional management and apply it locally – this means that local business and management paradigms might create infinitely-customizable MBAs
6. Trash current ideas about accreditation and start over
7. Fear not new models