On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 00:32:46, Pat Gantt wrote:
>Subject: What can *we do*?
>
>Not even a flicker, debate over opinion here.
>
>> It struck me that youall seemed to equate administrivia with business.
>
>Sorta' granted but not totally.
Thank you. I don't need "totally."
>
>> I suggest that Academia is far more polluted with Administratium than is
>> business and that government is in between. The only way that B schools,
>> and especially MBA schools, can help the situation is by
>
>
>Illegal -> re-engineering <- are you a Professional Engineer?
Whether I am a PE is irrelevant because I do not intend to re-engineer B
schools. If "professors" need the help of "PE's" to figure out (to expand
on Ray Vegso's message) What should be taught, How/When/Where, by Who and
to Whom then I suggest you get their help. The point was (and will
continue to be regardless of obfuscatory maneuvers) that B schools have not
been meeting the test of "relevancy along with in-built processes to
sustain relevancy" that businesses have to meet every day in order to
survive. The fact that most businesses do not meet this test is most often
traceable to overdoses of administrivium. But let's not lose sight of the
question of whether B schools meet the test. Or, better yet, let's address
the question of whether Management Education should be left to B Schools.
>We need to cut upsurping another people's disciplines and
>do a better job of our own.
Or we need to admit that the cutting of the pie into disciplines which can
be staked out into academic empires is exactly the wrong model for how
enterprises should be architected and people taught to manage them. If
form follows function, then the ASS (Academic Senate Syndrome) method of
allocating permission to profess may well be the central problem.
>
>> Businesses are focused on the near term because their stockholders want it
>> that way and the majority of stockholders are employees, at least
>> somewhere.
>
>Oh? I'll play the where's your scholarly site, devil's
>advocate on this one ;-)
Why the notion of a scholarly site? It doesn't take a scholarly site to
ascertain who the stockholders of a company are and what percentage of them
are employed (there or elsewhere). Ask the SEC, ask the Census Bureau,
write a grant proposal and rediscover the data.
>
>>So don't blame the focus on short term profits.
>
>Sorry "they" are still part of the problem.
There is the famous old "they" that are the roots of so many problems (as
in "they" made me do it). Exactly who do you mean? Can you be more
specific? Are you saying that stockholders do not want short term profits?
If so, does "short term" mean quarterly, yearly, biennially, or what?
>
>> Instead let's focus on the inability of managers to manage,
>
>You got the nail on the head on this one.
Then we may be able to build on this congruity.
>
>> Donald Schon's book, Educating the
>> Reflective Practitioner, has several good prescriptions along this line.
>
>Great cite. I believe in reflective practice. I am
>very solution-oriented.... so let's not just reflect
>and contemplate our navels.... and stop there.
That is what the "practice" part of reflective practice is all about. And
it is quite different from "profess."
>
>What can *we* *do*?
One proposal is to encourage professors to become practioners; both
practioners in creating educational experiences and practioners in managing
-- not as the CEO of a business but rather as a line manager in a business.
One of the fundamentals is learning how to measure relevancy. How do you
measure the relevancy of the management education process you run at UTenn?
Another proposal is to recognize that much of management learning is tacit
rather than explicit, thus is done more effectively *in situ*. This goes
beyond the kind of distance learning that amounts to bringing the
"classroom" to the site. It calls instead for creating a learning room
(better yet a co-learning room) and integrating it with the work room.
Another proposal, if you must teach in classrooms, is to teach workgroups
rather than individuals. The power is in the interrelationships, not in
the individual KSA's.
A more basic proposal is: let's address the question of whether Management
Education should be left to B Schools.
But I ramble unnecessarily because, of course, those who built temples to
Descartes cannot possibly allow such heresy. Prevention of discipline
gerrymandering to suit the masses is more important that whether the masses
are being educated.
But now that people can vote with their keyboards, I believe that Drucker
had great foresight when he said that people will go to the sources of
information and learning that suit their needs and will pay handsomely,
regardless of accreditation.
What does that mean to your long term ability to pay your mortgage there in
VandyLand?
>
Jack Ring
Innovation Management
32712 N. 70th St.
Scottsdale, AZ 85262-7143 USA
602-488-4615
Fax) 602-488-4616