Why The MBA Is Relatively Useless

I realize that I am about to review a book that is a few years old, and one that has come under a lot of criticism by others in what I call the “academic business profession” and in business circles. The reason for this is likely because Henry Mintzberg – the books author – says that a paradigm shift is needed in the way we educate managers. Paradigm shifts, weather in science, philosophy, or communication are always controversial and always attacked, because they challenge the status quo and entrenched interests. Since there has been so little change in the way MBAs are taught over the decades, it is no surprise that some people suggest Mintzberg lost his marbles.

Mintzberg’s basic problem with management education is that it is completely separate from the actual running of a business. Students are generally given a case study to analyze and come up with a solution to the case study’s company’s problem. What should an organization do with a factory that is no longer productive? What should a company do with a particular asset class?  How does a company deal with shrinking profit margins? What does a manager do with such and such employee? These case studies are about 25 pages long – and from the reading the student is supposed to come up with some solution and make a decision. That’s it. That’s what most management professors think management is – and hence what most MBA students think being a manager is.

"The trouble with “management” education is that it is business education, and leaves a distorted impression of management. Management is a practice that has to blend a good deal of craft (experience) with a certain amount of art (insight) and some science (analysis)" (p. 1)

Of course the problem is that this way of teaching management is sterile and void of any actual context. Organizations are – depending on how you want to look at them – intricate systems wherein sensemaking must happen ala Weick, or continuing cultures created and sustained by communication, practices, and performances, or places where power is both sought, fought, and transgressed. (Most organizational communication scholars will tell you it’s a combination of all these.) 

From a cultural perspective – all organizations are different cultures. Think of the differences between Apple and Microsoft. Or Starbucks and McDonalds. Or Coke and Pepsi. Or a Pentecostal church and a Southern Bapitst church. There are, in fact, as many different organizational cultures as there are organizations. As organizational communication scholars have been arguing for thirty or so years, you cannot understand an organizational culture, without studying that culture in-depth: generally through one of he many varieties of ethnographic research. 

Think about this for a moment. MBA students sit in a classroom and ‘study’ an organization on paper and are supposed to come up with a solution to some sort of organizational dilemma. This type of teaching is well-adapted to get students to do only one thing: do case studies in a classroom. Much like k-12 standardized testing, there’s no ‘there’ there. What they learn by analyzing a case study is about a useful in the real world of managing as filling in the little dots on a standardized test are to successfully going on a date. They are supposed to make a contextless decision. This is Mintsberg’s basic critique.

"An education that overemphasizes the science encourages a style of managing I call “calculating” or, if the graduates believe themselves to be artists, as in- creasing numbers now do, a related style I call “heroic.” Enough of them, enough of that. We don’t need heroes in positions of influence any more than technocrats" (p. 1).

However, businesses aren’t like that. Not at all. They are not static, but constantly on the move. They have different systems, different cultures, different values, different employees, etc., etc. etc. Hence the MBA as taught looks nothing like – and doesn’t prepare people – to actually be managers. Supposedly these MBAs with no experience can walk into an organization and just start making major decisions and taking over.

That’s somewhat crazy if you think about it. You would never let a medical student who’s only done ‘the book learnin’ perform open-heart surgery on you. However, this is exactly what MBA students are taught to think and how business teacher teach them to think. Someone without experience is not going to be trusted to make big decisions: like closing a factory or dismantling a department.

"Put differently, trying to teach management to someone who has never managed is like trying to teach psychology to someone who has never met another human being" (p. 9)

A real manager spends copious amount of time on the floor of the factory, talking with the many people that work in various departments – having conversations with both internal and external clients and customers. He might even check out other factories in his own organization to find out why those particular ones run well, while this one does not. He may check out competitor’s businesses to see how they are run differently. In other words, a real manager gets a deep cultural and organizationally significant education and understanding of the business before he makes any decision.

This is the opposite of what MBA programs teach. No ‘book learnin’ via case study is going to help. It’s like teaching. I may have an idea of how I want to teach a class – maybe a technique that’s dialogical – but the demands of, the size of, and the culture of a particular class may determine that this technique does not work. If that technique is the only one I have in my toolbox, my class is going to be a complete disaster. Embedded adaptation is key.

"In the larger organizations especially, success depends not on what the managers themselves do, as allocators of resources and makers of decisions, so much as on what they help others to do" (p. 9)

Mintzberg correctly points out that making decisions is a really small part of a manager’s job. What he doesn’t mention enough for my taste – and this is my communication bias talking here – is, well, communication. Communication takes up the better part of any manager’s job. Getting to know people, watching their performances (not performance appraisals, mind you, but the way in which people work), the stories and narratives people tell and listen too, the people who are considered heroes in the organization, as well as those considered outcasts. Managing, at its heart is all communication, and learning-on-the job, and then using what one has learned to make decisions than must be made.

“To develop a reflective turn of mind, the participants focus on them- selves, their work, and their world, to appreciate how they think, act, and manage; how they cope with the stresses of being a manager; and how they learn from experience to become more discerning—more “critical” in the constructive sense of this word” (p. 300).

So what does Mintzberg suggest? Well, here’s where he gets a lot of push back. Management education should be restricted to practicing managers. The classroom should leverage the managers’ experience. Managers have to be exposed to theories so they can learn to be thoughtful and express themselves. Thoughtful reflection is necessary. Learning is not doing. Learning is reflecting on doing. Move beyond reflection in the classroom to learning from the impact on the organization.    

However, if you consider the art and practice of managing, Mintzberg is on the right track. Which is why I think this would be a great read for #commnerds studying organizational communication. After all, culture and power and performance is what we actually study.

Marissa Mayer and the Continued Idea of the False Choice

Marissa Mayer is a powerful and successful woman who worked at Google – one of the original Googleheads, in fact – and accepted the opportunity to fix and run Yahoo! and is having a child.

The media has gone crazy over this. Forbes. The Washington Post. The Sun-Times...and...et al. As is typical, it is all the same focus when they realize a woman has attained some sort of position of power. They did it with Carly Fiorena and Hillary Clinton, and even Sarah Palin. (Mind you, I wouldn’t put Sarah with these other women in any other list. There’s no contest there.) More on Fiorena, below.

Can she do the job? Is she a bad example for "our children?" Should women hate her? Why isn’t she taking a full maternity leave? If she can have it all, why can't you? Is she a bad mother-to-be? Should parents hate her? Blah, blah, blah.

I’m waiting for TMZ to start asking questions about the size of her breasts, how much she craves chocolate, and her favorite movie. 

There is really only one thing worth thinking about in regard to her maternity leave decision: Due to her economic position, she can do it all, because she has the opportunity to do it all.

It is true that the educationally and economically disadvantaged do not have the choice to go right back to work. Hell, not merely just the disadvantaged, but most of the advantaged as well: white-middle class people. In most cases, a mother has no choice but to go back to work. Someone has to work to keep the lights on and given that wages have stagnated for 20-plus years, that someone is often BOTH parents. (Not mentioned in most of the news articles, mind you.)

Mayer gets to choose to be a new parent and be Yahoo!’s new CEO. She gets both. Why? Because she gets to choose. In the terms of capability economics she has the freedom to realize her well-being, the kind of life she is effectually able to lead, who can decide what she is able to be and able to do. She gets to choose what is her “functioning.”

Don’t lose me here; this is actually quite simple.

This capability approach to economics deals directly with the situation and the reactions to the Mayer case. To quote directly from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Take the following functionings: (1) to hold a job, which will require me to spend many hours on working and commuting, but will generate the income needed to properly feed myself and my family; (2) to care for my children at home and give them all the attention, care and supervision they need. In a piecemeal analysis, both (1) and (2) are opportunities open to me, but they are not both together open to me. The point about the capability approach is precisely that we must take a comprehensive or holistic approach, and ask which sets of capabilities are open to me, that is: can I simultaneously provide for my family and properly care for and supervise my children? Or am I rather forced to make some hard, perhaps even tragic choices between two functionings which both reflect basic needs and basic moral duties?"

In 99% of the cases wherein people are in this situation, they are stuck. Why? Option 2 – for most people is not available. They truly do not have a choice. Not limited choice. No choice. From a holistic viewpoint, they have only one possible functioning. (Which is why when looked at separately, it appears there is a choice, even if there isn’t one.)

Ms. Mayer is not stuck in an either/or situation. She has a both/and situation. She has more ability, more freedom, more possibilities for the realization of her potentiality than the average person because of her economic status. Why does she have this advantage?

That’s called having good health insurance and health care and child care through having excellent employment and educational opportunities in her life - and taking those opportunities and making the most of them – and succeeding economically. That is the kind of opportunity making our country should provide every one. This is how a society opens up and creates and allows for its citizens to become more capable, to be more free, to have more functionings.

Whether or not others’ think she is being a bad parent and horrible mother-to-be by not taking a full maternity leave, or continuing at work - and all that other nonsense - is a sideshow to the real issue. The media is making it appear that every woman and every family has this work-maternity choice. And in this debate one simple fact is overlooked: most do NOT have this choice at all. Period. (And of course none of this would be an issue if she had a penis! Gender bias? You bet!)

She’s getting a lot of snuff for the facticity of being a woman. This media barrage very much reminds me of what happened to Carly Fiorena at Hewlett-Packard. They lambasted her in the media. It was brutal. Every move she made was under heightened scrutiny. She was heartily dissed for buying Compaq and making a number of other moves people thought were short-sighted and bad for business. Then they ousted her in 2005. In fact, they still are giving her hell, years later. 

Of course everyone discounts the historical fact that she took over just as the internet bubble was going to pop – and she got HP through that period – and the economic turmoil that followed the 9-11 attacks, as well. Turns out her moves were the right ones, but she got no credit for them. Rather, the guy who succeeded her got all the credit.

Perspective is everything and here too the media is not doing due diligence. There’s a misconception that Yahoo! is failing, but in reality it is still growing, despite all the missteps by its former management teams. It just hasn't been growing fast enough for Wall Street and much of the financial media, especially when compared to Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, with whom it is always compared. Then again, compared to those, everyone looks like a laggard. Yahoo! has $2B in cash on hand, with only $130M in debt, with a profit margin of 22%. Pretty good baseline numbers for any company. 

I expect to see Mayer dump a bunch of unprofitable stuff and go on a buying spree to acquire new technologies. Most importantly, I expect to see her shake the Yahoo management tree and watch the rotten fruit fall off the limbs. I think she has the chops to change the organizational culture - not an easy task, of course - and get Yahoo! out of its doldrums.

If a man was hired the focus would be only on the finances of Yahoo! and the moves that he would make. Bias? You bet.

I wish Ms. Mayer good luck as both a CEO and a parent.

On Teaching Group Communication Well, Pt 2

Serendipity? Coincidence? A link into the divine? Whatever the case, I’ll take it. 

In my last post I began talking about my Group Communication class. I included some of the dilemmas all teachers face when dealing with group work and engaging students in both theory and practice. Well, then a friend and mentor of mine – Bud Goodall – posted something on Facebook. 

It is a New York Times article called “The Rise of the New Groupthink” that plainly states,

“Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.”

I agree with some of the assessment – that group work for group work’s sake is a pointless exercise. Anyone who has been sitting in a meeting to ‘brainstorm’ some totally nonsensical idea knows what I mean. (Especially if the boss isn’t going to take those ideas seriously anyway – but that’s another story of faux participation and paradoxes in organizations.)

However, the point of my Group Communication class is to bring communication theory to life and allow students to learn experientially. The author of the Times’ piece writes:

‎"But it’s one thing to associate with a group in which each member works autonomously on his piece of the puzzle."

And this is my thought process when I teach group communication. Sure students work in groups, but each person must come to the group with something of value to put on the table. Nor are the class group projects 'useless,' but vary in degrees of length, from the short to the large, and in complexity. Which brings me to what this post was supposed to be about: The assignments from my Group Communication class.

The first is an individual project: Strengthsfinder Paper: A one page paper that explains your strength based on the Strengthsfinder assessment, including a self-reflection on where you have seen this particular strength active in your own life.

Rationale: Most students haven’t spent a lot of time with Socrates’ dictum “Know thyself.” What can they bring to the table? What do they need to know about themselves and the way they relate to other people? This is an exploration of their talent. It’s what they bring to the table.

“Quad-Group” Discussion (QGD): Each initial smaller group of approximately 4 people (hence the term “Quad”) will lead a discussion (for about 30 minutes) on some section of the Rothwell text, between Chapters 4 through 5 to be negotiated in class with other groups and me. Please note that this is NOT a presentation, but a discussion. It consists of four parts:

One week prior to your presentation you must find and send a related academic article to everyone in the class.

Lead a discussion for 25 minutes on your topic.

A one-page handout for your classmates.

An activity to go along with your discussion.

Rationale: A short project to start. Something within the safe confine of the classroom experience. Think of this as the ‘getting to know each other’ part of this group experience. This is not a presentation (no PowerPoints) but a discussion of the topic they have negotiated with the other groups and myself.

"The Edge” Assignment: Each “Quad Group” will set up a time with ETSU’s “The Edge” radio station and lend their voices for a drop, a legal, a promo, a sting, or an ad.

Rationale: Stepping out into the world, even if it still the ETSU world. The groups have to make the contacts, set up the appointments with the General Manager, and then go into the studio and create what the GM determines needs to be made. This gives them practical experience in those areas, as well as lending their voices to the Broadcast Division of the Communication Department.

Dinner and the FSNP Paper: Two “Quad-Groups” will combine to become a “Double-Quad.” This larger group will have to plan a meal from scratch, eat that meal together, and produce one co-written paper. I will be looking for evidence of your group's development and its accomplishments, and of the various contributions to the dinner and the writing process. This five-page co-constructed paper is your group response to how your “Double-Quad” worked together, concentrating on the forming, storming, norming, and performing (FSNP) aspects of group development. You will present to the class you dinner menu, and a brief discussion of the group project. 

Rationale: Leaders and other roles are generally in place within the “Quads” by the time this project rolls around. This stirs things up. Power struggles often raise their heads as groups come together. Negotiating is more difficult and the number of persons in the group makes every thing more chaotic and complex. HOWEVER, the actual project of making dinner together provides students with a pretty relaxing, fun, enjoyable atmosphere – plus they get to eat well.

The “Double-Quad” Volunteer Project & Paper: Each “Double-Quad” will volunteer with a nonprofit organization in the greater Johnson City area to complete a project of some significance both to the agency you're working for and to yourselves and your group. Group members must work together on location for at least 7 hours during the semester--some might involve much more than this, depending on how much off-site preparation is required. The objective here is, as best you can, to do something for an organization that involves your group as a group and that utilizes your group's unique abilities. Documentation is essential. The grade for this project consists of two components on which you will be graded: A professional presentation to the organization for which you volunteered, which I also attend. A co-constructed paper of 12 pages (not including references) on how the team worked while doing your volunteer project, what theoretical concepts you found informative as you worked through the process of becoming a group, the accomplishment of the necessary tasks, as well as the struggles and dilemmas you encountered.

Rationale: The big Kahuna!: serving the Johnson City community. Getting students involved with individuals they don’t necessarily run into in their daily lives. For example when I did this at USF, one group worked at the Moffett Cancer Center. At Mizzou one group worked with a home for abused children. Another for a literacy program. Another for the local animal shelter. Another for undernourished kids. A LOT of planning and collaborating and negotiating goes into, not only the project, but the co-written paper. Students found these projects not only useful, but self-fulfilling.

So that’s it. Taking theory and making it practical. Going from small groups and small projects to larger groups and larger projects. While Organizational communication is my passion, this is –by far – my favorite class to teach.

Your Bank Hates You: From Banks to Credit Unions

My First Experience with a Big Bank

What’s going on with the big banks today reminds me of what happened in the early 1990s. When I went to work for Leadership Directories, Inc. (Back then it was called Monitor Publishing, but eventually changed its name because Monitor is the name of the paper the Christian Scientists publish – which we had nothing to do with)… oh that was a heck of a digression.

Anywho, when I went to work in NYC in 1991, I opened an account at Manufacturer’s Hanover. “Manny Hanny” was a pretty big bank, but it was regional to New York City. Plus, being based in NYC as it was, I could get money out of a MAC anywhere in the city. 

For those who don’t know MAC stands for “Money Access Center,” the old northeast version of ATM. By the way, never call an ATM an “ATM Machine.” ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine, so if you say ATM Machine you are really saying Automated Teller Machine Machine. And that’s idiodic. Like saying PDF File. PDF stands for Portable Document File, so really you are saying Portable Document File File. You are using an RAS. Please stop. Try not to sound like a mentally-challenged platypus. But again, I digress…

So I could get money once I got to the city via the PATH train, or on the way home via a MAC machine. (“MAC machine” is, by the way, allowable since there is no redundancy.) Checking was free as long as there was a direct deposit from my place of work. Not a problem at all and I had that Manny Hanny account for about a year. I actually used to walk through this door to do my banking.

The Manny Hanny Golden Door on 34th St.

Then they merged with Chemical bank. Chemical was having trouble with bad real estate loans (sound familiar?) and Manny Hanny was having problems with international loans (Argentina and Mexico, in particular), so they decided to join forces. At the time it was the largest bank merger in American History.

At first it was no big deal. Until Chemical – as the new bank was called – decided to close 70 locations. That put a damper on where I could get money, when I could get money, and how I could get money. No big deal, just a little bit more planning and walking and waiting in lines. Until…

Chemical decided that they did not want to deal with piss ants like myself. They decided to up the amount you had to have in your account to about $1,500 or they were going to start charging. People who were living paycheck to paycheck, people just starting out, or just starting over, or just making ends meet…people like my friends and I, didn’t have that money just laying in a bank. And they wanted rid of us. We were a PITA to them. They didn’t make any money off our piddly little checking account balances. We cost them money, so they put up barriers that basically forced us all to move. I went to Pamrapo Savings & Loan in Hoboken. Right across from the PATH, so again easy to get money going in or out of the city. My friends also changed banks. 

My 2nd Experience with a Big Bank

Eventually, however, I found my way back to a big bank. The big bank: Bank of America. I was fairly happy with them. Until... first they wanted to charge me $40 just to have one of their credit cards. Say what? A $40 fee on a $2K card. Please. Then they started to take away the free checking. That was that. Buh-bye.

Does this sound familiar? It should.  Bank of America is jacking up debit card rates and Citi is changing all sorts of requirements for depositors. Its not just the nationals. Regions, First Tennessee, and Suntrust all jerking around their customers with fees. It appears that the banks have decided that we aren’t worth it. They don’t want to deal with the “loser” working class anymore. Fine. Or they want us to move to credit cards so they can make even more money off of us. Fine. Piss on them.

Take your money out. Find a credit union. You can start here. And here. And here too. Forget the big banks. We bailed them out. They took our money. Now they are using the money that we saved them with to charge us to use our own money. Eastman Credit Union is my new financial institution.


And the colonists thought King George was a nonrepresentative taxer! If Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, etc. could see what was going on now, they’d be right in the thick of #occupywallstreet, in their white powdered wigs, getting ready to burn down some buildings and start another revolution!

What ever happened to my old Manny Hanny? Chemical....


was bought by Chase...

...which merged with JPMorgan...

...and is now JPMorganChase. 

JPMorganChase is one of the biggest banks in the world, like BoA, Wells Fargo, and Citi. We bailed them all out. They are all  charging people to use their own money. Leave them. They don't love you. In fact, they are abusive, not only to you as a customer, but to our country as well. Leave them. GTFO.

Speech Com/Com Studies Career and Job Titles

Whenever I see 'lists' of career choices for Speech/Communication Studies undergraduates, I always laugh at their ridiculousness. Speechwriter. Novelist.  DJ. Actor. Actress. That is a very idealized list and always irritates me. How many of us are going to be this guy?

Yeah. 
None of us. 


He is Bob Costas. 


I am not. 


You are not.

Or this guy?

Sorry, there's only one Letterman.


Just 
like 
there 
is
only 
one......

David Boreanaz

aka

Angel

aka

Special 

Agent

Seeley

Booth.

So let's get real. 

Sure you could become a famous actor or broadcaster or DJ or talk show host, but it is much more likely you are going to have a successful career doing something else. Like working in investor relations, or as a crisis communication specialist, or a human resources manager, or a recruiter, or any number of awesome career options. 

I worked in publishing, graphic design, advertising, and information technology. I got these jobs why? Not because I was the most brilliant, but because I could communicate. For example I did not get my technology position only because of my tech skills, but because I could make technological information understandable to non-technologists. 

I could communicate about technology.

Communication has also helped me change careers...important in this ever-changing world of globalization, where this year's job is next year's place on the unemployment line. 

Given the goofiness of "the famous people/famous careers" list that proliferates for Speech/Communication Studies, here's what I did. I went online and did a search via LinkedIn on individuals who studied Speech and/or Communication Studies as undergraduates. From the data I collected, I created this Wordle that presents the most commonly found career/job titles.

The original link to the Wordle site (and the ability to see it larger) where I created this cloud is here.

So there it is. An updated and realistic look at 

Speech Communication/Communication Studies careers and jobs. 

Talk to the professors who will be teaching 
the classes that interest you.

Look into the classes you want to take. 


For ETSU Students:

Communication in Organizations

Interpersonal

Business & Professional 

Argumentation & Debate

Gender & Communication

Persuasion

Dynamics of Group Leadership

Speech Communication

Skills for Life