The angst of business schools continues about what the MBA actually achieves. What looks likely to be an important conference, The MBA Under Siege, plans to discuss ‘reimagining’ management education. It is to be hoped that the conference avoids going off into abstract fantasies and focuses on some basics, like teaching solid disciplines, and setting and enforcing standards. We certainly need such changes in strategic management, but the signs are not hopeful – keynote speaker Henry Mintzberg has done more than anyone to undermine professionalism in strategy. One of the main reasons we are in this mess today is that business schools have gone along with the idea that strategic management is purely a ‘craft’ in which knowing how to work stuff out has no value.
I don’t agree about Mintzberg. I find his tomes about strategy very relevant. I think his case studies on how strategy emerges shows the importance of a professional and fact based approach. I find it interesting how he separates the process and method through which real strategy is developed, from the strategic planning process. I spent 15 years with international companies like Volvo, Saab and BASF, half of the time in charge of strategic planning, most of the time an inefficient process not producing any strategy.