The Management Training Gap

That is why it is dangerous to rely exclusively upon managers who have impressive management school degrees but negligible experience: They have never been trained to make decisions by asking for input from those who complement them. Nor have they learned how to resolve conflicts among people with different interests; in fact, the importance of resolving such conflicts has barely been conveyed to them, even though they will inevitably need the cooperation of many styles of managers, in all four management roles, in order to implement important decisions.

What their education did teach them was to expect perfection from themselves and to believe that their training would enable them to solve any and all problems. Over time, this will become a serious handicap for the organizations that hire them.

In general, I’ve found that this “fast track” for young MBAs is a bad idea. Hired because of what they know instead of what they are, management school graduates are moved too quickly into positions for which they lack experience, while still laboring under the misapprehension that they have what it takes to lead an organization.

When an MBA begins to work in the field, he quickly discovers that he cannot live up to his own expectations. Trained to believe that he can and should be a perfect (PAEI), he is shocked and shamed by this discovery. First, he becomes angry with himself, then defensive; and eventually, he may start looking among his subordinates, peers, and bosses for a scapegoat – someone whose inadequacies can conveniently be singled out as the cause of any failure.

In the midst of this crisis of faith in themselves, these managers naturally lose their ability to be sensitive to the needs of others. This, in turn, leads them into a predictable form of mismanaging, which I call the Slave Driver (PA--).

Fortunately, experience brings maturity, which brings humility. But it can take a good three years after graduation before this kind of manager has let go of his delusions of grandeur, acknowledged that he is flawed, and learned to seek assistance and support from others. This may be why Robert Townsend specifically advises against hiring an MBA from Harvard. According to him, Harvard’s MBA students are taught to be presidents, not co-workers.13

Summing Up

Management schools have actually worked against organizations by promoting an ideal for managers that is humanly impossible. The schools need to revise their training based on a new paradigm of management, which recognizes that perfection is impossible and that a complementary team of managers is more workable.

In addition, we must change the nature of our organizations to support rather than discourage potential growth and development.

Training managers will not suffice: Organizations are powerful behavioral manipulators. Nor will changing organizations suffice: New organizational styles require managers who can make them work.

Both conditions must be met if effective managers and leaders are to be found and nurtured. How to do that is presented in the next chapter.