an MBA from a good school can't hurt, and is bound to teach some useful management skills.
I'm not so sure. Reading Henry Mintzberg's writings, one gets the sense that MBA programs are dangerous. They don't actually impart useful skills but they convince their students that they do. I mean, consider Harvard Biz school's case study methodology. You get a bunch of people who know nothing about a company or an industry to read 20 pages of material, reduce all its problems to a single strategic question, then pronounce a decisions and that's it -- this is like a parody for designing a process that allows ignorant people to screw things up, all the while relishing their elite ignorance.
Perhaps a valid criticism, but I'm not sure someone has developed a better alternative. I've seen too many "executives" whose decision making is based around
- superficial books they've picked up at the airport and read on the plane.
- soundbites they heard on cnn.com.
- random advice from other "executives" at parties.
Having been on both sides of case-based teaching, I'd say its a useful pedagogical device - imagining that 50 Harvard MBA students actually just "pronounce a decision" is kind of laughable, if you've ever participated in a case discussion. The cases are tools for discussion, and being able to convince others with a cogent powerful argument and build consensus is what is being taught. Something that is quite useful in management.
Not to mention that you get exposed to actual thinking beyond the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" crap. My B-School experience actually included seeing Henry Mintzberg speak.
Being a published co-author of a business case (http://hbr.org/product/vidalia-onions-sweet-and-sour-transit...), I find this to be a strawman argument for decrying business cases. I get your underlying criticism about lack of domain expertise, but case study analysis never devolves into "single strategic question" situations. Usually, cases are just meant to exercise brains into trying to understand and analyze different situations and realize that the various tensions can actually be quite complex. The methodology has its faults, but let's (edit: not) make it out to be less than what it is. It helps people to get into the mindset necessary to make good managerial decisions in diverse situations. The key difference between case studies and real life is that case studies hand all the information to you on a silver platter, while in real life, managers need to go digging hard both inside and outside the company for all the information necessary for good decisions. Case studies never intend to cause managers to want to avoid listening to their employees, especially the ones who are domain experts. Such instances reflect more on the manager's incompetence than it does on the case study methodology's inability to teach.
As well, there's something good to be said about being able to bring in outside perspectives to right sinking ships, thanks to not being chained to pervasive biases that may unknowingly be held by those who were "insiders" for a while. IBM's perhaps one of the most extreme examples. They brought a CEO with a non-technology background to right the ship. And he did.
"In April 1993, IBM hired Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. as its new CEO. For the first time since 1914 IBM had recruited a leader from outside its ranks. Gerstner had been chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco for four years, and had previously spent 11 years as a top executive at American Express. Gerstner brought with him a customer-oriented sensibility and the strategic-thinking expertise that he had honed through years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co.. Recognizing that his first priority was to stabilize the company, he adopted a triage mindset and took quick, dramatic action. His early decisions included recommitting to the mainframe, selling the Federal Systems Division to Loral in order to replenish the company's cash coffers, continuing to shrink the workforce (reaching a low of 220,000 employees in 1994), and driving significant cost reductions within the company. Most importantly, Gerstner decided to reverse the move to spin off IBM business units into separate companies. He recognized that one of IBM's enduring strengths was its ability to provide integrated solutions for customers – someone who could represent more than piece parts or components. Splitting the company would have destroyed that unique IBM advantage.[25]"
I'm not so sure. Reading Henry Mintzberg's writings, one gets the sense that MBA programs are dangerous. They don't actually impart useful skills but they convince their students that they do. I mean, consider Harvard Biz school's case study methodology. You get a bunch of people who know nothing about a company or an industry to read 20 pages of material, reduce all its problems to a single strategic question, then pronounce a decisions and that's it -- this is like a parody for designing a process that allows ignorant people to screw things up, all the while relishing their elite ignorance.