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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

May - 2010 - issue > People Manager

Is MBA A Sure-fire Passport to Success?

C. Mahalingam
Thursday, May 13, 2010
C. Mahalingam
I keynoted a few weeks ago at the Silicon India’s flagship event branded, “Utkarsh” focused on Executive MBAs. I must say the “executive MBA” business in India has come of age and is thriving! The packed auditorium bore evidence to this. Many of the delegates who attended the conference flocked me post my session and made a suggestion that I write and share my views and suggestions I expressed at the event for the benefit of larger section of the readers. So here I am bowing to their suggestion and doing my first piece: Do you need an Executive MBA (or for that matter an MBA) at all for being and becoming a successful manager and if it is necessary, but not sufficient, then what are the other success ingredients. In subsequent issues, I will make an effort to elaborate on each of the ingredients I believe are critical for success.

Managers and not MBAs:

Well, that was the title that Prof Henry Mintzberg gave to one of his best-selling books published in 2004. Dr Mintzberg is a professor of Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and is credited with conceiving and launching the International Masters Program in Practicing Management. In his thought provoking book above, Dr Mintzberg makes some powerful observations that open the eyes of both the B-Schools and the students investing their money and time there pursuing MBA program. Here are some of them:

* 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).

* Using a classroom to help develop people already practicing management is a fine idea, but pretending to create managers out of people who have never managed is a sham! (Executive MBAs, take some solace!)


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