Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55470
A New Model for Management Education S by Peter Lorange everal prominent voices have criticized business schools and the traditional full-time MBA. They argue that the classical business curriculum helped develop business lead- ers who contributed to today's global economic crisis. Quite frankly, I believe there are several good reasons that their criticism, at least in part, is valid. First, most business schools teach linear thinking—too often, students learn to make deci- sions in an "either/or" or "positive/negative" fashion. They often don't work active- ly with the constant up-down, in-out, long-short movements of business cycles. They don't learn to recognize critical turning points or understand the fac- tors that make the difference between success and failure. Those students then become real-world leaders, whose lack of under- standing can lead to decisions and strategies that make the peaks and valleys of business cycles much more severe. Second, business schools often teach students to focus on Business schools need to rethink many concepts they hold dear—including academic departments, tenure, and the full-time MBA. short-term bottom-line results, even though long-term growth is equally important. They often fail to remind students that a company's customers are just as important to its financial success as its shareholders. 38 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010