Can Management Gurus Manage

Publication: Economic Times Mumbai; Date: May 29, 2008; Section: Editorial; Page: 14

TH E B I G P I CTU R E Can management gurus manage? T T RAM MOHAN

BUSINESS school professors make a living out of teaching management. Should we presume, therefore, that they know how to manage? Many people seem to think so. R Gopalakrishnan of Tata Sons mentions some paradoxes he has come across (ET, May 19). A professor who specialises in conflict management happened to be going through a divorce. A professor of behavioural science simply could not get along with his colleagues. It seems legitimate to ask: what business do these people have to teach anything to others? One could easily extend this logic to other faculty. Those who teach investment management ought to become billionaires by playing the market. Faculty who specialise in leadership should be automatic choices for the director’s post — if not the prime minister’s. Marketing faculty should be able to market themselves very well — some at least should become famous “brands” themselves. Professors who teach innovation should be flooding their institutions with breakthrough ideas. Anybody who teaches a course in business ethics should be a saint. And, of course, the combined wisdom of faculty should be producing B-schools that are paragons of sweetness and harmony. We know otherwise: managing a B-school or any collection of academics, for that matter, is the ultimate administrative nightmare. Is something wrong here? Not really. Peter Drucker, the greatest of management gurus, once confessed that he would make a poor executive — he simply could not delegate although preaching delegation came easily to him. The gap between theory and practice is vast and it is not confined to management. Literary critics don’t make great writers themselves nor art critics great artists. A dance or music teacher may not be able to perform on stage himself or herself. There are great sports coaches who have never made it to the highest levels themselves. Alright, Mr Gopalakrishnan seems to say, B-school faculty cannot manage but at least B-schools can do a better job of teaching management. How? One solution he proposes is that “staffing of teachers at institutes should have more of them who have practised and practitioners who can teach”. This sounds eminently sensible until one gets down to practising it. Take the first part of the solution, having faculty who have been managers. Many B-school faculty, who have corporate experience, would readily admit that this experience adds little value in the classroom. I have been a banker and I teach a course in banking at IIMA. I can’t say that my experience as a banker adds an awful lot. As for practitioners coming into the classroom, the experience has not been a very happy one. Yes, practitioners offering a session or two in a course can be useful. But there are not many instances of practitioners making a success of a whole course on their own. This is because teaching, like any other craft, has its own discipline which is acquired only over time. Structured learning is not something that many practitioners are equipped to provide. One is also not clear what is meant when people talk of bringing the “real world” into the classroom. A big chunk of coursework at B-schools comprises basic tools and techniques. These are best taught by academics. What they provide the student is an analytical way of looking at issues that managers face in their working lives. B-schools have tried to bring in “real world” issues through the case study method. This involves going into a firm and documenting a particular problem and ways in which it was handled. The case is discussed in class and alternative approaches are discussed. Indian firms can help out by simply being open to cases being written about them the way firms in the US are. When practitioners talk of B-schools missing out on “real world” issues, what they often have in mind are organisational and interpersonal issues — team building, motivation, leadership, etc. Whether these can be taught at all in a classroom has been debated. B-schools have experimented with ways of teaching these, not always with conspicuous success. Can practitioners do a better job? Perhaps. But, as always, seeing is believing.

B-schools are at the receiving end of endless sermons from practitioners on how they need to get their acts together. For a change, here are a couple of suggestions on how practitioners might contribute. One, please go through the course outlines of a B-school and tell us: a) what new courses are worth offering; b) how the content and pedagogy of existing courses might be changed in order to better reflect the “real world”. Two, identify, say, 25 aspects of an important theme that Indian businesses are facing, namely, the challenge of globalisation. Offer these aspects to B-schools for case writing. Let Indian managers show that when it comes to improving the quality of management teaching in the country, they are willing to walk the talk.

• Many a B-school faculty, with corporate experience, would admit that it adds little value in the classroom • B-schools have tried to teach ‘real world’ issues, not always with visible success • Let Indian managers show that when it comes to improving the management teaching, they are willing to walk the talk