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Managers Not Mbas
  • Published: 1 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9781576753514
  • Imprint: Berrett-Koehler
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $49.99

Managers Not Mbas



In this sweeping critique of how managers are educated and how, as a consequence, management is practiced, Henry Mintzberg offers thoughtful and controversial ideas for reforming both.

“The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences,” Mintzberg writes. “Using the 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.”

Leaders cannot be created in a classroom. They arise in context. But people who already practice management can significantly improve their effectiveness given the opportunity to learn thoughtfully from their own experience. Mintzberg calls for a more engaging approach to managing and a more reflective approach to management education. He also outlines how business schools can become true schools of management.

  • Published: 1 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9781576753514
  • Imprint: Berrett-Koehler
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $49.99

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Praise for Managers Not Mbas

“[A] constantly stimulating book… It should be required reading for anyone who has the qualification, wants one, or just wonders what all the fuss is about.” The Economist “…an inspiring and insightful book.” Globe and Mail "… a powerful statement and a terrific read…. What gives the book its resonance is that it is 'a book about management education that is about management.'" The Observer "...a rousing manifesto for the thoroughgoing reform of management education and how we think about it.” The Financial Times