America's monumental failure of management (Many Harvard MBA Grads are failures as Executives)

VMHN.ORG via Globe and Mail ^ | 03/2009 | HENRY MINTZBERG

[SeekAndFind]

This article was written last year, but I thought I'd like to share it with you in light of what has happened to our corporations.

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE COMPLETE ARTICLE

[SeekAndFind]

I found the following paragraphs to be especially interesting in light of the many Ivy League grads with no real world experience that Obama has been appointing to his cabinet.....

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Harvard prides itself on how many of its graduates make it to the executive suites. Learning how to present arguments in a classroom certainly helps. But how do these people perform once they get to those suites? Harvard does not ask. So we took a look.

Joseph Lampel and I found a list of Harvard Business School superstars, published in a 1990 book by a long-term insider. We tracked the performance of the 19 corporate chief executives on that list, many of them famous, across more than a decade. Ten were outright failures (the company went bankrupt, the CEO was fired, a major merger backfired etc.); another four had questionable records at best. Five out of the 19 seemed to do fine. These figures, limited as they were, sounded pretty damning. (When we published our results, there was nary a peep. No one really cared.)

[sodpoodle]

The college cookie cutter concept.

Notice how the CEOs of the largest corporations are not the founders of those companies. Except for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - there are no Henry Fords or Ross Perots in the executive suites.

The best ideas for cost-savings and innovations come from the guys on the factory floor or in the field.

MBAs are paper pushers!

[elk]

Wait, this is not breaking news...it’s old news.

[Mrs. B.S. Roberts]

Dad, here’s a great read PING (I’d rather have an “MBA” from life’s lessons learned working in MJ’s than Hahvad University anyday!)

[Buckeye McFrog]

that’s because Harvard’s MBA program has been teaching “social responsibility” and not business for a quarter-century

[US Navy Vet]

It’s for the same reason that many(not all) service academy grad wear their HUGE(Super Bown Ring Huge) Academy class ring everywhere, it’s like being admitted to the club. Alot of Masons do this too.

[EyeGuy]

Most business people I know, look to hire REAL kids from the state schools, even....gasp....community colleges. These kids usually work a real job while in school and don’t graduate with the snobby sense of entitlement and utter cluelessness about the real world, inherent in those that attend our local “prestigious” Ivy League school, Washington University.

[US Navy Vet]

Bowl

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

Funny thing about the real world...it eventually exposes frauds.

College professors are one of few professions--along with politicians, with enough media cover--where people can go through their entire career spouting their pseudo-wisdom insulated from ever having their theories tested in reality. They don't even need to be good teachers!

Major universities, along with the media, are the proverbial family businesses of Progressiveism.

Competence is irrelevant. Service to the cause is all that matters.

The students steeped in their theoretical BS then find themselves ill equipped for reality when they hit the real world.

[Notary Sojac]

I don't think its necessarily the college degree that is the problem, it's the career path.

Most companies who are run by people who came up in the operational side of the business do pretty well. Companies that are run by people who came up the financial or legal ladder tend to tank.

[jettester]

I think it comes down to, quite simply, the difference between managers and leaders. I have found that you can, in most cases, teach people to be managers but the same is not true regarding leaders. Good leaders employ good managers.

[Rennes Templar]

My brother-in-law has a Harvard MBA and is a CEO for Seagate, twenty years. He does well, but the problem is he’s a flaming liberal. Well indoctrinated at Hahvahd.

[gitmogrunt]

Here's two more Harvard Graduate Policy Failures:

Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy

[Terabitten]

I blame it on the increasing lack of military service.

The military (all branches) teaches people how to LEAD, and how to do it with a long-term goal in mind. The military also trains its leaders in an environment where mistakes are fatal, not merely expensive.

I’d generally rather have someone who spent some time in the military as an officer or NCO than someone fresh out of Harvard Business.

[SeekAndFind]

Here's two more Harvard Graduate Policy Failures:

Well what can I say ? Dubya was a Harvard MBA Grad.

[SeekAndFind]

The following Presidents of the United States graduated from Harvard ( only Bush Jr. had an MBA ) :

* John Adams
* John Quincy Adams
* Rutherford Hayes
* Theodore Roosevelt
* FDR
* JFK
* Dubya

[Vigilanteman]

Best example is the Alta Mater of presidents. Every Ivy League graduate, at least since 1830, has been either a dud or a disaster as president, including the one we have now.

The two Ivy League grads before 1830 (John Adams and James Madison), were decent enough presidents, but they came from an era of great presidents, including the three who are on everybody's list of the greatest-- Washington, Jefferson and Monroe. So "pretty good" really doesn't cut it in an era of greatness.

On the other hand, some of our greatest presidents (Ronald Reagan) come from no-name colleges (Eureka) or even no college at all, as in the case of Grover Cleveland, the last Democrat which I would easily put in the list of the 10 greatest.

[Vigilanteman]

TR graduated from Harvard, but it was only an undergraduate degree. He ended up dropping out of Columbia Law School.

He later wrote that he got most of his valuable real world education as a young rancher in North Dakota. So I think you should forgive him for the Harvard degree.

Also, you left BO off your list.

[donaldo]

Isn’t it odd how liberal sycophants cite Obama’s Harvard JD as proof of a very keen intellect and conveniently overlook the fact that Chief Justice Roberts also received his JD from Harvard graduating magna cum laude in 1979? Roberts also graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in history, also from Harvard, in just three years! Antonin Scalia also graudated from Harvard with a JD magna cum laude after obtaining a history degree from Georgetown summa cum laude. The real difference? When Roberts and Scalia received their degrees it really meant something. And incidentally, Michelle Obama also has a JD from Harvard. Sorry, but I’m not impressed. The real problem with the Obamas is that they both confuse liberal fawning and obsequiousness with achievement. Alas, they’re both empty suits. Truly, the Emperor & Empress wear no clothes.