Schumpeter has an
interesting article in the Economist of October 4th.
He challenges the,
quite long standing, practice for senior managers to attend outward bound
courses in order to develop their Leadership skills. He suggests there is
no discernible benefit.
We would be
interested in others’ views. Many years ago I directed the Developing
Managerial Skills programme at Ashridge Business School and an outward bound
exercise over a weekend was a key element. The feedback from participants
was generally very favourable but, crucially, its success depended on the
skills in guiding the quality of the feedback on the part of the behavioural
tutor who led this part of the course,
Schumpeter argues
that this type of activity is largely a waste of time. More bizarrely, he
argues that ‘inward bound’ courses, where managers are required to study
classical texts including possibly Thucydides’s hymn to Pericles, would be more
effective. He quotes a number of examples of successful business leaders
who studied Philosophy or Classics. One suspects that Schumpeter himself
has a degree in Classics.
The idea of providing
time for business leaders to think deeply about the issues they face is a good
one, and indeed this might be more productive than sending them on outward
bound exercises with ill thought out objectives.
One further
thought. One of the great leaders of recent times, lauded by many
academics including those at Harvard Business School where he was invited to
share his thoughts with students and faculty, is Alex Ferguson of Manchester
United. It seems unlikely that Sir Alex read many of the great classical
texts.
No comments:
Post a Comment