It's Time To Drive These People Out

Here’s something very worthwhile to listen to, courtesy of Tom Hoffman.

It is a program from Background Briefing, Radio National's agenda-setting current affairs radio documentary program from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. This segment takes a close look at the management culture produced by Harvard Business School, and other MBA programs. This phenomenon very clearly describes the mentality of the sick management culture that has invaded school districts, and how and where it developed.

The piece is 48 minutes long. If your time is tight, I suggest listening to the first 10 minutes, and also to the segment between ~22 to 30 minutes.

Teasers of things which will sound familiar to anyone who has been forced to suffer through the mess they’ve made:

[The MBA students are sent out]…with an enormous amount of hubris, which is, “I can manage anything even though I’ve never managed anything.”

* * * * * * *

The three benefits of a business education according to a Wharton School of Business professor

1. To equip students with a vocabulary that enabled them to talk with authority about subjects they did not understand.
2. To give students principals that would demonstrate their ability to withstand any amount of dis-confirming evidence.
3. To give students a ticket of admission to a job where they could learn something about management.

* * * * * * *

“In other words, what you have is a detachment of people who know the business from people who are running the business.” Until the rise of this business school culture in the 1980's and '90's, managers used to need to be masters of the subject they were managing. In other words, it was expected that they had "domain knowledge."

* * * * * * *

(This is the most important point)

“If you don’t possess the main knowledge, how do you run a company? Well you do it through the accounting department. And so the senior manager studies the accounts of each division…So you have companies run through the accounting department. Now this leads at once to the manipulation of both underlying activities and figures. The theme is of improving the numbers—not the product.”

* * * * * * *

The show explains how this type of thinking gave rise to the influence of The Accountant. BTW, years ago, Eli Broad was the youngest person ever in Michigan to become a C.P.A. The Broad Center’s Superintendents Academy official motto: WANTED: THE NATION’S MOST TALENTED EXECUTIVES TO RUN THE BUSINESS OF URBAN EDUCATION. Browsing through the Broad Center website will let you get a nasty taste of their totally off-track, and sick approach.

It's time to muster the forces and drive these people out. They truly don’t know anything about kids, or anything about education. They don't even know how to manage human beings.

Thank you, Tom. It took me a few days to listen to the whole program, but I am so glad I did.

PS: Here are links to some of the people who are interviewed in the show:

Henry Minzberg

Rakesh Khurana

The Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2009

Person #1 – Bachelor’s degree in ethics, politics and economics from Yale University and a juris doctorate degree from Stanford Law School.

Person #2 – Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the U.S. Air Force Academy; a master’s degree in public administration from Golden Gate University; a juris doctorate from Duke University; a master’s degree in international law from Georgetown University; and a master’s degree in national security strategy from the National War College.

Person #3 – Certified public accountant and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in business administration from DePaul University.

Person #4 – Bachelor’s degree from Brown University, where she is a member of the Brown Corporation and chair of the Audit Committee, and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.

Person #5 – Bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy; a master’s degree in international relations from Catholic University of America; a master’s degree in strategic planning from the School of Advanced Military Studies; and a certification as a Harvard University JFK School of Government National Security Fellow.

Person #6 – Bachelor’s degree in community health education from Temple University; a master’s degree in education from Boston University; a master’s degree in healthcare administration from Baylor University; and a master’s degree in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Person #7 – Bachelor’s degree in history from Marquette University; a teaching certification from California State University; a master’s degree in education leadership and administration from the University of Illinois, Chicago; and an executive master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Person #8 – Bachelor’s degree in government from the College of William and Mary, a master’s degree in educational administration and a doctorate degree in educational policy and planning from the University of Maryland.

Person #9 – Bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Person #10 – Bachelor’s degree in engineering from the General Motors Institute and a master’s degree in business administration from Babson College.