Learning by participation
One of the definitions of management is 'the achievement of goals through other people'. To do this requires a set of skills additional to finance, marketing, and human resources. These are sometimes called the 'soft skills' and because of the name, are often ignored or relegated in importance by business schools. However, business-practitioners know people skills can be more important than technical skills for business success, and
In the real world of business, few people can or are expected to solve a problem by themselves. The value of multiple inputs in reaching a better solution is widely recognised. But the sharing of ideas, the acceptance of other people's ideas, and the learning from other approaches is rarely a natural process. Students must learn how to present their ideas in a whatsApp number database way that will allow others to see the value. Statements must be challenged by faculty and other students. Attack and defence of ideas, and the assimilation of other approaches are important parts of the learning process.
The benefits gained from the participation learning approach are further enhanced by a multi-cultural student body. Students who come from literally the four corners of the world, bring with them all the advantages, disadvantages, fairness and prejudice of centuries of cultural heritage. These characteristics manifest themselves in sometimes totally different approaches to solving business problems. From all of these approaches there is something to learn, if we are prepared to. To achieve these goals a business education class should be a maximum of twenty people.
A set of business tools
To come back to the original question, 'what should a business education give me?' The answer is, the tools to enable you to make an immediate contribution to global business success. These tools are:
- the ability to use the contingency approach to solving business problems; combining the best parts of several solutions into a unique and better solution
- having a global perspective
- working with and learning from others
The MBA programmes that offer these tools are spearheading the education of a new generation of business people.
Author: Dr Trevor J Johnson, Dean, Business School Lausanne