O&M Connections Newsletter - O&M Connections Newsletter - Antioch University New England

Cheryl Lower, Donna Mellen, and Stephanie Tickner, Editors	Summer 2007

"Don’t Get an MBA; Study Philosophy Instead"

A Review Essay on Matthew Stewart’s “The Management Myth”

Bill Griffith, Core Faculty
Bill Griffith
Core Faculty

Myth can be fiction or falsehood. Myth is also truth—in the sense of a narrative that expresses the deep values of an organization or culture. Matthew Stewart, in his essay, “The Management Myth” (Atlantic Monthly, June 2006), places management theory under the former definition as “...a sadly neglected subdiscipline of philosophy” that “...consists mainly of unverifiable propositions and cryptic anecdotes.” Stewart, who has a doctorate in philosophy and worked for seven years as a management consultant, says that management theory is “...reminiscent of the kind of toothless wisdom offered in self-help literature ...because management theory is mostly a subgenre of self-help.” Given these propositions, Stewart asks, “...what does an MBA do for you that a doctorate in philosophy can’t do better?”

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! A little history is in order. Stewart goes back to 1889 when Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founding father of “scientific” management (quotes mine, but Stewart would most certainly agree), brought management theory to life. Taylor got a stopwatch and some “large powerful Hungarians” (Taylor’s words) to see “How many tons of pig iron bars (could) a worker load onto a rail car in the course of a working day?” The men he enlisted were paid to participate in the experiment, and so, of course, they loaded a prodigious amount of pig iron. Later, when the men were required to up their productivity fourfold, they recoiled and refused to work.

Taylor went on with his studies, trying to discern how increased productivity and efficiency could yield the most profit. He declared that his approach, based on observation and experimentation, required “a complete mental revolution,” which he christened a “science”—”a body of knowledge collected and nurtured by experts according to neutral, objective, and universal standards.” The experts were to be a new class of workers, which today has evolved into a true socio-cultural class called “management”. Although Taylor called his method “scientific management,” he was not actually doing science—his results were hardly replicable and were filled with “adjustments,” better known today as “wags” (wild assed guesses). Observers of his work were soon to critique his model, which seemed to be summarized in the phrases, “Think harder! Work smarter! Buy a stopwatch!” Stewart’s view is that a considerable amount of contemporary management theory amounts to no more. For example, a more contemporary and equally questionable approach to profit, productivity, and efficiency, Business Process Reengineering (BPR), may amount to “taking a blank sheet of paper to your business” and “re-thinking everything, everything!”

Next, a little philosophy is in order. As Taylor was playing with his stopwatch, a German philosopher named Wilhelm Dilthey was struggling with establishing a way of studying the “human sciences” that would not simply consist of applying natural science models to the human experience. At the time (perhaps still), “scientific” knowledge was seen as valid, and what we understood about the human realm was viewed as simply “opinion.” Taylor was likely “scientizing”—using a cultural bias toward natural science and its partner, technology, to legitimate a further drive toward efficiency. In fact, his “experiments” were not as much descriptive as prescriptive. Work harder, more efficiently for less money per unit produced! In contrast, another management researcher of the 1920’s, Elton Mayo of the Harvard Business School, realized, according to Stewart, that “...vertical hierarchies based on ...rationality and control are bad (and) organizations based on freedom, teamwork, and fluid job definitions are good.”

In Stewart’s view, the tension between Taylor’s and Mayo’s positions is understandable in terms of the debate in philosophy between the rationalists (“Be efficient!”) and the humanists (“Hey, these are people we’re talking about!”). Most of management theory, Stewart asserts, can be understood through the lens of this essential tension. Yet, management theorists continue to dream up the “next new thing,” to attempt to create the next faddish “revolutionary moment” to inspire rededication to the cause of creating an imagined utopia.

This phenomenon highlights a subtext in Stewart’s analysis and that was Taylor’s initiative to establish a new social class—management: “...a distinct group of people ...characterized by a particular kind of education, way of speaking, and fashion sensibility”. This would be a “better [Taylor’s word] man.” Stewart concludes that much of management theory today has to do with the “consecration of class interest ...—(that of) the management class.” Confessing my own doctorate in philosophy, I must additionally confess that much of what I have read in the management literature, certainly in the popular press, has made up in sound bytes what it has lacked in substance. The Jack Welch’s, the Lee Iacocca’s, even (at the risk of alienating some colleagues) the Peter Senge’s, have (at worst) told stories of their successes and failures that temporarily inspire but have little to say about what the reader can do to act within her or his own circumstances. Or they have (at best) synthesized and made available to the public what (non academic) philosophers have been saying for ages.

Stewart admits, and I agree, that management education in the form of the traditional MBA has some positive attributes, all pragmatic and generally having little to do with management or education. An MBA is a way for corporations to outsource their recruiting to business schools. It’s a terrific prescreening process and shows a certain type of intelligence and a dedication to the management enterprise. It also helps the management students to build their Rolodexes for future networking. On the less cynical side, it does provide technical education to those who desire basic skill sets in finance, accounting, decision modeling, statistical analysis, and marketing. However, these fields have little to do with the human side of enterprise and require little, if any, personal change or values education. In Stewart’s opinion, and in mine “(a)ll of business is about values, all of the time.” No decision is value free. It is, for example, impossible to separate economics decisions from ethics. Thus, the call to study philosophy! Stewart does state some distinctions between philosophers and management theorists. In his words, “...philosophers are much better about knowing what they don’t know ...(and) management theory is what happens to philosophers when you pay them too much.”

And now a word from our sponsor! At Antioch University New England, our management programs have always been about values. “Our mission is to foster and educate leaders and managers who can clearly identify and articulate their purpose, their goals, and their values [emphasis added]. Given that clarity, they will gain the knowledge and skills to ...create and sustain socially responsible and economically vibrant organizations. We believe that successful organizations operate from a multiple bottom line that includes sound fiscal management, high quality work life, and responsibility to the larger community and environment. Our programs focus on the leadership skills needed to achieve this extraordinary standard of success.” (From the ANE Organization & Management Department’s website.)

In my view, we at Antioch University New England are dedicated to a philosophical approach to management education. We are about values, and not just any values, but ones that are about building and sustaining organizations that balance fiscal, environmental and social outcomes. Our educational model supports our students in a process requiring deep personal change along with the acquisition of theory which they can put into practice and not just into conversation. This is our stated aspiration. This is our myth, where myth is the story that carries the truth of a culture—one dedicated to improving the social condition through work in organizations. Perhaps Stewart would agree with our approach and with our definition of myth.