I was positively awaken one morning when a listened to Henry Mintzberg’s nº. 138, “Rethinking the MBA” episode.

It really makes you think about the convenience of MBA’s to improve the management abilities.

In fact it really questions the whole convenience of business schools!!!

The cast refers to an article published at http://www.theglobeandmail.com, titled ”America’s monumental failure of management” and it is in fact striking and provocative.

A complete excerpt of the article can be found at: http://vmhn.org/home/index.php?/Future-Studies-Collection/americas-monumental-failure-of-management.html

Enjoy it!!!

It seems training on formal knowledge gives way to real knowledge.

Think about it: you could learn everything on an MBA through the internet, couldn’t you?

But what about sharing experiences, skills, and behaviours?  This is what really makes us grow professionally, and this is not being taught at the learning institutions!

People like Roger Schank from Socratics Arts seem to have irreverent proposals and fresh ideas to be considered. See also this interview at balzac.tv:

Click here

Have you heard of alternative ways to learn? Tell us!

You may probably have eccentric, negligent or dissident people at your company, haven’t you? You normally try to neutralise them, not paying attention to their crazyclaims. Well, it seems you should!!

The freaky programmer sitting at the corner of the office, the noisy secretary making lousy jokes, the old-fashioned shy accountant, even the girl form the cleaning company with a piercing on her ear.

THEY DO HAVE THE CREATIVE ENERGY  TO HELP YOUR COMPANY REACH NEW HEIGHTS !!!

Listen to them, encourage them, put them in the limelight, give them a minute of fame.

These people have the ability to see the things from a different point of view, sometimes intricate or surrealistic, most of the times innovative!!

THEY COULD BE in fact THE CHAMPIONS OF INNOVATION at your company, as Phil McKinney from Killer Innovation calls them. Watch his related Videocast here (iTunes needed).

I’ve found this one specially interesting. Note that the term “design” referrs to the naming of things, that is, the designating of things. 

Statements like “radical innovations never come from the customers” are to be taken into account.

You can also find an interview with the author at HB ideacast.

http://harvardbusiness.org/product/design-driven-innovation-changing-the-rules-of-com/an/2482-HBK-ENG?Ntt=design%2520driven%2520innovation

It is an interesting approach to deliver innovation strategies by looking the company from outside.

This methodology might be more customer-oriented.

Combined with the Blue Ocean Strategy  can provide extraordinary results

http://harvardbusiness.org/product/hidden-in-plain-sight-how-to-find-and-execute-your/an/1657-HBK-ENG?Ntt=hidden%252520in%252520plain%252520sight

In the next posts you’ll find a list of books that I’ve been reading this summer and that address innovation quite differently to what I had previously known: 

No. 1. — W. Chan Kim & Renee A. Mauborgne’s well known Blue Ocean Strategy (2004)

Already a classic and at the same time a fantastic and motivating book to help you start doing things differently at your company.

Don’t miss the third part of the book, about the execution of the strategy, with the outstanding Fair Process and the astonishing Tippint Point theory, first exposed by Malcolm Gladwell.

You can find the book at: http://harvardbusiness.org/product/blue-ocean-strategy-how-to-create-uncontested-mark/an/6190-HBK-ENG

Homepage of the site

It has a very intuitive inteface and extra tools such as comments, pages, chat and more, always under the project management approach, but without the ties and constraints of tools like MsProject and the like.

Image of the original post

Click on the image for the original post and the list.

The European Union has launched the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) program.

EYE is a new European exchange programme aimed at helping new entrepreneurs to acquire relevant skills for managing an SME by spending time working in another EU country with an experienced entrepreneur.

More info at: Click this

Find it at: Click here