Wind of Change

I still can’t believe I am back to school !!! 

The Pre MBA period had started almost 10 days back and since that time I am trying to read the required chapters in financial accounting and microeconomics but I can’t.
Every time I decide to set and open the books and study I find thousands of excuses not to like arranging my disk or remembering an appointment suddenly etc…….

Now I remember old school days and how we all really wanted the school to start and as soon as it starts we tend to run away from studying. I also remember how many studying tables I made and didn’t follow; I was an expert in that.

Did anything change from 12 years back until now, I really don’t know. I am at this particular moment trying to overcome all these feeling and tell myself loudly:

WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL

I read this title of an article in Harvard Business Review May 2005 issue today in the early morning (7:00 am) while I was shopping in Sultan Center, the largest Hypermarket in Kuwait. That title made me so curious, as usual, to know how Business schools last their way. So I simply took the printed issue from the shelf and just started to read the first paragraph which mentioned that “Business schools are on the wrong track. They are so focused on scientific rigor that they hire and promote research-oriented professors who are more comfortable teaching methodology than messy, multidisciplinary issues-the very stuff of management. To regain relevance, B schools must rediscover the practice of business.”

WOW, isn’t exactly what I thought about during my long time search for the right MBA program 8 years back? and isn’t it exactly what I discussed with my friend David Standen, the Associate director of admissions at the Instituto de Empresa, a couple of weeks back during his visit here to Kuwait and he thankfully refocused on it again later tat day during his session to the prospect MBA students at the Instituto de Empresa in which I am honored to be one of them?

Well, I really thank god that I am not the only one in this world who think about this subject in that way and that this question was really a question in the mind of two eminent professors Warren G. Bennis, University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles and James O’Toole, Research Professor at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations. Together, they combine years of expertise and experience and their indictment of business schools is direct and unambiguous. In their view, “The actual cause of today’s crisis in management education is far broader in scope and can be traced to a dramatic shift in the culture of business schools. During the past several decades many leading B schools have quietly adopted an inappropriate, and ultimately self-defeating, model of academic excellence. Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculties understand important drivers of business performance, they measure themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research.”

Finally I think I am lucky to find the appropriate program to my skill, capabilities and, more importantly, time frame and work commitments and wish I will benefit from it and, at the same time enrich it with my experience and participation..

Well, I have been trying to put down some of my thoughts and memos for quite a long time. I even tried to do it in my personal web but I couldn’t for the last 5 years.

Now things are changing, I have more space of time to do many things that I was not able to do before.

I will try to share it here and hope I am not boring. I will also be very happy to read any comments from everyone.

Tarek

N.B. Thank you David for pushing me indirectly to start my blog