[00:00.00]MBA

[00:04.04]The Masters of Business Administration (MBA),

[00:11.67]the best-known business school label,

[00:13.97]is an introduction to general management.

[00:16.92]The traditional MBA, Harvard style,

[00:19.98]has remained largely unaltered since the 1950s,

[00:23.92]and seeks to provide at thorough knowledge of business functions through the case study—

[00:30.04]a feature incidentally borrowed from law school.

[00:33.22]In a similar fashion to law school,

[00:36.17]the graduate management programs train students to think in a particular way,

[00:41.42]ultimately teaching future business leaders how to analyze problems quickly

[00:46.77]and come up with concise solutions.

[00:49.17]However, business comprises more than merely manipulating numbers

[00:54.55]or sourcing rational answers to problems.

[00:57.29]Today, both companies and schools are increasingly aware that business is a human activity;

[01:03.85]it is ultimately by and about people.

[01:07.24]John Quelch is a business school insider

[01:10.72]who detects the limitations of the traditional syllabus.

[01:14.44]According to Quelch,

[01:16.41]leadership is an area that schools have not fully addressed.

[01:20.34]“The basic technical training managers need is more widespread.

[01:25.27]But leadership skills are in short supply.

[01:28.00]This could become a major constraint on the speed with which multinational companies can expand,”he says.

[01:35.58]Leadership is notoriously hard to teach,

[01:38.86]but programs do have the capacity to provide a grounding in non-business areas and personal growth.

[01:46.51]“You want to produce graduates who will be effective.

[01:50.45]To do this, they need to know their own skills.

[01:53.51]Our job is not only to cram finance down their throats,

[01:57.89]but help develop them as people,”

[02:00.30]explains Leo Murray,

[02:02.81]director of Cranfield School of Management in the U.K.

[02:06.52]Cranfield uses philosophy in its core,

[02:10.02]which since 1997 has offered an evening lecture series on both Aristotelian and present day thinking.

[02:18.12]Self-awareness is crucial at the school,

[02:20.85]which will grant the theme even more space.

[02:23.91]“These issues help people think,” states Murray.

[02:27.30]The better you understand yourself, goes the logic,

[02:30.58]the better you can manage others.

[02:33.09]The Said Business School (SBS) at Oxford University champions a more integrated approach.

[02:39.99]John Kay, SBS director, is keen to leverage the intellectual might of the wider university.

[02:47.42]Access to faculty from other disciplines including philosophy, politics and economics,

[02:53.88]he believes, could give SBS an edge over other school.

[02:58.47]These are surely steps in the right direction.

[03:02.09]But there is more.

[03:03.50]In future, developing a gut instinct for business may be as important as understanding the figures.

[03:10.06]To create an MBA to meet the challenges of the 21st century business schools will have to try harder.