The rise of the Renaissance MBA

In many respects, the recent economic crisis stemmed from a failure in leadership and corporate responsibility. According to Valerie Gauthier, associate dean, HEC Paris, If we are to avoid repeating history, MBA students must learn to ask the right questions, challenge the status quo and trace the intricate web of connections between events, cultures, nations and disciplines.

The renaissance period in Europe once produced leaders who were as grounded in science and the arts as they were with diplomacy and war. Now Gauthier suggests that business education needs to create 'renaissance MBAs,' managers and professionals who are as familiar with history, philosophy and design as they are with a business plan or a balance sheet.

One of the ways to achieve this would be to open up MBA programmes to individuals with a much wider range of backgrounds so that bankers and management consultants would find themselves rubbing shoulders with artists or political scientists. The resulting mix would produce business leaders able to see their decisions and actions in a wider context and, therefore, hopefully, with a more responsible and far-sighted approach...

...This innovative approach to learning can also be found in Canada at the Desautels faculty of McGill University, with paintings that are used to get students to look at the world in a different way. Art doesn't serve up answers to specific business problems on a plate, says Nancy Adler, who combines her academic work with a second career as a highly respected water colourist. But what it can do is get you to step back, reflect and come up with your own solutions, solutions that are often beyond the constraints of accepted practice.

The way we conduct business may never be the same again. And business schools worldwide are already working hard to produce corporate leaders ready for the rigours of an unpredictable future.

Read full article: Times of India, December 9, 2011