***
Preface - International Edition *RE-Posted From Off_Topics*
...
Having perused the earlier thread on "Corporations" ... this thread is opened with the intent of casting *New* light on "modern" corporate rationale ... it is my contention that Conventional Wisdom" is just plain *WRONG*
It is based on fundamentally invalid, seriously outdated, and extremely dangerous assumptions
We, as CD/TGs, as "Green" people,
together with like-minded people have a rare opportunity to stand on some very strong and progressive shoulders ... to participate with other social innovators ... to alter humanity's course by exploiting contemporary thinking and technologies ... to advance Lynn Conway's vision for the good of Mother Earth and her Children 
Following is an outline reflecting 1) the nature of the problem, 2) an assessment / argument illustrating the root problem / solution, and 3) a major component of the required mindset
CD/TGs inherently *Believe* that fundamental change is *Necessary*, and we *Can* *Make* the *World* a *Better* and more *Human* place to *Live*
As usual, challenges, debate, discussion is invited by *all* Forum Members ... anyone presently satisfied with the way the WOM operates, please feel free to pass and continue searching for a better alignment with your opposite polarity
***
1) MardaSpeak
...
For over a decade, while Lynn Conway and her peers were engineering the foundation for modern computing, Mr.Spaceman (my "constant companion") and I travelled a "wide area network" for a major multi-national corporation
By day we supported the corporation's transition from manual, to emerging *and* ultra-expensive automated business processing and communications systems ... evenings, I, Marda, (secretly of course) lived in the lap of luxury ... sleeping in the best hotels ... dining in fine style, and dressing in a splendid selection of delightful lingerie and loungewear
Working through command line interfaces on globally networked "big iron", it was quite exciting to abandon telex and typewriters and carry one of the early laptops ... a 386-33 DOS machine with 20 meg Hdrive was considered a "hotrod" ... "diddling" with a 1200 baud modem to connect from a remote location was still mostly a "black art"
... Mr.Bill's "Empire" was still his wildest dream
*Fast Forward* >>>
Recently, on a longhaul flight, I was sickened by the airline magazine's "Empire" advert depicting a large office full of ecstatic, corporate executive "robots" celebrating their latest and greatest triumph over humanity
Quote "Introducing the new ("Empire Corporate") System. Don't let having multiple offices in multiple time zones get in the way of greatness. Now, you can get together in team sites and shared work spaces that allow you to easily collaborate within password-protected sites. So now you're not just a team. ...
.. You're a finely tuned *MACHINE*."
***
2) "THINK TWICE ABOUT HIRING MBAs"
Quoted From (Toronto) Globe and Mail
An article By DAVID TICOLL / Wednesday, Jul 7,2004
"McGill University celebrity management professor Henry Mintzberg says in a new book that MBA programs train the wrong people in the wrong ways, with negative "and sometimes disastrous" consequences.
While not exactly a dockside page-turner, "Managers Not MBAs" can fire up enough adrenalin for a spurt of exercise or barbecue-side debate. More important, it ought to make people think twice about hiring a raft of young, fresh MBA grads - or pursuing such a course for yourself.
Prof. Mintzberg's target is the conventional MBA full-time programs for inexperienced people, generally in their twenties. MBAs ostensibly prepare students for general management, but he argues that they actually teach analytical techniques for specific business functions such as finance, operations, marketing and information technology. This approach to training managers is rooted in the 20th-century myth of scientific management - an idea first proclaimed by Frederick Taylor in 1911 that there is "one best way" to run a business operation. If Mr. Taylor was right, you could train managers early in life, just as you train physicians, scientists or accountants.
But, argues Prof. Mintzberg, the opposite is true. Management is neither science nor profession. It's practice, the activity of leadership in a specific situation at a point in time. By definition, you can't teach management to young, inexperienced people. In fact, teaching is the wrong word. To play on a popular phrase: It's about learning, stupid.
People learn to manage in real situations, aided, perhaps, by the right kinds of coaching and support. Managers handle residual messes - the tough problems and complicated relationships - that remain after the easy stuff, the functional analysis, is done. The practice of management, Prof. Mintzberg says, is fundamentally "soft" which is why we commonly apply labels such as experience, intuition, judgment and wisdom to it.
So what, you might say. Even if MBAs don't really learn to manage, don't they still acquire practical facts and analytic skills?
Prof. Mintzberg responds that MBA grads join a fast track to strategic influence and corporate leadership. The problem is not just that MBAs are inexperienced. It's that their impatient, analysis-based, bottom-line elitism has corrupted our managerial practices, organizations and social institutions.
"MBA programs", Prof. Mintzberg says "are not solely responsible for all the dysfunctional aspects of managing we now see around us, from the exaggerated executive compensation schemes and the failed strategies and mergers to the scandals of dishonest corporate behaviour, all indicative of a demise of leadership. A hyped-up business press and questionable consulting practices have contributed, too. But they have done so in conjunction with the educational programs, which have both legitimized and encouraged some of the very behaviours they should be challenging."
Prof. Mintzberg backs up this contention with data. He points out that MBA grads gravitate to consulting and investment banking - industries that specialize in analysis and technique, withlittle responsibility for the consequences. Fortune reported that the five employers most preferred by 2003 MBA candidates came from these two industries. Enron hired 250 new MBAs a year during the 1990s. Ten of the 19 1990 Harvard MBAs who made it to CEO were clear failures (their company went bankrupt, they were forced out of the CEO chair, a major merger backfired, and so on).
To this I'd add my observation of the era when Stanford MBA pseudo-entrepreneurs who hadn't yet mastered the art of shaving colluded with slightly more adept investment bankers (also MBAs) to shill the MBA notion of the supremacy of shareholder value.
In a mini-study of my own I found that only one CEO in the 10 biggest of The Globe and Mail Top 1,000 Canadian companies sports an MBA (Richard Waugh of Scotiabank). Most got into business and climbed to the top with little more than an undergraduate degree. Gordon Nixon of Royal Bank of Canada has a bachelor of commerce. Tony Comper of Bank of Montreal has a BA in English. Gwyn Morgan of EnCana is an engineer (he also took an "executive business program" at Cornell). BCE's Michael Sabia sports graduate degrees from Yale — in economics and politics. Not coincidentally, I'd suggest, these men have done relatively well on measures of corporate performance and good governance.
After 150 pages, Prof. Mintzberg's uncharacteristically serious critique may wear thin. Take heart and stick with it for the solution: an eloquent and inspiring description of a so-called International Masters in Practicing Management (IMPM) program that Prof. Mintzberg co-initiated and delivers in five two-week modules in five countries (Britain, Canada, India, Japan and Switzerland) over 16 months.
IMPM, as its name implies, is exclusively for practising managers, typically in mid-career. It covers many of the same bases as a traditional executive education program for high-potential managers, and includes its share of reading and homework, but that's only part of the story. The program is heavily laden with reflection on participants' actual experiences and challenges; immersion in the places, cultures and peoples of its varied geographic sites; industrial site visits and problem analysis; and "white" time that allows participants to shape their own interchange. The result actually does seem to produce more effective managers who are wiser and more world-aware.
Here too the proof is in the pudding, namely retention rates. A few years ago I worked with a company ranked among the best in Canada as a place to work. It was profiled in a major publication; the laudatory interview was with a rising star who had just completed a company-sponsored executive MBA. However, within two months he'd abandoned this "best employer" for the competition. Such tales are all too common, but Prof. Mintzberg cites the opposite experience. Precisely because the IMPM helps their human development and focuses on real workplace inquiry, only a tiny minority of graduates have so far jumped ship from their employers.
"Managers Not MBAs" is an inspiring and insightful book. It will revolutionize your thinking about what makes management education tick."
dticoll@globeandmail.ca
***
3) "PERSISTENCE"
"Think & Grow Rich"
by Napolean Hill
"The basis of persistence is the power of will ...
The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on despite all opposition, until they attain their goal ...
There may be no heroic connotation to the word "persistence", but it is to the character of man what carbon is to steel ...
Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure
Sometimes it appears that there is a hidden *Guide* whose duty is to test men through all sorts of discouraging experiences. Those who pick themselves up after defeat and keep on trying, arrive; and the world cries, "Bravo! I knew you could do it!" The hidden *Guide* lets no one enjoy great achievement without passing the persistence test. Those who can't take it simply do not make the grade
Those who can "take it" are bountifully rewarded for their persistence. They receive as their compensation, whatever goal they are pursuing. That is not all! They receive something infinetly more important than material compensation - the knowledge that "every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage."
Broadway will give an beggar a cup of coffee and a sandwich, but it demands persistence of those who go after the big stakes
Kate Smith will say "amen" when she reads this. For years she sang without money, and without price, before any microphone she could reach. Broadway said to her, "Come and get it if you can take it." She did take it until one happy day Broadway got tired and said, "Aw, what's the use? You don't know when you're whipped, so name your price, and go to work in earnest." Miss Smith named her price. It was plenty.
***
Love / Marda
Reposted from Off Topics 
/ Marda 