According to an article in Wall Street Journal yesterday, MBA programs are increasingly emphasizing the "soft skills" of management -- listening, teamwork, and the ability to communicate. Traditionally, most schools have emphasized the "hard" management skills such as finance and strategy. Hard skills alone leads to low productivity, whereas soft skills alone leads might not give you a useful result.
Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Miles Davis (mid 60's)
When outsourcing and automation has taken away everything but the most complex tasks, competitive advantage can only be derived by enhancing the producitivity of experts (see McKinseys article on this subject).
According to the article in WSJ:
The schools are responding to employers' growing interest in soft skills. Executive suites are increasingly composed of managers running far-flung operations who must attract and retain knowledgeable workers. That puts a premium on skills such as communicating and brokering compromises, says Warren Bennis, a professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and author of a best-selling book on leadership.
One thing the article does not mention is how the compression of time impacts teamwork.
My answer is of course to learn from jazzmusicians:
- Enhance your existing improvisational skills ( a fast and flexible approach)
- Enhance your listening by focusing less on your own task -- simplify!
- Make sure your task match your expertise (do the right thing/do things right)
- Build teams with complimentary skills and a shared understanding of goal and strategy
- Help others by improving your communication
- Develop simple, flexible shared processess
Training experts in collaboration and communication can greatly enhance their producitivty.
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