{"id":1118,"date":"2008-01-22T09:47:07","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T17:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2008\/01\/systematizing_innovation_or_th\/"},"modified":"2008-01-22T09:47:07","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T17:47:07","slug":"systematizing_innovation_or_th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/systematizing_innovation_or_th.php","title":{"rendered":"Systematizing innovation, or the future of the B-School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I live daily at the intersection of cultural enterprise and higher education, I’m always pleased to hear that the two are mutually exclusive. Knowing my chosen environment (a business school<\/a>) is contrary to my espoused value (innovative leadership of expressive endeavor<\/a>) is both a personal badge of honor, and an extraordinary opportunity to blame my limited impact on external forces. Think Sisyphus<\/a> meets slacktivist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s particularly fun when really smart people engage the cause, as Grant McCracken does in his recent post<\/a>. Says he:<\/p>\n


\nIf the first business of business is innovation, the first task of management reinventing the corporation continually, the first order of problem solving broad and powerful pattern recognition, the ”b-school” will not serve us. We know at a minimum that b-schools do not confer the cultural literacy, the intellectual foundations, or the conceptual tools that capitalism now prizes and requires.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a result, McCracken has been mulling alternatives to business schools, among the more compelling being his Bloggers Business School<\/a> [which brought to mind Seth Godin’s New Order Business School (NoBS)<\/a>, or Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA Manifesto<\/a>].<\/p>\n

As we all ponder the preparation and continuing development of cultural managers, it’s a topic I’m eager and anxious to engage. I’ll be first to admit that business schools specifically, and higher education in general, have lots of baggage and structural flaws blocking the effective development of innovative, responsive, and reflective leaders. But I also hold the opinion, perhaps self-serving, that such environments hold unique potential for engaging the issue.<\/p>\n

The fun lies in releasing that potential while navigating the barriers. I can’t promise that the program I direct<\/a> will succeed in that endeavor (since, as McCracken states, we are not structured to succeed). But we’ll give it a positive try, nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Thanks to George for the link!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I live daily at the intersection of cultural enterprise and higher education, I’m always pleased to hear that the two are mutually exclusive. Knowing my chosen environment (a business school) is contrary to my espoused value (innovative leadership of expressive endeavor) is both a personal badge of honor, and an extraordinary opportunity to blame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}