Responsible management by MBAs

Over the last few months, I have been horrified by the amount of adverse publicity MBAs have received for supposedly playing a major role in bringing the world to its current state of economic downturn. Apparently the MBA education is primary reason why the world has come to standstill - the MBA curriculum focusses excessively on analytical skills at the cost of value based management, it encourages greed and finally, it does not train MBAs in critical thinking/risk analysis. There has been enough debate - in favour of as well as against MBA education.

In my view, however, far less debate has taken place on the concept of responsible management within corporations - I am not talking about reponsible management at the board level, or even responsible management by the organization as an 'entity' - CSR initiatives have seen to it that organizations as an entity and the board act in responsbile fashion - atleast in public. I am talking about responsible management at micro-level ie the level of a middle manager in a large organization, who may or may not hold an MBA degree and who form the backbone of any large industrial or services entity.

If business schools are taking flak for not teaching 'responsible management', should the corporations not take the same amount of flak for not promoting 'responsible management'? This would mean the human resources, training & development and indeed the entire performance management at middle level should take responsibility for churning out CEOs and board members that we see today - after all, if the argument is what is taught in the MBA class room has significant impact on how an individual behaves 10-20 years later as CEO, then surely what the individual learns as a middle manager in an organization should have far greater impact on how he behaves as a CEO.

To me, responsible management encompasses just three parameters - responsibility towards environment, responsibility towards the local society that the individual operates in and finally, shunning a behaviour of excessive personal greed. I also differentiate between the behaviour of a corporation and the behaviour of individuals within that organization. Till we generate a healthy debate on how we measure the performance of an organization in encouraging & promoting responsible management at an individual level, we will continue to have individuals who will abuse their position. While this does not relieve business schools of their own responsibility, the act of measuring responsibility does not just stop with the business schools.

Perhaps a starting point could be a 'Responsible management' accreditation that the organizations have to submit to - just the way most of the leading business schools in the world submit to. Over time, this accreditation could distinguish responsible corporations from the others - by defining & identifying how their micro-units (ie individuals) behave, and hopefully will allow such corporations to be more competitive in attracting and retaining talent, while meeting the needs of their shareholders.