Mintzberg is one of the co-founders of an alternative management program called the International Masters in Practicing Management (IMPM). In 2004 he published a book, Managers Not MBAs, in which he describes how prestigious MBA programs are damaging the management discipline by trying to teach the principles of good management as if it were a science.
“It’s not a science, it’s an art. It’s a craft based on experience,” Mintzberg says. “If you put people in a classroom who have no experience in management, they can’t really understand it. They end up teaching a lot of analytics and technique, which is fine, but it’s not management.”
The IMPM is a modular, international program based at McGill and four other B-schools around the world. It is different from an MBA, Mintzberg says, because it accepts a different type of student. And it’s different from an EMBA because it heavily emphasizes reflection.
To begin with, students are older on average than MBA students, and must have been working as managers for a while already. Because of the level of experience, says Dora Koop, managing director of the IMPM, participants learn from each other as well as from professors.