Monkeys in Oslo 8. – 10.6.2008, Part 2: reflection
- Written by Henna Kaariainen
- Published in Archive, English
- Permalink
Reflections from the EFMD Annual Conference 2008
Does Management Education Really Matter?
Participating to the Excellence in Practice competition of EFMD (Europan Foundation of Management Development) lead us to Oslo to participate this very well managed seminar placed in Norwegian School of Management, BI.
Among the 18 competitioners, Solvay & Team Academy co-operation had been chosen to the final. Competitioners were mainly leading European Business Schools, that are ranked among the 50 best schools in Europe.
Actual competition between the three best practitioners was our test in the eyes of academics, since about 90 % of the conference participants were academic leaders. We did not win even though we were having an interesting show without a traditional power point and action in the end. Audience comments after the session came ”Your session was definetely the most interesting because I could not guess what comes next.” and ”From the very beginning I knew that you won’t win, but the message you have is very revolutionary and we need to listen it carefully.” Maybe the world of Management Educators is not yet ready to give up the power and empower the youth – even though the two keynotes of the seminar, Mrs. Gunn Waersted from Nordea and Peter Lorange who taught for example at Sloan Business School (M.I.T.) clearly said that it’s time for it.
In business schools in general 96 % of schools population is students, while as in Team Academy 98 % of the schools population is students. It’s time to involve this majority of young people into the discussion of Management Education, especially when the agenda is to think how should the education be like to meet todays needs. ”Where are your students?”, I asked from several Deans and Professors in the seminar. ”They are busy with studying.”, the answer came. Next question is, do they study for todays reality or for following the past good paths set by their teachers in conferences like this?
