[photopress:Amir_Ziv.jpg,full,alignright]A business school symposium held in Tokyo had much relevance to China. U.S. business school educators spoke during a symposium in Tokyo, organized by Keizai Koho Center under the theme ‘Perspectives on management in a global context.’
Some opinions that were voiced have application to China.
Amir Ziv, a professor and vice dean at the Columbia Business School, observed that while business education appears to be flourishing in Japan as more and more universities open MBA programs, many executives at Japanese companies say an MBA degree is not highly valued and does not guarantee promotion.
He said Japanese managers may have an old, traditional view of business education that focused on the teaching of technical skills — which can in fact be taught by the companies themselves. That, he added, is only a part of business education today.
He said business education should be ‘education for life’ to ‘provide future managers or current managers with the skill that will be used throughout their career,’ adding that the skills that needed to be instilled in managers consist of three layers.
The first level is technical skills, or the ability to solve a given problem, and these are necessary but are not enough, he said.
The second layer — decision-making skill — is important but still not sufficient ‘because even if you’re making the best decisions, you have to make sure that people around you are following your decisions and agreeing to your decisions.’
Amir Ziv said this is why leadership, the third layer, needs to be taught at the business schools. ‘We teach them the skills of communication and persuasion . . . and how to make sure that people will follow them.’
Source: Japan Times