We use field studies in all our modules, but in a particular way: Participants visit the local operations of the companies represented in the class. These are not passive tours, but active investigations, on a subject related to the module, for example, a “cultural audit” at BT in the first module or probing into change processes at Lufthansa in the last one.
Except for the first module, the participants from the company are responsible for setting up the studies (but not for accompanying their colleagues; they go to another company); they decide the issue to be studied, associated with the mindset of the module, divide the class into groups of about five to investigate the issue in various parts of the company (prefer-ably what we call high and low, from senior management to ground operations), organize these investigations, and brief the class on all this.
The groups go out for one full day. The next morning, all those that have been to a particular company get together to consolidate their findings, which are presented to the class in the afternoon, followed by open discussion, including reactions of the participants from those companies.
These presentations seem to work best when they are not too polished. We don’t need PowerPoint any more than executive summaries. We need to get the interesting findings out, to stimulate free-wheeling discussion. The intention here is not to prescribe change but to offer descriptive insights. In other words, these should be seen as thoughtful inquiries, not consulting studies, that add to the weaving together of the module’s activities. Besides, how often can a manager get comments from trusted colleagues on his or her situation, with no axes to grind, nothing to sell, no authority figure to impress?
I mentioned in Chapter 8 my surprise at how well the one-day visits to colleagues’ companies worked in the short courses developed by Sumantra Ghoshal at Insead. This is what inspired our field studies, and, again, I find it quite remarkable how well they work. Participants from the companies frequently praise the insightfulness of their colleagues’ comments, while people interviewed back in the companies often comment on how much they learned simply from the questions they were asked. “Why don’t we ask each other those simple questions?” one Matsushita manager remarked.
These field studies may seem like case studies, but they have several key differences: The experiences are visual and can be visceral, not just verbal—the participants are out there, on site; they have already come to know the companies through their colleagues; and these colleagues, who have lived these “cases,” can take them to a deeper level. I recall one BT manager who visited a call center at the Royal Bank of Canada telling the class that his own job was to help set up such centers for BT clients, but never had he seen one that had been designed around the behavioral factors first, followed by the technological factors. He was impressed! The manager of that call center, a participant in the class, sat there beaming! To repeat a point that bears repeating, experienced managers have a great deal to learn from each other’s experiences.
Excerpted from ‘Managers not MBAs’ by Henry Mintzberg Page – 297-298