David L. Bradford Stanford University
The domain of Organizational Behavior requires attention to the acquisition of managerial competencies. Our field is unique in the business school curriculum because of its dependence on action skills. Accounting, Finance, Marketing and others do not have to concern themselves with problem-finding or implementation. Questions of "how do I obtain the information I need to solve this problem?" and "how do I get the solution implemented," although relevant to those other disciplines, are defined as "OB questions, not finance issues."
It is far easier to teach what to do than to develop the appropriate learning settings where students can learn how to do it. All of us have felt the frustration when students have equated the two; of assuming that their answer to a case ("all that Bob Knowlton has to do is confront his boss and Simon Fester") is the same as being able to carry it out. As faculty, we realize that there is many a slip between intention and action— especially by that particular student who lacks the skills to carry it out. (And then what is particularly galling, is his attitude that "this course is certainly easy, I can do all of this.") As faculty, we are all to aware of the complexity, difficulty and immense amount of skills needed to enact even the simple actions that students so easily suggest. "Just go in and find out what the problem is," "tell him that if he doesn't do the job, he will be in trouble," "you just have to negotiate tough to get what you want" all may be appropriate actions but useless unless they can be carried out. And then when we talk about how difficult these behaviors are, students either glaze over with boredom or nod in agreement knowing that it "certainlv is hard for others."
So in my teaching, I have always included skill training. This has ranged from in-class exercises and role-plays to using student teams whose tasks included skill development and peer feedback. Past articles in EXCHANGE have described similar approaches, even using skill training with large classes (Cohen, 1976; Michaelsen et al., 1982, for example). But given that I am committed to skill development, why do I have concerns about the "managerial competency movement? " I had misgivings at the special OBTS conference on "The Teaching of NonCognitive Skills" held in Cleveland, June 14-15, 1982, I had them last May at the OB Teaching Conference in formal and informal discussions with colleagues, and I had them in looking over the articles for this special issue. Yet in all cases, the presentations, the people, and these papers were of very high caliber. So where does my concern come from?
In reflecting on it, I think my worries stem from the problems that could arise if the teaching of managerial competencies was not well done. Even though the potential payoffs are great, so are the dangers. Certainly, there can be problems with any teaching, irrespective of the subject matter or the approach used, but the costs are greater when we talk about skill training. There are dangers to the student, to the faculty involved and to the field of organizational behavior. I think the potential difficulties come from three sources. First is how the teaching of managerial skills is framed vis-a-vis the rest of the business school. Even though there is effort to show the high degree of relevance of managerial competencies to the needs of the student, it would be easy for this area to be seen as outside of the main thrust of the school. To do so invites second-class status. The second potential problem comes from how the course is designed. The instructor is caught in a difficult dilemma in that the more the course is restructured to permit the teaching of skills, the greater the potential danger of it being defined as not appropriate. The third possible difficulty is with the skills, abilities (and motives) of the faculty who might be attracted to teaching in this area. The teaching of managerial competencies demands, I believe, a greater skill level than required in traditional courses.
An apology is first in order. Much of what I will talk about is surmise. I am not reacting to what I presently see with those teaching in this area. My concerns are partially triggered by what has occurred in related areas. One is the field of training and the second is the "experiential movement" of the early '60s and '70s—whose difficulties with execution seriously limited its potential. I do not mean to damn by association. More to say, can we learn from problems in related areas so that we can prevent their occurrence in the teaching of managerial skills.
Basically, the managerial competency movement goes against some core values of the university culture. "Hard is better than soft," "basic is better than applied," are two underlying biases of academia. Schools of business face this in relation to the academic departments elsewhere in the university (and often feel an inferiority complex in the comparison). There is a danger that the teaching of managerial skills could get caught in this value conflict. It is unfortunate that the AACSB initially made the distinction between "cognitive" and "noncognitive." The latter not only confers a lower status but is a contradiction in terms; no skills of any importance can be learned without having a cognitive component. But the problem is not that the AACSB used these labels; that did not cause the difficulty. Rather, that action by the AACSB merely reflected the larger reality of how "teaching managerial competencies" is likely to be seen.
In some schools, skill-based courses have been accepted by the faculty only if given on a "no- grade, no course-credit" basis. The argument is made that the course does not have sufficient academic substance to include it within the standard curriculum. How often will this conclusion be drawn just because the course has a skill development focus? Several years ago, I took over an experiential group course. To increase the quality of the learning, I added a reading list and obiective criteria for grades. One of my OB colleagues came up and thanked me for having "made the course more rigorous. " His concern was not whether the changes improved the education offered but how it would now be seen by his finance friends.
In addition to these values, a premise that underlies most of higher education (and is reflected in our grading policies) can be a source of contention. That is the assumption that "not all the students who are presently enrolled should be here and one of our jobs is to weed out the incompetent and the malingers." I once observed a heated argument in a faculty meeting where some members insisted that because we weren't flunking out many students, our standards must be too low. (No other evidence was presented that students weren't learning.) But what if we, in teaching managerial competencies, are able to get all of our students involved and are able to design the educational process so well that all of them achieve proficiency in these skills? I don't think that is a sign of low standards—I think that reflects our ability to motivate students, utilize peer pressure and design successful educational interventions.
Last year, I taught a course that turned out to be very successful; across the board, the work was of high quality and all students were very involved (due partly to peer pressure). They reported working harder than in any other course and by the assessments I took, they indeed did learn a great deal. I graded accordingly. A month later, I received a note from one of the Associate Deans expressing concern about my distribution and warning about "grade creep"—I wrote back explaining the situation and then asked in return if he wanted me to teach a lower quality course next time so that students wouldn't learn so much!
My answer was not the most diplomatic way to handle what is basically a systemic problem—most courses are based on the assumption that some students will learn and others won't, resulting in a normal distribution of grades. But given that we can design courses where the lower tail can largely be pushed up, perhaps the only way to satisfy the organization's need for a normal distribution is to raise our expectation of what excellent work is. The trouble with that solution is that our students, like workers in industrial situations, can justifiably complain that "once we make standard, management changes the piece-rate scale!"
What we are talking about are basically political issues. But casting the topic in those terms does not diminish their importance. Furthermore, these issues are of concern not only to the individual instructor teaching skill-based courses but to our entire field as well. Organizational Behavior generally does not have the highest status in a school. My point is that there may be some major costs if those involved in the managerial competence movement are labelled as teaching courses that are without academic substance, are seen more as "training" than as education, are thought to pander to students by entertaining them and to seek popularity by giving easy grades—just the sort of traps that many involved in experiential education fell into over a decade ago.
Some, but not all, of the problems mentioned above can be reduced if the course is appropriately designed. Part of design refers to the role of content. Truly, one cannot separate out cognitive from noncognitive as if it were possible to decorticate the learner. If managerial competencies are to be used well, they have to be embedded in a sophisticated conceptual model that tells when and how they are to be used (as well as times when the skills are not to be used). There are times to be open and times to play it close to one's chest; times to confront and times to go along, and times to collaborate and times to compete. Furthermore, there are many types of openness, confrontation, and competition. Thus even a skill-based course has to have a heavy component of theory. And this must be sophisticated theory—not the simplistic "five easy ways to . . ." or "the one-minute solution to ..."
But the problem is even more complicated than that. There is no one grand theory (will there ever be?) with all contingencies worked out. Furthermore, the future will present circumstances that can't be predicted when skills and concepts are learned in the classroom. So students will have to learn both multiple theories (to be able to look at the same issue from several perspectives) and to "learn how to learn"—to develop their own "theories" when in new situations. This is a tall order when one is trying to help all students become proficient in managerial skills.
So what will managerial competency courses be like? Will they stress the conceptual or only the skill? Will the concepts be sufficiently complex to show the contradictory evidence or so sanitized as to give definitive answers? Will the course promote divergent thinking or converge on a few "best ways?" The basic question is whether the course is to be truly educational or have only a training function. Clearly, I favor the former; more and more I find valid Kurt Lewin's statement that "there is noting as practical as a good theory. "
The other component of design involves how the course itself is structured. In academia we think there is something magical about the format of 10 or 15 weeks to a course, two (or three) class periods to a week, and 50 (or 105) minutes to a class period. This restricted format is perhaps appropriate to a traditional course but a hindrence, I find, in skill-based courses. Another asDect of structure is the role of the instructor. Is our job to impart knowledge (which is how most students and too many teachers define it) or is it to develop educational settings where learning can occur?
The more I try and integrate skill acquisition in my courses, the more I am pushed to rethink course structure and my function. In one course, we go away for an entire weekend. In another, we use four-hour chunks of time in the evening. In these courses, the formal class period is the least important part of the course. I would live to break out of these externally imposed constraints and have us divide the semester so that students take only two courses but for seven weeks each (as some innovative colleges have done). Furthermore, I am finding that my role is changing. More and more, my work is finished by the time the course starts—my effort has been spent in designing and structuring the educational experience, not in standing up in front of the class to "impart knowledge" (whatever that is).
But such modification in course structure further increases the strain with the larger organization. How much can one change the time parameters? How far can one go in redefining one's role (do you really dare to walk out of the classroom so that you don't interfere with the learning process?). Thus, for courses in managerial competence to be successful (without the instructor being seen as inconoclastic and destructive of the academic system) requires two sets of skills usually not found in our colleagues. One is to be innovative in course design so that structure follows function. The other is to do this within a system that, if anything, is becoming more conservative. If we are not innovative, will we be able to fully train managerial competencies? And if we can't do it within the system, will any innovations really last?
Teaching managerial competencies requires more of the instructor than does conducting a traditional course. In the latter, it might be desirable, but not necessary, to be able to "walk the talk" but that is crucial in a skill-based course. In a lecture course, one does not have to demonstrate interpersonal influence to teach the relevant research and theory or even be able to have students apply it in a case analysis. But when teaching a course on developing managerial competencies, in addition to needing knowledge of the subject matter, one also has to have the ability to enact it while teaching. How many of our colleagues personally have those skills? I think relatively few.
But even taking account of those teachers who can display the appropriate behavior, there can be problems in how they express it. Is the message that "my approach is only one of several ways to enact the skill" or is the subtle, or not so subtle, lesson that "this is THE way to do it?" Thus there is the danger of the "teacher-as-guru" where the instructor produces cloning, not learning. True managerial competence occurs only when the learner is able to integrate the new skill in with his/her own interpersonal style rather than mirroring the instructor.
One must also look at what motivates faculty to teach a managerial competencies course. Does that person feel inadequate in research and theory and seek to hide behind a structured set of exercises? Does that person want the personal approval of students and therefore entertains rather than educates? Does that person's needs for affiliation, power, or affirmation interfere with the teaching function? All of these reasons occurred too frequently with those attracted to the experiential education movement.
I am also worried about how the instructor will use power. Although faculty often feel that they do not have enough influence to accomplish what they want to do, we do have a great deal of power to punish, embarrass, and devalue students. It is one thing to say "you are not good in accounting" but far more damaging to label a student as "interpersonally incompetent" or "without managerial potential." Although few of us would normally make those statements, those messages can be sent under stressful conditions. Allan Cohen and I ran a workshop at the 1980 OB Teaching Conference on "Handling Student Incidents" where participants role-played how to handle classroom problems. How easy it was for people to want to retaliate when they felt themselves to be personally attacked (Bradford and Cohen, 1981).
As I mentioned in the beginning, I think there are significant down-side risks if the teaching of managerial skills is improperly handled. If special courses are set aside and labelled as "skill" courses (as contrasted to "theory" or "content" courses), a twotiered system results. The lesser status of the skill courses reflects negatively on the subject matter, on the instructor, and on the field. If, in addition, the teaching is inferior, the problem is compounded. If managerial skill courses attracts those faculty who do not know the research and theory and therefore teach a simplistic course, further damage is done. Certainly, there are poor teachers in all disciplines who use every pedigogical method. But when the method and content is traditional, it is the teacher who is criticized as inadequate; when the approach is outside of established areas, then the form tends to be attacked.
What are the alternatives? I think there are four ways we can minimize the problems described above and thereby deliver on the potential of the managerial competence movement. One solution is to increase the sophistication of the teaching methods used. The activities selected by the experiential education movement seriously hurt their credibility. "Lost on the Moon," tower-building exercises with Tinker-Toys, "hollow-squares" exercise with pieces of paper did not have face-validity to present and potential managers. Unfortunately, it takes time (and money) to develop complex videotapes, for example. And faculty are rarely rewarded for course development these days.
The second solution is to integrate theory with the skill training. Much of what we know from our research and theory is useful in skill acquisition and utilization. But making more of this conceptual domain can run into problems from both ourselves and our students. It is satisfying to "give answers," and teachers of managerial skill courses may be more susceptible to this tendency than those teaching research based courses. Our students may also resist conceptual input. Since their other courses have inundated them with facts and theories, skill-based courses may seem like a refreshing alternative. Thus teachers may get pressured from students to make this artificial cognitive/noncognitive split.
The third approach is to work with our colleagues who want to teach skill-based courses. While recognizing that one of the norms of academia is "my classroom is my castle," it is our field that suffers if faculty can't deliver quality education. This assistance to colleagues has to be on more than a peer counseling basis, it has to have institutional support. Many schools have Instructional Centers (although now endangered by budgetary cuts), but the field needs to think of other ways to develop faculty skills. (The OBTC is one example and the one-day program at the 1983 Academy of Management meeting on teaching OD is another.)
Finally, we need to guard against seeing the teaching of managerial competencies as the domain of a limited group of business school faculty. It would be dangerous to relegate it to a small subset of OB teachers, but it would also be unwise to restrict it to Organizational Behavior itself. Managerial skills should be the concern of faculty in accounting, finance, marketing, and the like. One of my colleagues in Decision Sciences said to me "the important problems that our students will face in data processing are all OB problems." Thus we need to make sure that skills around "how do you collect relevant information" and "how do you build collaboration between the system developer and the user" are handled in Decision Science courses and not just in an OB course labelled "managerial skills."
I think it is only with an awareness of the problems and using multiple approaches to the solution that we can make our students intellectually and behaviorally competent to do the job we send them out to do.
Bradford, D. L., and Cohen, A. R., "Responding to Student Challenges,"
EXCHANGE: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal. Vl(2B 1981. 20-26.
Cohen, A. R., "Beyond Simulation: Treating the Classroom as an Organization,"
The Teaching of Organization Behavior, 11(1), 1976. 13-19.
Michaelsen, L. K., Watson, W., Cragin, J. P., and Fink, L. D., "Team Learning: A
Potential Solution to the Problems of Large Classes," EXCHANCE: The Organizational
Behavior Teaching Journal. Vll(l). 1982. 13-22.