Learning by Doing to Enable Learning for Life

Colin AshurstNUBS

Management…

“the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives”

Birkinshaw, 2010; p10 (Reinventing Management)

The craft of management

Craft

ArtScience

Management…

“is a practice, learned primarily through experience, and rooted in context”

Mintzberg, 2011; p6 (Management)

The Craftsman Richard Sennett

Penguin Books (2009)

All craftsmanship is founded on skill developed to a high degree… about 10,000 hours of experience are required to produce a master carpenter or musician (p20)

Changing perspectives

‘a computer on every desk and in every home’

BUILDING ENGAGEMENTExamples

Induction

MA Management

Induction

239 students

2 half days

Focus on employability

Challenges

Management into Action

The theory and practice of management

Becoming a manager

Management into Action

‘Workshop 1’: two Fridays at the start of term

• Recreating a classic piece of management research

Management into Action

• Day 1: focus on skills for management including networking

• Plan the research project

• Day 2: groups present back on research project• Plan assignment 1

Consulting module

3 lectures & seminars >>>> 3 tutorials – action learning sets

Management into Action: Innovation Challenge

3 day workshop (June)

Real world group projects

Assessed presentations on day 3 to sponsors

Thank you

Questions?

Questions

• How can we embed skills development across a programme?

• How can we ensure consistency in approach and progression?

• The carpenter, lab technician and conductor are all craftsmen because they are dedicated to good work for its own sake. … their labour is not simply a means to another end (20)

• Impact of separating ‘head and hand, technique and science, art and craft’ (20)

Enterprise

“Enterprise is making things happen, having ideas and doing something about them, taking advantage of the opportunity, and bringing about change”.

Paul Kearney, Scottish Enterprise, 1994

Learning by Doing to Enable Learning for Life

• The session provides examples of activities to engage with business school undergraduate and postgraduate (pre-experience / taught) students. In all cases the intention was to build student engagement in learning, and as a result to help them develop their skills and to enable learning for life. All the ideas have a foundation in the idea that management is a craft and that effective management is in essence a set of skills (teamwork, communication etc) as set out in the graduate skills framework. This perspective draws on many sources including work by Mintzberg (Managers NOT MBAs, 2004) The examples are drawn from induction and three different modules. They are presented simply as examples of learning by doing to enable learning for life.