David Schmittlein is full of surprises. It is easy to think that, as the newly appointed dean of MIT Sloan, and formerly a professor at the Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania, he may have a US-centric view of management education. Not so. While the top US schools promote the two-year MBA as the gold standard, he has different views.

“The future of management education is not the future of the MBA,” he says – a statement that would horrify most of his US peers, as he well knows. “I would like to be the first North American school that gets this,” he adds.

It is perhaps not surprising that MIT Sloan should be the first of the top US business schools to argue there is more to life than the MBA. Sloan has a small undergraduate programme and the Sloan Fellows programme, a full-time, one-year course for seasoned managers.

For Prof Schmittlein, there should be an appropriate programme for managers at every point in their careers. “We will be driven by growth in the number of programmes [we offer], not by a bigger MBA.” True to his word, he intends to launch a one-year masters programme in management – similar to many offered in Europe – for those who have just finished an undergraduate programme. The school has already announced that it will launch a specialised masters degree in finance and more specialised masters look set to follow.

As to the MBA itself, he believes this will form a critical tool for people in their late 20s who want to change careers. With this in mind, the school is reducing the core of the MBA – the first part of the programme that all students study together – to a single semester. This would be heresy in a more traditional MBA programme, but Prof Schmittlein is unrepentant. “In the backrooms, no one really believes that they need a one-year [core] course.”

This will enable Sloan to offer more focused elective tracks to suit students' individual needs. “People who come to Sloan come for just four or five things,” he says – finance or strategy, for example.

But cutting the MBA to a one-year programme is not on the cards. “The reason that the MBA is two years is because people want to accomplish a thoughtful career transition,” he maintains.

Perhaps even more surprisingly for MIT, which is often viewed as a highly technical university, practical application is to be the order of the day at Sloan. It is a mantra that many business schools recite but few implement. “Creating and managing great projects is the best way to learn management concepts as well as management practice, but it's incredibly hard to do,” says Prof Schmittlein.

MIT Sloan is one of the schools that already does this best, he believes. “We do more project-based learning than any other leading school,” he says (see right).

After 26 years at the Wharton school, most latterly as deputy dean, Prof Schmittlein is well attuned to what the US business world is thinking and he believes there are convulsive changes afoot on business leaders' agendas. Twenty years ago the global supply chain was the all-consuming problem. Ten years ago, e-commerce was the biggest threat – and opportunity. Today, business leaders are worried about two issues, he says: sustainability and what this means for their companies, and how to compete in a “flat” world – how to form partnerships.

These produce specific challenges for Sloan students. “It's not a story of 28-year-olds trying to save the world. It's a story of managing in times of cataclysmic change. It's about what our students do and need to say when they get into these organisations. They are expected to have something to say about this.”

The new dean is beginning to show his colours as a seasoned marketing professor. Telling the world about Sloan students and publicising the school are top of his agenda: “There is not enough visibility that there is a school of management [at MIT]. What does it mean within this distinct university? What's great about MIT as a school of management?”

While many top business schools – Harvard and Stanford to name just two – are working hard to get other university departments, such as engineering or medicine, to work with them in offering joint courses, this is second nature to Sloan. “Our graduates are close to graduates from other departments,” explains Prof Schmittlein. “The school needs to be relevant to them at different times.” The university's much-copied MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, in which students from all departments work together on business ideas, is perhaps the most prominent practical example.

What has helped Sloan master these relationships and its speedy curriculum changes has been its relatively small size. With about 100 faculty and 400 MBA students, it is less than half the size of Wharton or Harvard. The dean expects the number of faculty and programmes – though not the number of students on the full-time MBA programme – to grow. “We're just above being too small and we're not close to being too big,” as he diplomatically phrases it.

With a continued and strong focus on research, it is an agenda that is well-pitched to unite the Sloan faculty. As Prof Schmittlein puts it: “I would like us to recapture the intellectual high ground.”
  
大衛(wèi)•施米特萊因(David Schmittlein)總是讓人出乎意料。他曾任賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)(University of Pennsylvania)沃頓商學(xué)院(Wharton school)教授，最近被任命為麻省理工學(xué)院(MIT)斯隆管理學(xué)院(Sloan)院長。這種經(jīng)歷很容易使人認(rèn)為，他對(duì)于管理學(xué)教育有一種以美國為中心的觀點(diǎn)。事實(shí)卻并非如此。正當(dāng)美國頂尖商學(xué)院將兩年制工商管理碩士(MBA)課程作為黃金標(biāo)準(zhǔn)加以推廣時(shí)，他卻有不同看法。

“MBA的未來并不代表管理教育的未來，”施米特萊因表示。他知道，這一斷言足以震驚他的美國同行。他補(bǔ)充表示：“我們希望成為第一所意識(shí)到這點(diǎn)的北美商學(xué)院。”

斯隆管理學(xué)院成為美國第一所宣稱“MBA并非生活全部”的商學(xué)院，也許并不令人意外。斯隆管理學(xué)院擁有一個(gè)小規(guī)模本科項(xiàng)目，以及斯隆學(xué)者課程(the Sloan Fellows programme)——為資深經(jīng)理人準(zhǔn)備的一年期全日制課程。

施米特萊因認(rèn)為，應(yīng)該為處于職業(yè)不同階段的經(jīng)理人提供適合的課程。“鞭策我們前進(jìn)的不是MBA規(guī)模的擴(kuò)大，而是課程的增加。”施米特萊因說到做到，他正準(zhǔn)備開設(shè)一個(gè)一年期管理學(xué)碩士項(xiàng)目——與歐洲許多項(xiàng)目類似，面向剛剛完成本科課程的學(xué)生。斯隆管理學(xué)院已經(jīng)宣布開設(shè)金融學(xué)碩士課程，今后肯定還會(huì)設(shè)立更多的專業(yè)化碩士課程。

關(guān)于MBA本身，施米特萊因認(rèn)為，對(duì)于那些年紀(jì)“奔三”、希望改變職業(yè)方向的人，MBA是重要工具。認(rèn)識(shí)到這一點(diǎn)后，斯隆管理學(xué)院將其MBA核心課程縮減至一學(xué)期，這些核心課程是整個(gè)項(xiàng)目的第一部分，也是所有學(xué)生的必修課。對(duì)于比較傳統(tǒng)的MBA項(xiàng)目來說，這簡直就是離經(jīng)叛道之舉，但施米特萊因毫無懺悔之意。“私底下，沒有人真正認(rèn)為他們需要修一年的（核心）課程。”

這樣做，使得斯隆管理學(xué)院能夠提供更多有針對(duì)性的選修課程，以滿足學(xué)生們的個(gè)人需求。“來斯隆學(xué)習(xí)的人只想學(xué)四五門課。”施米特萊因表示。比如金融或戰(zhàn)略學(xué)。

但是將MBA項(xiàng)目縮減為一年不太可能。施米特萊因認(rèn)為：“MBA需要兩年時(shí)間，是因?yàn)槿藗兿Ｍ�完成一個(gè)深思熟慮的職業(yè)轉(zhuǎn)變。”

也許更加令人吃驚的是，之前人們往往認(rèn)為麻省理工學(xué)院是一所高科技院校，但實(shí)際應(yīng)用將成為斯隆管理學(xué)院的準(zhǔn)則。很多商學(xué)院經(jīng)常將實(shí)際應(yīng)用掛在嘴邊，但很少能真正執(zhí)行。施米特萊因表示：“創(chuàng)立并管理優(yōu)秀的項(xiàng)目，是學(xué)習(xí)管理理念和管理實(shí)踐的最佳方法，但是這種方法執(zhí)行起來十分困難。”

他相信，斯隆管理學(xué)院是在這一點(diǎn)上做的最好的幾所商學(xué)院之一。“我們的項(xiàng)目實(shí)踐學(xué)習(xí)比其它任何主要商學(xué)院都要多，”他表示。

施米特萊因曾在沃頓商學(xué)院任職26年，最后的職務(wù)為副院長，因此，非常了解美國商界的想法。他認(rèn)為商業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的關(guān)注點(diǎn)將發(fā)生驚天動(dòng)地的變化。20年前，他們最關(guān)注的是全球供應(yīng)鏈問題，10年前，電子商務(wù)成為最大威脅——同時(shí)也是最大機(jī)遇。施米特萊因稱，今天，商業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者們最擔(dān)心兩個(gè)問題：可持續(xù)發(fā)展及其對(duì)自己企業(yè)的影響，以及如何在“平”的世界參與競爭——如何建立伙伴關(guān)系。

這一切給斯隆管理學(xué)院的學(xué)生們提出了特別挑戰(zhàn)。“這不是關(guān)于28歲的年輕人如何試圖拯救世界的故事，而是在大變革時(shí)期如何管理的故事，是關(guān)于我們的學(xué)生進(jìn)入這些機(jī)構(gòu)后能做些什么、需要說些什么。大家都期望他們對(duì)于這一點(diǎn)能有自己的想法。”

斯隆管理學(xué)院的這位新院長已經(jīng)開始展示他作為資深市場營銷學(xué)教授的獨(dú)特作風(fēng)。向世界介紹斯隆的學(xué)生并宣傳學(xué)校，是他的首要任務(wù)。“公眾對(duì)（麻省理工旗下的）管理學(xué)院的關(guān)注了解還不夠。在這所卓越的大學(xué)內(nèi)設(shè)立管理學(xué)院意味著什么？作為管理學(xué)院，麻省理工學(xué)院有何傲人之處？”

許多頂尖商學(xué)院正努力與其它學(xué)院合作——如工程學(xué)和醫(yī)學(xué)，以提供聯(lián)合課程，其中包括哈佛(Harvard)和斯坦福(Stanford)。但對(duì)于斯隆來說，這就如同它的第二天性。“我們的畢業(yè)生與其它學(xué)院的學(xué)生走得非常近，”施米特萊因解釋道。“斯隆管理學(xué)院在各個(gè)時(shí)期都需要與別的學(xué)院保持聯(lián)系。”麻省理工學(xué)院的“10萬美元?jiǎng)?chuàng)業(yè)大賽”(MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition)為許多學(xué)校所效仿。在大賽中，來自各個(gè)院系的學(xué)生齊心協(xié)力發(fā)展商業(yè)理念。這也許是商業(yè)實(shí)踐的最佳實(shí)例。

斯隆管理學(xué)院相對(duì)較小的規(guī)模，非常有助于它掌控這種聯(lián)系以及迅速改革課程。斯隆擁有約100名教職人員，400名MBA學(xué)生，還不到沃頓或哈佛的一半。院長施米特萊因希望學(xué)院的教職人員和課程項(xiàng)目能有所增加，但不是全日制MBA項(xiàng)目的學(xué)生數(shù)量。他的表達(dá)非常具有外交技巧：“我們的規(guī)模不算太小，也遠(yuǎn)算不上太大。”

通過持續(xù)側(cè)重學(xué)術(shù)研究，這樣的計(jì)劃非常有利于團(tuán)結(jié)斯隆的全體教員。正如施米特萊因所稱：“我希望斯隆管理學(xué)院能重奪智力的高地。”