理想的實(shí)地工作

Harvard Business School reinvents its MBA course

哈佛商學(xué)院獨(dú)立創(chuàng)造它的 工商管理課程

YOUNG mums shopping in the Copley Mall in downtown Boston last month found themselves being questioned about their use of soap by students from Harvard Business School. The students were not doing odd jobs to earn beer money. They were preparing to help a firm in Brazil launch an antibacterial cleanser.

上個(gè)月年輕的媽媽們?cè)诓ㄊ款D市區(qū)Copley商場(chǎng)購(gòu)物時(shí),，發(fā)現(xiàn)哈佛商學(xué)院的學(xué)生們會(huì)問(wèn)她們使用香皂的問(wèn)題。學(xué)生們并不是在打零工掙點(diǎn)啤酒錢,。他們正準(zhǔn)備幫助一家巴西公司投放一種抗菌清潔劑,。

Fieldwork—ie, going out and talking to people—is a big change for HBS. Its students used to sit in a classroom and discuss case studies written by professors. Now they may also work in a developing country and launch a start-up. “Learning by doing” will become the norm, if a radical overhaul of the MBA curriculum succeeds.

例如走出課堂和人們交流這樣的實(shí)地考察工作是哈佛商學(xué)院的一個(gè)巨大變化。過(guò)去哈佛商學(xué)院的學(xué)生坐在教室里討論教授寫的個(gè)案分析?，F(xiàn)在他們也可以去發(fā)展中國(guó)家工作或者創(chuàng)辦一個(gè)公司,。如果對(duì)MBA課程成功與否來(lái)個(gè)徹底檢查，那么“通過(guò)實(shí)踐來(lái)學(xué)習(xí)”將成為標(biāo)準(zhǔn),。

The 900 students arriving in Boston this summer for their two-year course were told they would be guinea pigs. The new practical addition to HBS’s curriculum is known as “FIELD” (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development). Not all the staff and students are overjoyed to be experimented on. But the man responsible, Nitin Nohria, who became dean of HBS in July 2010, says that “if it works, the FIELD method could become an equal partner to the case method.”

這個(gè)夏天900名學(xué)生來(lái)到波士頓開(kāi)始他們?yōu)槠趦赡甑膶W(xué)習(xí),，被告知他們將成為這項(xiàng)嘗試的“小白鼠”。新添加在哈佛商學(xué)院課程里的實(shí)踐被稱為“FIELD”(領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力培養(yǎng)的實(shí)地浸入體驗(yàn)),。并不是所有的教員和學(xué)生都對(duì)這項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)表示歡迎,。但是這個(gè)項(xiàng)目的負(fù)責(zé)人，也就是2010年當(dāng)選哈佛商學(xué)院院長(zhǎng)的Nitin Nohria說(shuō),，如果這項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)成功,，那么FIELD將成為與個(gè)案研究同等重要的學(xué)習(xí)。

Long before he became dean, Mr Nohria lamented the failure of business schools to fulfil their mission of turning management into a profession similar to law or medicine. Asked what should be expected from someone with an MBA, he replies that “obviously, they should master a body of knowledge. But we should also expect them to apply that knowledge with some measure of judgment.” MBA students have long been sent on summer internships with prospective employers, but HBS, like most business schools, did little else to help them with the practical application of management studies.

早在成為院長(zhǎng)之前,，Nohria對(duì)商學(xué)院沒(méi)有完成將管理轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)轭愃品苫蜥t(yī)學(xué)成為一門職業(yè)而痛心,。當(dāng)被問(wèn)到對(duì)一個(gè)獲得MBA學(xué)位的人有什么期望時(shí)，他回答說(shuō)“很明顯,，他們要掌握很多方面的知識(shí),。但我們也應(yīng)該期待他們通過(guò)判斷力來(lái)運(yùn)用那些知識(shí)”MBA學(xué)生長(zhǎng)期被送去潛在雇主那進(jìn)行夏天實(shí)習(xí)，除此之外,，和大多數(shù)商學(xué)院一樣,，哈佛商學(xué)院沒(méi)給學(xué)生其他幫助實(shí)踐管理學(xué)的學(xué)習(xí)。

What happens in the second year of the new course is still being worked out. But the first year has three elements. First, team-building exercises. Students take turns to lead a group engaged in a project such as designing an “eco-friendly sculpture”. They learn to collaborate and to give and take feedback. These exercises are loosely based on ones used in the US army.

新課程的第二學(xué)年課程還沒(méi)確定,。但是第一學(xué)年的課程有三部分,。第一部分：訓(xùn)練團(tuán)隊(duì)建設(shè)。學(xué)生輪流領(lǐng)導(dǎo)團(tuán)隊(duì)參加到項(xiàng)目中比如設(shè)計(jì)一個(gè)“生態(tài)友好的雕塑”,。他們學(xué)著合作,，提出采納反饋。這些練習(xí)都基于用在美國(guó)軍隊(duì)的訓(xùn)練,。

Second, students will be sent to work for a week with one of more than 140 firms in 11 countries. Already the new intake have had conference calls with these companies, ranging from the Brazilian soapmaker to a Chinese property firm, and gone off-campus to conduct product-development “dashes” like the one in Copley Mall. This sort of structured learning-by-doing is a world away from HBS’s traditional encouragement of students to “go on an adventure” outside of classes.

第二部分,，學(xué)生將被送到11個(gè)國(guó)家超過(guò)140家公司之一去工作。新生已經(jīng)與這些公司進(jìn)行電話會(huì)議,，范圍包括巴西的的香皂加工廠和中國(guó)的房地產(chǎn)公司,，然后走出校園，指導(dǎo)產(chǎn)品研發(fā),，像到在Copley商場(chǎng)里面訪,。這樣的實(shí)踐學(xué)習(xí)是不同于哈佛商學(xué)院傳統(tǒng)的鼓勵(lì)學(xué)生走出課堂“去外面探險(xiǎn)”。

In the third novel part of the course, students will be given eight weeks, and seed money of $3,000 each, to launch a small company. The most successful, as voted by their fellow students, will get more funding. It remains to be seen if this amounts to much more than a souped-up business-plan competition, though Mr Nohria says he hopes some real businesses will be created. (If only HBS had thought of this when Bill Gates was thinking of starting Microsoft, or Mark Zuckerberg was creating Facebook—perhaps the school would have received shares in those firms.)

課程的第三部分,，學(xué)生將有8周時(shí)間,，每人用3000美元?jiǎng)?chuàng)業(yè)基金創(chuàng)辦一家小公司。由學(xué)生投票選出最成功的那位將獲得更多的基金,。這是不是僅是個(gè)更大的商業(yè)計(jì)劃大賽還有待觀察,，盡管Nohria說(shuō)他希望看到真正的企業(yè)會(huì)被創(chuàng)造出來(lái),。（如果哈佛商學(xué)院在比爾·蓋茨創(chuàng)辦微軟或者馬克·扎克伯格創(chuàng)辦臉譜網(wǎng)站時(shí)想到這種方式，也許商學(xué)院會(huì)從這些公司中得到股份了）

It is unclear how much the one-week working assignments will achieve. Pankaj Ghemawat, a management guru, says “the literature suggests that an immersion experience needs to be at least 2-3 weeks and be backed up with time in the classroom.” The HBS students’ classroom preparation will have to be pretty thorough, then, to make up for the brevity of their field trips. Moreover, some of the HBS alumni who have agreed to offer work experience at their firms say they are unsure what meaningful work they can offer the students.

現(xiàn)在還不清楚一星期的工作任務(wù)有多少,。一位管理學(xué)大師的Pankaj Ghemawat說(shuō),，“研究資料建議一個(gè)浸入式體驗(yàn)學(xué)習(xí)需要至少2到3周，還需要輔以課堂教學(xué)”哈佛商學(xué)院學(xué)生的課堂學(xué)習(xí)準(zhǔn)備將會(huì)做的充分,，來(lái)補(bǔ)償他們短暫的實(shí)地學(xué)習(xí),。并且一些哈佛商學(xué)院校友已經(jīng)同意在他們的公司提供職位，但他們并不確定提供給學(xué)生的工作會(huì)有多大的意思,。

Privately, some faculty members are sceptical that all this change will be worthwhile. In January, the vote in favour of trying the field method was “as enthusiastic as you could get from a faculty,” says Mr Nohria, wryly. He wisely ensured that ownership of the idea was widely spread by delegating design of the new curriculum to several faculty committees. The vote gave the go-ahead to run a “delicate experiment for 3-5 years to see if we can move the needle”, he says, compared with the 13 years it took to develop the case method into more or less what it is today.

私下里,，一些教員懷疑這些改變是否有價(jià)值。一月份,，投票支持實(shí)地教學(xué)方法是“你能從教員里能得到的熱情”,，Nohria諷刺的說(shuō)。他明智地保證這個(gè)課程創(chuàng)新想法的所有權(quán)將通過(guò)一些教員委員會(huì)被大范圍的傳播,。他說(shuō)投票同意“進(jìn)行3到5年實(shí)驗(yàn),，要看下是否有效果”，而個(gè)案研究方法用了13年才發(fā)展成型,。

The experiment does not come cheap, adding 10-15% to the course’s cost (students pay at least $84,000 a year), which HBS will bear while it figures out what works. A lot is at stake. For where Harvard leads, other universities may follow.