Education for Business

Education for Business IStanley F. Teele John F. Chapman The wave of economic and social change that has swept the United States and much of the world since World War II has already made it clear that the practice of management, if it is to be effectively carried on in the years ahead of us, is bound to undergo profound alteration. The explosive growth of population with its dramatic repercussions on our way of living, the breathtaking speed and scope of technological change, and now the inevitable swing to automation with all of its complex requirements for precise, long-range planning: these demand of tomorrow's executive a different type of background and skills than those to which we are accustomed. But what kind of background? And what skills? Who is prepared now to write the job description for the president of a steel mill in 1975? Or for the marketing director of a shoe factory? What will he need to know? What will he need to be able to do? What new concepts must he have in order to grasp the vastly enlarged scope of his business? No one, either in the academic or.in the business world, has precise answers to these questions yet, but the acute awareness of the problem in recent years is responsible for the feverish attention paid to the subject. Frederick Lewis Allen, writing in Life in 1953, stated neatly the complicated nature of the new executive requirements which need urgently to be recognized: The corporation executive today must be the captain of a smooth-working team of people who can decide whether the time has come to build a new polymerization plant, what the answer is to the unsatisfactory employee relations in a given unit of the business, how to cope with a new government regulation, how to achieve a mutually respectful understanding with union representatives and what position to take on price increases in order to maintain the good-will of the public. In short, he is confronted with so many questions which require knowledge, intellectual subtlety, political insight and human flexibility that he desperately needs a mental equipment of the sort that the old·time tycoon could do without. 536 STANLEY F. TEELE & JOHN F. CHAPMAN The challenge posed by Mr. Allen has already been acknowledged by both the business and the academic worlds. Throughout the business community, there is widespread recognition that tomorrow's executive must be able to move surely from policy to action in situations that will be different from anything any generation has experienced before. He must be able in quick succession to reach sound decisions relating to a new scientific development, a problem in government relations, and a new pricing programme. He must be able, as Crawford H. Greenewalt, president of du Pont, has observed, "to create a harmonious whole out of what the academic world calls dissimilar disciplines." Other industrial leaders have spelled out in more detail what Mr. Greenewalt only hinted at. Perhaps the best statement of all these opinions is provided by Gilbert W. Chapman, president of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company and one of the most thoughtful analysts of the problem of our future managers. In a recent talk to Goddard College students, he declared: To meet the challenge of industry's new responsibility in the world of today requires a cultivation of mind and outlook that must come from the educational institutions of OUf land. My undergraduate days were spent in a school of engineering. After four years of this highly specialized training. I immediately began my business career in an American corporation. Since that time, it has become increasingly apparent to me that the problems of an executive become less specialized and more general or basic as the man advances toward the top. The specialist cannot function effectively at the top level of management if all he brings to it is his specialty. At that level, the daily problems call for broad general knowledge, open-mindedness, an understanding of human nature, an insight into human frailties, a fairness of mind, a clarity of thought-all these beyond the ordinary knowledge of a complex business problem. There must be an intellectual cultivation through...