The Manchester Method: Overview of anEducationalinnovation

Operating within a social network

• And this, the way I speak. What name would be applied to it?

Prose

• It's prose?

• Decidedly

• Well, what do you know about that! These forty years now, I've been speaking in prose without knowing it! How grateful am I to you for teaching me that!

The Manchester Method

• A business education approach developed at Manchester Business School since the 1970s particularly within its MBA programs

• Learning is supported through projects of increasing reality and complexity

• The approach involves a community of practice• Claimed outcomes include leadership

development and contributions to management scholarship

Conceptual grounding

• Situated learning theories (Vygotsky, Revans)

• Systems theories (Beer; Mumford)

• Psycho-dynamics of groups (Tavistock)

• New leadership models (post-charismatic, distributive, social constructivist)

• (Emerging) social network concepts

Interpretation by MBA Class of 2007

EmotionalIntelligence

TeamworkCommunication

LeadershipDevelopment

Individual Psychology

Work Teams

Student Development

Brathay IB

Special Interest

Clubs and Societies

Live Projects

Student Skills Acquisition

Project1 Project 2

Complexity of challenges(MBA 2007)

Active responsibilityand ownership of learning

Introductoryproject

InternationalBusiness Project

Project 2

MBA Trajectory (2007 )

Example fromThe MBA (IntroductoryProject)

A typical introductory exercise

The elevator pitch. This is the challenge of communicating a new business idea in the time it takes to go up a few floors in an elevator (or lift!).

“You have around 60 seconds to sell your idea to someone who should be convinced by the time the lift doors open.

Your idea will be assessed by impact of your 60-second pitches at a gathering of financiers and entrepreneurs next week”

Manchester Method: A systems model of the community of learning

Manchester Method: A systems model of the community of learning

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TMBA

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L(s)L(s)

L(un)L(bn)

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Key: Individuals (I); Teams (T); Sponsor (S); Learning (L)

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Defining features of the approach

• The Manchester Method achieves a cascading of incremental innovations.

• These occur beyond the project teams within a ‘community of practice’

• Projects with an over-arching moral desirability (e.g. sustainability) support development of ethical leadership norms

Examples of Projects and Sponsors

• International Business assignments (20 each year)

• UNIDO Sustainability project• Association of Chief Police Officers

(Integration of communication centres)• Global Academy of Sport, (Manchester

United FC)• The University of Manchester outreach

mission (Business School Incubator)

Contributions to management knowledge (1970s-2000s)

• Organizational development and change (John Morris, Enid Mumford, Tom Lupton)

• Management cybernetics (Stafford Beer)

• Action learning applications (Reg Revans)

• R&D Management (Alan Pearson)

• Creativity and Leadership (Tudor Rickards, Susan Moger)

And the social networking?

• Emerging and situated learning

• Network activation processes

• Social Nettiquet principles

• Potential for renewal and development at individual, team, organizational and cultural levels

• Benign links among teaching, learning, researching, and co-existing

To go more deeply

• http://www.amazon.com/Achieving-Change-Systematic-Tom-Lupton/dp/0566025264

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Mumford• http://www.cybsoc.org/contacts/people-Beer.htm• http://www.selfmanagedlearning.org/Level1/

news30.htm• http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Creative-

Leaders-Tudor-Rickards/dp/0566080516• http://www.ejel.org/volume-2/vol2-issue1/issue1-

art23-drinkwater.pdf