Stop Teaching

CHAPTER 4

The Scandinavian Rebels’ Initiative

In the late 1970s, a group of academics, consultants, and corporate managers came together in the south of Sweden to address a topic of common concern. The group felt that the way managers were being developed in business schools was not adequately preparing them for the demands of corporate life. They thought that the business world needed better-prepared leaders, not simply managers. The business school curricula abounded in theory about strategic planning, financial management, administration of personnel, and plant operations, but lacked a meaningful syllabus preparing students for successful leadership. Graduate programs were preparing managers, not leaders.¹ In a constructivist mode, they put ...