Irving Wladawsky-BergerのMIT講義に期待する

毎週注目するBlogの一つがIrving Wladawsky-BergerのBlog。わたしのBlogの右下にも、毎日見ているBlogとして掲載している。IBMを6月に退社後、MITの教授に就任したが、この9月秋学期からいよいよTechnology-based Business Transformationという講義を始めるらしい。最新のBlog記事からの抜粋は以下の通り。

Over the last few months I have been thinking a lot about leadership skills in anticipation of the graduate seminar I am teaching at MIT this Fall - Technology-based Business Transformation. In this course, I want to examine how to leverage disruptive innovations to significantly transform a business or even a whole industry. I want to focus, in particular, on what a company has to do when faced with a disruptive innovation so that it becomes the disruptor rather than the disruptee.

The course started last week. At our first meeting, I told the students that the overriding objective of this course is to develop or enhance their leadership skills so they can better deal with complex systems, complex markets and complex organizations. This entails a subtle balance of at least three kinds of skills - technical, management and social or people-oriented skills.

Can leadership skills be taught, or are these things that you are born with - you either have them or you don’t? If they can be acquired, how do you develop such skills? Each of us is better at some things and less good at others, but we can always improve our talents in a given area if we work hard at it. This applies to leadership as well.

先に紹介したクリステンセン・ハーバード大学教授やIBM元会長のガースナーの本が教科書に指定されている。どんな講義になるのか楽しみだし、彼のBlogにも内容が公開されることを期待したい。