The Future of Customized Executive Education

It's interesting to see politics framed in the negative, as in 'politicking.' Politics cannot be purged of negativity, and I'm not attempting some utopian conception of the term. Stating ones concerns over power, control and inclusion in national and international public affairs involves one in active opposition. Leadership & management are the imposition of one's concerns on others, and therefore cannot avoid antagonisms. Education is therefore also political, leadership education doubly so.

Conflating 'politics' with 'seediness' betrays a faith in an unsullied form of supra-political engagement: one that transcends corruption. If one believes that underhand practices must be countered by forces of accountability, transparency and inclusive deliberation, then ones attention is still in the realm of politics. Recognizing the error of inculcating 'seediness of style' is the embodiment of a political conception of leadership education. But beware of an apolitical negation of antagonism

I suppose my view on political is slightly negative. The literature clearly states that as soon as you manage in an organisation you are in a political environment and that if you don't engage politically with it you will eventually fail in any attempt to influence people. Unfortunately I can't shed the feeling that politics is negative in some way especially if it is concentrated on to the exclusion of all other organisational activities.

Yes: there is a technically oriented, interpersonal ineptitude that ends in reduced influence. But beyond a shortfall in technical skill, there is a more worrying lack of understanding about the purposes that that influence serves. Whether managers only serve the interests of shareholders, or whether they recognize their role in affecting a wider social good, requires a more mature appreciation of the Political. Is this technical political ineptitude or a morality-oriented Political delinquency?

I'm not talking about educating 'for' the future but educating 'in' it -- ten, twenty years from now. A scenario we may need to plan for is one where the dissemination of knowledge, and the application of that knowledge, is no longer an appropriate model for business. Who is customizing what? It would seem that you still see a mediating class of the learned supplying this knowledge. Retreating into such anachronistic passivity appears less than customized for business, and certainly a-political.