The recognition of management as a discipline in its own right has, by and large, been a welcome development in business over the past 20 years. But it is dangerous for any organisation to rely too heavily on one management style or academic discipline, such as the MBA.

The MBA has been the qualification of the moment and the success of its promotion has led us to the point where other types of training are being overlooked or dismissed.

However, one model does not fit all. MBA graduates – while often brilliant at what they do – cannot be relied on to save the world on their own. MBAs can manage parts of an organisation but are not equipped with the full toolkit. Building a business that has the inherent strength to withstand a sudden economic downturn and to prosper in the longer term also needs more measured system thinking – the discipline of quality.

With its inbuilt focus on risk assessment, rigorous evaluation of new initiatives and continuous improvement, the quality approach has been considered rather a cautious one.

But in the current economic conditions, these less celebrated characteristics are being looked at afresh. We are now seeing the resilience of organisations which benefit from a culture where quality disciplines have been embedded at every level.

The value of the approach has been recognised in the UK public sector where quality measures are starting to supercede targets as an indicator of improvement. For example, the Health bill, which has its third reading in the UK parliament this month, will require health services providers to put together annual quality accounts that will be linked to funding.

However, there are still too few senior managers (or MBA teachers for that matter) who appreciate the benefit of quality training as espoused for example by members of the Chartered Quality Institute. Its members do not rely purely on the second-hand experience of the case study method – so often the focus in much of MBA teaching – but also understand the challenge of applying the theory in practice.

Quality professionals are trained to encourage the participation of every employee, meaning that incremental changes are introduced constantly, creating a dynamic and evolving culture. In turn this maximises the efficiency of the existing organisation and creates an environment not only used to change but also receptive to radical change when necessary.

Recent management culture has placed a huge reliance on key individuals brought in to implement significant change using their preferred business model. What businesses are now realising is that the most flexible organisations, the ones most able to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, are the ones that have created a quality based environment where evolution is part of the day-to-day culture. The most valued managers in this climate are likely therefore to be the ones equipped with a range of skills and techniques designed to create this environment.

This skill set involves some deeply unfashionable disciplines, such as risk assessment, evaluation of each and every process and an organisation-wide approach. These concepts run contrary to the current celebrity culture espoused by many who hold an MBA. In such a culture, individual managers focus only on delivering rapid results in their specific areas of responsibility (often encouraged by a hugely distorting bonus system) and are not encouraged to consider the health of the organisation as a whole.

MBAs have their part to play but too great an emphasis has been placed on this particular educational approach. Businesses would be much improved if they were able to appreciate the value of different types of training rather than assuming that there is one “cure-all” model.

Estelle Clark is group business assurance director, Lloyds Register Group and a member of the CQI board of directors