Bashing Business Schools, What To Do
September 4, 2008
In my book “Simple Stories for Leadership Insights”, which was published in late 2005, I expressed a criticism of business schools –
This Business School-Media-Corporate complex seems to have engaged in a group think of enormous proportions—professors, consultants, journalists, students and executives all feeding on their own diets of best practices, theories and what defines leadership.
- Business schools taught Ethics as a sideline.
- Many companies have lofty Mission Statements and Operating Practices statements that address ethics, but do little to enforce them.
- Journalists give interviews to glitzy executives who brag about what they are doing to improve profits.
- Executives courted Wall Street analysts who might improve their stock ratings.
Earlier that year, leadership doyen Warren Bennis (one of today’s most influential leadership thought leaders) and James O’Toole published their critique of business schools –
Too focused on “scientific” research, business schools are hiring professors with limited real-world experience and graduating students who are ill equipped to wrangle with complex, unquantifiable issues in other words, the stuff of management. “How Business Schools Lost Their Way”, Harvard Business Review May 2005
You would think that by 2008 business schools would get the message, but Peter Navarro, business professor at the University of California at Irvine, wrote in the April 22, 2008 issue of BusinessWeek
The more things change in the global business environment, the more U.S. business schools stay the same.
He chronciled the results of his survey of the curricula of the top 50 U.S. business schools–
“…three major features of the ideal MBA curriculum—”…soft skill development, corporate social responsibility, and a global perspective—continue to get short shrift.” Leadership courses are also not featured and graduates are typically placed in leadership positions. This is troubling to business since many companies indicate they have significant gaps in their leadership pipeline.
SOME SOLUTIONS
There is an organization that is trying address the business schools shortcomings in the soft skills. It is the Aspen Institute and their innovative website BeyondGreyPinstripes, “Through dialogues and path-breaking research, we create opportunities for executives and educators to explore new pathways to sustainability and values-based leadership.” Business School deans should visit Aspen’s Teaching Innovation Program “Members of the network are each seeking to build the capacity of today’s MBA students to navigate the complex social, environmental, and ethical challenges of business.”
Additional suggestions to improve business schools curricula–
- Go to BeyondGreyPinstripes and do a search on Ethics, you will find many articles, syllabi and references on how to teach Ethics
- Visit some of our posts such as Watch Movies, Learn Leadership movies combined with case studies are an excellent way to teach leadership skills
- Another of our posts Why Business Needs The Arts describes how the liberal and performing arts are used by companies to deal with a variety of issues.
- Learn about how Babson added creativity to its MBA curriculum.
- A best practice is corporate-university collaboration.
Business schools no longer have a monopoly in business education. There are an increasing number of competitors. If business schools are to remain relevant they must adapt to the future otherwise–
If you don’t take the future sufficiently into account, may find that you wake up one day and are.
- In the railroad business instead of the transportation business
- In the music industry instead of the digital music industry
- Selling SUVs in a Hybrid world
- Obsolete
How Universities Can Transform and Adapt to a Changing Higher Education Environment , Peter J.Stokes, Ph.D. Eduventures, Inc.
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Websites About What’s New On The Web
September 1, 2008
While doing some research for a business plan I came upon two fascinating websites that list new and interesting websites and Web 2.0 applications. So if you want to keep up on what’s out there, visit these sites.
The first is Killer Startups .
KillerStartups.com is a user driven internet startups community. Entrepreneurs, investors, and bloggers are staying informed on up-and-coming internet startups using our blog platform, where internet entrepreneurs submit their startup to see what others think about it.
Not only is this site full of new websites, it is fun to find out the variety of ways people are developing innovative ways to use the Internet. You can look at their top rated sites, browse categories or search keywords.
I used the search feature and searched on “search” and found these–
- Trendfo this is a search engine that helps you find Internet Trends
- SamFind that lets you build your own custom search engine
- Want to get a value of your web site — go to bizvaluations
There are many sites to view. Be careful, this site is addictive.
The second good site is Listio. It focuses on Web 2.0 applications. The home page has a cluster of keywords that you to go directly to applications. You can also browse new applications and application reviews. While Listio uses the term apps, many are full websites.
Here are an example of what I found: KudosNow. I like this site, it offers ways of recognizing good employee performance.
Things are changing so fast, it is hard to keep up with new ideas; though many will fail to take off, there may be some great ideas out there that you could use. How do you monitor web trends?
WBCSD Measuring Impact Methodology — A Brief Overview
August 29, 2008
In order for a form of measurement to be truly accurate it has to be implemented by a group, not a set of individuals. For instance, it’s much easier for a group of five people to measure a thousand paces (the old mile) than five people counting a thousand paces individually.
This is why the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has recently launched the Measuring Impact Methodology (MIM).
The flaw it seeks to address is one of the oldest in the book: how can different companies produce comparable figures open to close analysis if they all use different methodologies to do the measuring.
The area the framework aims to bring this rigour to is their impact among the most nebulous stakeholders: the communities within which they operate.
Stating the Outcome, Not Guessing the Result
Attempts have been made before to introduce mechanisms into business to measure their impact upon the wider community. The most widely known is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
These have been around in one form or another for over 20 years. Their place has always been as part of the project planning process in an attempt to gauge the likely impact a project will have on the wider environment.
WBCSD’s Measuring Impact Methodology is different. It aims to measure the impact a business has had upon the wider community after the event.
In this sense it is a crucial part of the sustainability measurement and compliance jigsaw which is being built up. To date there has been no framework governing how companies do this, leaving the whole area open to interpretation and the spin of greeenwashing.
Now, however, companies have a framework to work within when assessing and reporting the impact they have had upon the wider community.
Although only voluntary, companies who choose to operate outside this framework will always draw the cynical journalist who will look for the additional spina company may be trying to introduce.
The 4×4 Solution
The framework itself is remarkably simple and rests upon four steps which a company should go through:
- Set Boundaries; define the project in terms of the business activities to be considered and the geographic area in which they are occurring
- Measure the Direct and Indirect Impacts; identify those impacts under the company’s direct control and those which are not but which are influenced by the company’s activities
- Assess Contribution To Development; engage with stakeholders in the community in order to gauge how the company is supporting their development priorities
- Prioritise Management Response; plan a response to the impact the company has had, based upon the risks and opportunities identified in previous steps
The framework also defines four classes of business activities which companies should report against:
- Governance and Sustainability; the impact the company’s policies and procedures have on the wider community, including anything specifically targeted at environmental management
- Assets; the impact anything “owned” by the company has, including premises and infrastructure and how products and services are created and delivered
- People; the roles people fulfil within the company, their skills and training
- Financial Flows; the financial impact a company has within it community, typically through procurement and taxation
Nice And Easy Does It
The framework includes a detailed explanation of the various activities a company needs to go through in order to complete each step.
However unlike many others the methodology includes a macro-driven Excel spreadsheet. This gives the methodology two advantages in usability over many others.
Firstly it provides a readymade electronic reporting application so the company doesn’t need to produce its own, spend extra money buying one from a consultancy or print out an onerous amount of paper detailing all the check boxes and comment fields..
Secondly it allows personnel to learn about the framework in a very hands-on manner, reading about the steps and going through them in a hypothetical example at the same time.
Indirect Impacts
Overall this is a very welcome addition to the growing armoury of methodologies being published to help companies understand and improve the sustainability of their business processes.
It also breaks new ground in that it measures the impact of company activities after the event, rather than trying to project them and then measure how a company has performed against that target.
In addition, the inclusion of a multi-functional spreadsheet in the methodology is also welcome and one has to wonder whether other organisations will start to provide similar tools as part of their methodologies.
After all, business lives by the rationale that competition between different organisations in products and services is healthy for society. There’s no reason providers of schemes and standards should be any different!
Wanted a Chief Governance Officer…With Teeth
August 28, 2008
Th 2008 REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT CORPORATE FRAUD TASK FORCE contains the following statement:
“Since July 2002, the Department of Justice has obtained nearly 1,300 corporate fraud convictions. These figures include convictions of more than 200 chief executive officers and corporate presidents, more than 120 corporate vice presidents, and more than 50 chief financial officers.”
Not a favorable assessment of the state of Corporate Governance practices. While there may have been some advances in corporate transparency, seems there is more work to be done.
The key is not the regulations, laws and other requirements placed on organizations. Commentators have been repeatedly saying that “you can’t legislate compliance”. The problem is in the daily internal operations that take place. Enter the Chief Governance Officer (CGO).
Simply put the role of the CGO is –
As the governance officer, I see my role as a planner, educator and implementor. As a planner, together with my team of five, we are tasked to draw the corporate governance landscape for the company. As an educator, we are mandated to communicate and educate our co-employees and managers on the why, what and how of corporate governance. As an implementor, we will ensure together with Legal, Internal Audit and HR that our policies and processes are followed.An Interview with Atty. Rene G. Bañez, Chief Governance Officer, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. Managing Corporate Governance in Asia Volume 131 September 2005
More substantive job descriptions may be accessed –
This site has many examples of job descriptions. While on the site download “The End of Law The Rise of Values”
If you asked a company leader the purpose of the organization’s values, he or she would probably tell you that they dictate a standard of workplace conduct that will benefit the company and the internal and external communities it serves. At their essence, most organizational values relate to some core behavioral principles: tell the truth, take complaints seriously, follow problems through, treat customers and employees fairly, and watch what you say and how you say it. These are simple concepts, but somewhere along the way, companies seem to be getting off track when it comes to integrating the values into the workplace culture. There are too many scandals and incidences of outrageous conduct to think otherwise.
A must read that sets the tone for the Chief Governance Officer’s philosophical underpinnings.
Some essential aspects of this position –
- It must report directly to the CEO and the Board and set the Board agenda on governance matters
- The position must not be an adjunct to an existing officer, Chief Counsel, CFO, etc.
- It must be a function that has an influence on all corporate departments
- This is a serious position and not merely for window dressing
- The corporate code of ethics and all matters of ethics and integrity are part of the CGO’s role
- The person filling this position must have or develop a reputation of uncompromising integrity
In sum this position has clout and TEETH. A good article on the CGO is “The Chief Governance Officer: To Have or Have Not?”
This position adds to the company’s public perception that it is serious about doing business in a manner that surpasses mere compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Watch Movies, Learn Leadership
August 22, 2008
The leadership development industry is estimated by some to be as large as $15 billion (USD). There are many University courses, seminars, books and articles, all trying to convey leadership principles, and many fail. A reason is that leadership is best learned by experiencing it and the many leadership teaching products and services are lacking here.
The primary source of learning to lead, to the extent that leadership can be learned, is experience. Leadership development through experience.
Morgan W. McCall, Jr.
Unless you are on the fast track at your organization you don’t get the opportunity to be mentored by senior managers who will mentor and guide you.
There is an alternative learning method that some enlightened professors are using and that you can use yourself — Business Cases using movies. Movies are stories and stories can be a surrogate for experience.
a knowledge-sharing story offers a surrogate experience. When one reads a novel, one often feels as if one is living the experience described in the novel. So too when a story is recounted, the narrative form offers the listener an opportunity to experience in a surrogate fashion the situation that was experienced by the storyteller.
Storytelling in Organizations: The power and traps of using stories to share knowledge in organizations
Deborah Sole, LILA Harvard University
Daniel Gray Wilson, LILA Harvard University
OK, got the logic? Leadership is best learned by experience, stories can be an alternative for experience and movies are stories.
One of the best sites that offers movie leadership case studies is the Hartwick Institute. You can purchase the case study and teaching notes at reasonable prices.
This site has a scholarly approach and describes how to use the selected movies to teach and learn leadership skills.
Another, less scholarly but still worthy of a visit, is MoviesForBusiness.
The concept is the same but it takes a more entertaining approach. There is a free lesson based on the Wizard of Oz and you can even get an MBA (Master of Bijou Advice), obviously not accredited.
Here are some additional resources –
- Everything I Know about Leadership, I Learned From the Movies
- The Self-Development Guide: Recommended Movies About Leadership
Now you have another reason to go to the movies.