October 13th, 2011

October 7, 2011 [Originally published in The Financial Times]

Business schools must be wary of short-term myopia

By Sally Blount

They arrive on our university campuses every fall, a large, diverse cross-section of students from around the world, ready to invest the time and money required to earn an advanced degree.

Since 1980, the most popular choice of degree in the US has been business, accounting for more than 20 per cent of all post-secondary degrees and attracting this generation’s best and brightest.

But like other business school deans and university leaders in general, I am growing increasingly concerned that our strongest business students and the society that will depend on them are in danger of being short-changed. The notorious narrow, short-term horizon that threatens business is threatening to infect higher education.

An era that places increased emphasis on job placement and giving course credit for unpaid internships, among other things, contributes to growing “vocational” pressure felt by colleges, universities and students. There is also pressure to shorten the time spent at university, for example to award professional masters degrees after one rather than two years of study. This is happening when there is more, rather than less, to learn in preparation for a career.

I understand that these growing pressures come, at least in part, in response to the rising costs of university education, particularly in the US – a concern I share. But this is not the only challenge. Now, more than ever, universities – and business schools in particular – must buck social pressures towards shortened attention spans and quick answers.

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Within universities, we need to re-examine our own campus rhetoric that sees professional schools as not central to intellectual life within the academy.

Business is the dominant social institution of our day, creating jobs and moving wealth around the globe, far outstripping the power of governments and NGOs. And, despite the effusive bipartisan rhetoric and retrospective critiques on stimulus spending in the US, it is clear that none of our business and government leaders globally has quick answers to the economic malaise.

If we are going to educate another generation for which business is the most popular post-secondary area of study, we have a social obligation to educate these students to be complex thinkers and responsible citizens.

The challenge here is greater than teaching ethics to business students. We must take civic engagement seriously – a call echoed by the recent Carnegie Foundation report on the condition of undergraduate business education in the US.

This means expanding the intellectual lens of business education in significant and substantive ways. We must educate students to understand the effects that the conduct of business and free markets have on our national and global societies. Our world needs business leaders who comprehend both the power and limits of market-based solutions to social issues; leaders who understand social as well as economic benefits and costs in decision making. We also need students educated about the interface between the public and private sectors.

To do this, we need to re-examine how we orientate students to the study of business – redefining their maps of the world to include a vibrant respect for the role of law and regulation in fostering capitalism’s best successes. We need to move out of the 65-person, 75-minute learning “bowl” experience to engage in longer, small group discussions that foster deeper examination of the assumptions underlying market models. We need to strengthen our ties to discourse on citizenship and bring in respected leaders who can speak convincingly to those responsibilities.

Today there is growing momentum within business schools to prepare students for this broader, long-term orientation. Globally we have seen the damage that can be done by short-term, narrow-interest myopia. Business schools should be preparing our best and brightest to think bravely and reverse this dangerous trend, not perpetuate it.

Sally Blount is dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.


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Promises Aren’t Enough: Business Schools Need to Do a Better Job Teaching Students Values

August 23rd, 2010

By RODRIGO CANALES, B. CADE MASSEY AND AMY WRZESNIEWSKI

(Published in the Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2010)

It is a sign of the times that hundreds of Harvard Business School’s 2009 and 2010 graduates took “The MBA Oath.” These students promised to “serve the greater good,” act ethically, and refrain from pursuing greed at others’ expense.

We are inspired that students who will soon be in positions of leadership vow to reject the temptations their predecessors could not. But they and the more than 100,000 new M.B.A. students who enrolled this year will need more than an oath if they wish to become ethical business leaders. Simply put, such oaths sound much like chastity vows taken by thousands of teens every year. The problem in both cases is not a lack of sincerity, but a failure to adequately prepare for the moment of truth.

Just Words

Like a chastity vow, the M.B.A. oath has an unstated assumption that those who have gone before are somehow different: They had weaker wills, less resolve, looser morals. The oath is meant to signal a stronger commitment to values. The danger is the false sense of moral inoculation such oaths engender. Just as teenagers who take a chastity vow in lieu of better sexual education are more vulnerable to the consequences of unprotected sex—vow takers are actually more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior—M.B.A.s who take an ethics oath without enough supporting leadership education are likely more vulnerable to ethical breaches.

The power of the situation, and our too frequent disregard for it, is an overarching lesson from sociology and social psychology. Situational forces drive behavior to a surprising extent, much more than expected by those who believe character determines all.

This lesson has been implicated in one scandal after another, from Enron to Abu Ghraib. Pledges made without the benefit of experience with compromising situations, and without some kind of supporting structure, actually exacerbate the problem.

Should business schools play a role? Some pundits think not. They believe that schools should train managers in narrower elements of business strategy—negotiation, incentives and the like—and leave the teaching of values to others.

We couldn’t disagree more.

Business education is much more scientific than it was in its early years. It has been made more rigorous by the rising influence of statistics and economics. We believe in analytics. Most organizations need more analytics.

But analytics are not a substitute for values. Indeed, an overreliance on analytics leaves managers poorly prepared to lead in moments when statistics obscure the full human dimensions of a choice.

It also isn’t that M.B.A. programs haven’t taught leadership and ethics. They have. But most do it poorly. Leadership courses tend to emphasize such things as social influence and public speaking, while ethics courses often focus on legal aspects. This leaves the connection between values, leadership and action underdeveloped. Leadership entails thinking beyond the day’s crises to focus on the longer term, grasping the impact of decisions on broader constituencies, and sensing a responsibility that goes far beyond the immediate result of a decision.

M.B.A. students are too often unaware of this. For example, in workshops at a leading business school, students are asked to list the qualities that a successful business leader should possess. While vision and business acumen are invariably among the first qualities listed, honesty and responsibility for others emerge only after considerable discussion. Meanwhile, when asked about the characteristics they most value in human beings, compassion, integrity, and responsibility always appear at the top of the list.

Taking an oath of ethical leadership is not enough to bridge this gap, and recusing ourselves from teaching leadership makes it worse.

No Substitute for Experience

We need to better prepare our students for leadership. This requires creating a deeper understanding of the difficult decisions they will face, often under enormous pressure. We must make them aware that these decisions will challenge their values, and that, consequently, they need to clarify the values they stand for. We need to make sure they engage in a continuing dialogue with classmates, faculty and alumni, and learn to hold themselves and their peers accountable for the commitments they make.

We have found this is best achieved through experiential learning. This approach is necessary because students otherwise find it far too easy to believe they would never engage in the reprehensible behavior that others have. It is better to make M.B.A. students viscerally aware of the tendency to compartmentalize values, and, consequently, how vulnerable they are to ethical breaches in challenging situations. If they are to learn what to expect, students must be brought face-to-face with the pressures that profit-maximization will create for them

Throughout this process, M.B.A. programs can leverage the small group structure they deploy for study groups to generate a deeper dialogue among students who know and trust each other. Schools should do more to ensure that this dialogue develops into an ethical support structure after graduation. Alumni often mention that the hardest decisions they make occur when job demands conflict with their values. And, importantly, that they are isolated when making them.

We need to ease this burden by being more creative in our use of technology, and more intentional in our use of alumni gatherings. It is ironic that schools exert enormous effort to create alumni networks that facilitate regular business transactions while our alumni must make their hardest choices alone.

The solution to ethical challenges in business is not to create an army of M.B.A.s who promise to do the right thing. Rather, as educators we must assume more responsibility by providing better, not less, leadership development. Only then might our graduates take an oath they can actually live up to.

Dr. Canales and Dr. Massey are assistant professors, and Dr. Wrzesniewski is an associate professor, of organizational behavior at Yale University’s School of Management. They can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.


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Should This Be the Last Generation?

June 11th, 2010

By PETER SINGER
The new york times

Have you ever thought about whether to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. Most of those who consider that question probably do so because they have some reason to fear that the child’s life would be especially difficult — for example, if they have a family history of a devastating illness, physical or mental, that cannot yet be detected prenatally.

All this suggests that we think it is wrong to bring into the world a child whose prospects for a happy, healthy life are poor, but we don’t usually think the fact that a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life is a reason for bringing the child into existence. This has come to be known among philosophers as “the asymmetry” and it is not easy to justify. But rather than go into the explanations usually proffered — and why they fail — I want to raise a related problem. How good does life have to be, to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? Is the standard of life experienced by most people in developed nations today good enough to make this decision unproblematic, in the absence of specific knowledge that the child will have a severe genetic disease or other problem?

The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer held that even the best life possible for humans is one in which we strive for ends that, once achieved, bring only fleeting satisfaction. New desires then lead us on to further futile struggle and the cycle repeats itself.

Schopenhauer’s pessimism has had few defenders over the past two centuries, but one has recently emerged, in the South African philosopher David Benatar, author of a fine book with an arresting title: “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.” One of Benatar’s arguments trades on something like the asymmetry noted earlier. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is, Benatar argues, to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to benefit him or her. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none.

Benatar also argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh these prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone.

Here is a thought experiment to test our attitudes to this view. Most thoughtful people are extremely concerned about climate change. Some stop eating meat, or flying abroad on vacation, in order to reduce their carbon footprint. But the people who will be most severely harmed by climate change have not yet been conceived. If there were to be no future generations, there would be much less for us to feel to guilty about.

So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!

Of course, it would be impossible to get agreement on universal sterilization, but just imagine that we could. Then is there anything wrong with this scenario? Even if we take a less pessimistic view of human existence than Benatar, we could still defend it, because it makes us better off — for one thing, we can get rid of all that guilt about what we are doing to future generations — and it doesn’t make anyone worse off, because there won’t be anyone else to be worse off.

Is a world with people in it better than one without? Put aside what we do to other species — that’s a different issue. Let’s assume that the choice is between a world like ours and one with no sentient beings in it at all. And assume, too — here we have to get fictitious, as philosophers often do — that if we choose to bring about the world with no sentient beings at all, everyone will agree to do that. No one’s rights will be violated — at least, not the rights of any existing people. Can non-existent people have a right to come into existence?

I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings?

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Address at Rio Earth Summit

April 16th, 2010

I am extremely happy and feel great honor to be with you here. My basic belief is that the purpose of our life is happiness, and happiness depends on its own basis. I believe the basic base, or the cause of happiness and satisfaction, is material and spiritual development.

Then again, human beings irrespective of our ability, knowledge, technology are basically a product of nature. So therefore, ultimately, our fate very much depends on nature.

In ancient times I think, when human ability was limited, we were very aware of the importance of nature; and so we respected nature. Then the time came when we developed through science and technology; and we had more ability. Now sometimes it seems people forget about the importance of nature. Sometimes we get some kind of wrong belief that we human beings can control nature with the help of technology. Of course, in certain limited areas we can to a certain extent. But with the globe as a whole it is impossible. Therefore now the time has come to be aware of the importance of nature, the importance of our globe. You see, one day we might find all living things on this planet- including human beings-are doomed.

I think one danger is that things like nuclear war are an immediate cause of concern so everybody realizes something is horrible. But damage to the environment happens gradually without much awareness. Once we realize something very obvious to everybody it may be too late. So therefore I think we must realize in time our responsibility to take care of our own world.

I often tell people that the moon and stars when remaining high in the sky look very beautiful, like an ornament. But if we really try to go and settle there on the moon, perhaps a few days may be very nice and some new experience may be very nice and some new experience may be very exciting. But, if we really remain there, I think within a few days we would get very homesick for our small planet. So this is our only home. Therefore, I think this kind of gathering concerning our environment and the planet is very useful, very important ‘and timely.

And of course things are not easy, so I don’t think all problems could be solved at once through such meetings. However, this kind of meeting is very helpful to open eyes.

So, once the human mind wakes up humans such intelligence, that we may find certain ways and means to solve problems. But sometimes we just take everything for granted and don’t care, and this kind of negligence is also a danger. So, such meetings on a critical situation, if approached with an open human mind and eyes, are important and useful. These are my feelings.

Thank you!

His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s press statement at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; June 5, 1992.

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Why Americans love the Dalai Lama

February 22nd, 2010

By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
February 22, 2010 9:31 a.m. EST

Click here to view this on CNN.com

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, has broad base of fans in America
His sense of peace inspires; 56 percent of Americans view him favorably, poll shows
He fills symbolic placeholder left by Gandhi and MLK, Tibet House executive says
Buddhism helps him avoid trappings of fame, by not allowing ego to take over

On CNN on Monday, the Dalai Lama goes one-on-one with Larry King in his first interview after his controversial meeting with President Obama. Hear his thoughts about China, human rights and the situation in Haiti. Monday night, 9 ET on “Larry King Live.”
(CNN) — He’s been decorated with awards and called one of the world’s most influential people. He’s addressed packed auditoriums and waved to crowds who line streets just to catch a passing glimpse of him. He’s shaken the hands of countless global dignitaries and earned a fan base following on Facebook that might rival that of Hollywood stars.
He is His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the 74-year-old spiritual leader of Tibet and the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, based in Dharamsala, India. And though he describes himself, according to his Web site, as “a simple Buddhist monk,” the love so many Americans and others have for him has, no doubt, bestowed on him iconic status — whether he sees it that way or not.
“I’d love to be in his presence. I’d love to be in an audience where he speaks,” said Jerilee Auclair, 55, of Vancouver, Washington, who has yet to have that pleasure. “I yearn for it. I watch his schedule to see if/when he’ll be in my area. … I love what he stands for. His inner peace inspires me to find mine, daily.”
She’s far from alone in her admiration.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday, the same day the Dalai Lama visited the White House, showed that 56 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of him, putting him “in the same neighborhood as other major religious figures,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Favorable ratings for the pope, at 59 percent, and Billy Graham, at 57 percent, are virtually identical.”
Not bad for a guy who lives on the opposite side of the globe, is entrenched in a decades-old political and cultural struggle many don’t understand, and lives according to a tradition few Americans follow. Less than 1 percent of Americans identify themselves as Buddhist, with less than 0.3 percent of those being Tibetan Buddhist, according to The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
But what he represents resonates with Americans who may need a figure like the Dalai Lama to look to, said Ganden Thurman, executive director of New York City’s Tibet House, an organization dedicated to preserving Tibetan culture and civilization.
“He stands for achieving peace by way of peace, and since Gandhi and Martin Luther King aren’t around, he’s a placeholder for that kind of position,” he said. “He says he’s a ’simple monk,’ but that’s wishful thinking. He’s a monk that’s been saddled with the responsibility of shouldering the hopes and dreams of millions of Tibetan people. … He’s doing the best he can with that, and frankly, these are the kind of people we admire.”
Not that Thurman, 42, always treated the Dalai Lama with this kind of reverence. His father, Robert Thurman, co-founded the Tibet House, is an Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies professor at Columbia University and holds the first endowed chair in Buddhist studies in the West, according to the university’s online biography. The older Thurman, who also happens to be the father of actress Uma Thurman, was a personal student of the Dalai Lama, and it was through this relationship that his son first met the spiritual leader.
“My earliest memory of meeting him, I was around 4. I was a pretty rambunctious 4-year-old,” he said with a laugh, guessing that he probably jumped on His Holiness and grabbed at the man’s glasses. “Diplomatic protocol wasn’t high on my list of priorities.”
Video: Dalai Lama on meeting Obama
Tenzin Tethong has known the Dalai Lama since he was a child. He worked in the exile government and served as the spiritual leader’s representative in New York and Washington during the 1970s and 1980s. Now the president of The Dalai Lama Foundation, a Redwood City, California, organization that promotes peace, Tethong said he organized the Tibetan leader’s first visit to the United States in 1979, 20 years after he had gone into exile
He recalled not being sure they’d be able to pull off the visit because by the early 1970s, the U.S. had normalized its relations with China, which has long viewed the Dalai Lama as a threat to its national unity on the issue of Tibetan autonomy. But they came at the invitation of various colleges and religious groups, and the American fascination with the Dalai Lama — the curiosity about his exotic past, his beliefs and his teachings — spoke volumes then, Tethong said.
In the decades since, the Dalai Lama’s star power has only risen as Americans have learned more about his commitment to nonviolence, interfaith outreach and more. For starters, there was that Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1989.
High-profile supporters, like actor Richard Gere, helped give him and his people’s struggles pop culture prominence, as did several mainstream films including “Seven Years in Tibet,” starring Brad Pitt, and “Kundun,” directed by Martin Scorsese.
With the increased exposure, there has also been a growing prevalence of “Free Tibet” bumper stickers, the appearance of Tibetan prayer flags in suburbia and Facebook fans who shower the Dalai Lama with praise.
“Have a nice and easy day with Obama! Namaste,” one woman wrote Thursday. “thank you for all your love, guidance and wisdom … u changed my life,” a man added. And then this from a college-student fan: “HH Dalai Lama!! You kick metaphorical ass!!!”
How has all this attention not gone to his head?
He stands for achieving peace by way of peace, and since Gandhi and Martin Luther King aren’t around, he’s a placeholder for that kind of position.
–Ganden Thurman, executive director of Tibet House
RELATED TOPICS
Dalai Lama
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“When fame happens, people get carried away, right? The Dalai Lama, despite tremendous adoration as well as adulation … is very conscious of that,” Tethong said. “One of the Buddhist practices is to always be very aware of one’s self and how one looks at one’s self and not to be carried away with one’s ego.”
Not standing on formalities — he playfully threw snow at reporters outside the White House on Thursday — staying grounded and his constant ability to exude warmth and joy have made him easy to love, people who admire him say.
“He really is the real deal — a truly loveable guy. He lives his values,” said Jamie Metzl, executive vice president of the Asia Society, a global organization that seeks to increase understanding and relationships between the U.S. and Asia. “Recognizing someone who lives their life according to such positive principles helps us all grow.”
And Metzl, who said he’s met the Dalai Lama three times, suggested the Chinese government, through its denunciation of the spiritual leader, has bolstered his recognition. He said that by saying the Dalai Lama is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” a claim Metzl said doesn’t match what people read and see, “the Chinese are doing a great deal to turn him into a rock star.”
But nothing does more to make people appreciate the Dalai Lama than being with him, said Charles Raison, a psychiatrist with Emory University Medical School.
Raison, who’s been involved in a program where Western doctors work with and exchange teachings with Buddhist monks, recounted a time when he, his wife and several others met with the Dalai Lama about four years ago.
“Many people, myself included, have a powerful experience in his presence. I nearly erupted in tears,” he said. And his wife, whom he said “does not have a religious bone in her body” was “just beaming.”
He said studies have long shown that people have a physiological response to the behaviors, feelings and even smells put forth by others.
“Buddhists,” he added, “say that sweet smells come from a saint — a mark of spiritual advancement.”
And given the Dalai Lama’s effect, his smile, his laughter, his sense of peace and gentle spirit, it’s no wonder people fall for him. Even if they haven’t had the chance to meet him.

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Compassion for our fellow human beings is the key to happiness By The Dalai Lama, Special to The Sun

September 28th, 2009
The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama

One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it consciously or not: What is the purpose of life?

I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this.

Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.

For a start, it is possible to divide every kind of happiness and suffering into two main categories: mental and physical.

Of the two, the mind exerts the greatest influence on most of us. Unless we are gravely ill or deprived of basic necessities, our physical condition plays a secondary role in life.

Hence, we should devote our most serious efforts to bringing about mental peace.

From my own limited experience, I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquillity comes from the development of love and compassion.

The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others puts the mind at ease. This gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter.

It is the ultimate source of success in life.

We can strive gradually to become more compassionate, we can develop both genuine sympathy for others’ suffering and the will to help remove their pain.

As a result, our own serenity and inner strength will increase.

The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. It results from the profound interdependence we all share with one another.

Some of my friends have told me that, while love and compassion are marvellous and good, they are not really very relevant. Our world, they say, is not a place where such beliefs have much influence or power. They claim that anger and hatred are so much a part of human nature that humanity will always be dominated by them. I do not agree.

We humans have existed in our present form for about 100,000 years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever.

This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world.

True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason.Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude towards others does not change even if they behave negatively.

Of course, developing this kind of compassion is not at all easy! As a start, let us consider the following facts:

Whether people are beautiful and friendly or unattractive and disruptive, ultimately they are human beings, just like one’s self. Like one’s self, they want happiness and do not want suffering.

Now, when you recognize that all beings are equal in both their desire for happiness and their right to obtain it, you automatically feel empathy and closeness for them. Through accustoming your mind to this sense of universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the wish to help them actively overcome their problems.

Let me emphasize that it is within your power, given patience and time, to develop this kind of compassion. We should begin by removing the greatest hindrances to compassion: anger and hatred.

As we all know, these are extremely powerful emotions and they can overwhelm our entire mind. Nevertheless, they can be controlled and replaced by an equally forceful energy that stems from compassion, reason and patience.

I must also emphasize that merely thinking about compassion and reason and patience will not be enough to develop them. We must wait for difficulties to arise and then attempt to practise them.

And who creates such opportunities? Not our friends, of course, but our enemies. They are the ones who give us the most trouble.

So if we truly wish to learn, we should consider enemies to be our best teachers.

For a person who cherishes compassion and love, the practice of tolerance is essential, and for that, an enemy is indispensable.

So we should feel grateful to our enemies, for it is they who can best help us develop a tranquil mind. Also, it is often the case in both personal and public life, that with a change in circumstances, enemies become friends.

So anger and hatred are our real enemies. These are the forces we most need to confront and defeat, not the temporary enemies who appear intermittently throughout life.

In conclusion, I would like briefly to expand my thoughts beyond the topic of this short editorial and make a wider point: Individual happiness can contribute in a profound and effective way to the overall improvement of our entire human community.

Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister.

It is foolish to dwell on external differences, because our basic natures are the same.

I believe that at every level of society — familial, tribal, national and international — the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

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A Promise to Be Ethical in an Era of Immorality

August 3rd, 2009

May 30, 2009, New York Times
By LESLIE WAYNE
When a new crop of future business leaders graduates from the Harvard Business School next week, many of them will be taking a new oath that says, in effect, greed is not good.

Nearly 20 percent of the graduating class have signed “The M.B.A. Oath,” a voluntary student-led pledge that the goal of a business manager is to “serve the greater good.” It promises that Harvard M.B.A.’s will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.

What happened to making money?

That, of course, is still at the heart of the Harvard curriculum. But at Harvard and other top business schools, there has been an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities — clubs, lectures, conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.

“We want to stand up and recite something out loud with our class,” said Teal Carlock, who is graduating from Harvard and has accepted a job at Genentech. “Fingers are now pointed at M.B.A.’s and we, as a class, have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders.”

At Columbia Business School, all students must pledge to an honor code: “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” The code has been in place for about three years and came about after discussions between students and faculty.

In the post-Enron and post-Madoff era, the issue of ethics and corporate social responsibility has taken on greater urgency among students about to graduate. While this might easily be dismissed as a passing fancy — or simply a defensive reaction to the current business environment — business school professors say that is not the case. Rather, they say, they are seeing a generational shift away from viewing an M.B.A. as simply an on-ramp to the road to riches.

Those graduating today, they say, are far more concerned about how corporations affect the community, the lives of its workers and the environment. And business schools are responding with more courses, new centers specializing in business ethics and, in the case of Harvard, student-lead efforts to bring about a professional code of conduct for M.B.A.’s, not unlike oaths that are taken by lawyers and doctors.

“I don’t see this as something that will fade away,” said Diana C. Robertson, a professor of business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s coming from the students. I don’t know that we’ve seen such a surge in this activism since the 1960s. This activism is different, but, like that time, it is student-driven.”

A decade ago, Wharton had one or two professors who taught a required ethics class. Today there are seven teaching an array of ethics classes that Ms. Robertson said were among the most popular at the school. Since 1997, it has had the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research. In addition, over the last five years, students have formed clubs around the issues of ethics that sponsor conferences, work on microfinance projects in Philadelphia or engage in social impact consulting.

“It’s been a dramatic change,” Ms. Robertson added. “This generation was raised learning about the environment and raised with the idea of a social conscience. That does not apply to every student. But this year’s financial crisis and the downturn have brought about a greater emphasis on social ethics and responsibility.”

At Harvard, about 160 from a graduating class of about 800 have signed “The M.B.A. Oath,” which its student advocates contend is the first step in trying to develop a professional code not unlike the Hippocratic Oath for physicians or the pledge taken by lawyers to uphold the law and Constitution.

Part of this has emerged by the beating that Wall Street and financiers have taken in the current economic crisis, which can set the stage for reform, Harvard students say.

“There is the feeling that we want our lives to mean something more and to run organizations for the greater good,” said Max Anderson, one of the pledge’s organizers who is about to leave Harvard and take a job at Bridgewater Associates, a money management firm.

“No one wants to have their future criticized as a place filled with unethical behaviors,” he added. “We want to learn from those mistakes, do things differently and accept our duty to lead responsibly. Realistically, we have tremendous potential to affect society for better or worse. Let’s humbly step up. We are looking out for our own interest, but also for the interest of our employees and the broader public.”

Bruce Kogut, director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Company Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia, said that this emphasis did not mean that students were necessarily going to shun jobs that paid well. Rather, they will think about how they earn their income, not just how much.

At Columbia, an ethics course is required, but students have also formed a popular “Leadership and Ethics Board,” that sponsors lectures with topics like “The Marie Antoinettes of Corporate America.”

“The courses make people aware that the financial crisis is not a technical blip,” Mr. Kogut said. “We’re seeing a generational change that understands that poverty is not just about Africa and India. They see inequities and the role of business to address them.”

Dalia Rahman, who is about to leave Harvard for a job with Goldman Sachs in London, said she signed the pledge because “it takes what we learned in class and makes it more concrete. When you have to make a public vow, it’s a way to commit to uphold principles.”

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July 18th, 2009

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