The Buck Starts and Stops with You

"Unless America's business schools make radical changes, society will become convinced that MBAs work to serve only their selfish interests." ~ Joel M. Podolny

There has been complelling evidence that resentment against MBAs is growing. According to Podolny's HBR article The Buck Starts and Stops with You, there has been a noticable decline in teaching the humanities in business schools. Studies in arts, cultural history, literature, philosophy, and religion help to develop powers of critical thinking and moral reasoning... elements that business schools have lacked in teaching MBAs.

Business schools like Harvard and Yale promote the many benefits from graduating from their prestigeous institutions of higher learning. Higher starting salaries, pomp titles, leaders of industry... these are a few of the notions surrounding the future of MBA graduates. But are these schools teaching enough to prepare our future executives how to lead ethically and morally?

Podolny suggests that many people believe that management education has contributed to the systemic failure of leadership causing the most recent financial crises. He believes that value-based leadership and ethics are not present in the MBA curriculum. Podolny also believes that business schools can turn this around by emphasizing values as much as they do analytics and by encouraging students to adopt a holistic approach to business problems. In other words, Podlony believes we need to better prepare our students to think morally and ethically in today's corporate world.

Take into consideration doctors and lawyers. They have associations that govern the actions and ethics of each industry. Commiting malpractice can result in disbarment or loss of the right to practice medicine. This keeps the professional standards high, and unethical behavior is met with severe punishment and professional embarrassment. Why should this be any different for the management industry? How many examples can we readily find that prove how far-reaching and devastating poor corporate leadership can cause harm on a global level? Enron, substandard mortgage lenders, Lehman Brothers, just to name a few. Poor leadership in large cororations can cripple economies. Where are the standards for this industry? Who is holding our corporate leaders accountable? The answer is... it should be our business schools.

"An occupation earns the right to be a profession only when some ideals, such as being an impartial counsel, doing no harm, or serving the greater good, are infused into the conduct of people in that occupation. In like vein, a school becomes a professional school only when it infuses those ideals into its graduates. "

 The reasons to be a doctor should not be to make the most money. It should be to help sick people. The specialization and success of a doctor should dictate the financial rewards. The reasons to become a lawyer should be to defend the law and the rights of people, businesses, and governments. Lawyers become wealthy when they are excellent at their jobs. The same should go for business school graduates. MBAs should want to make business better, lead, and make morally right decisions in their industry... not just follow along with the crowd and collect higher pay. They should be taught to inject ethics and reason into their moral fiber to make great business decisions and choices that will benefit their companies and people in general. And they too should be held accountable for their decisions.

Podolny makes a great suggestion... business schools should develop a code of conduct for their graduates. Deviate from the code of conduct and lose your degree. Make unethical decisions and be ousted from your community. He dubs this idea the Manager's Code, and all MBAs should fully understand what it means to uphold the highest ethics, morals, and values. How would our corporate world change if the Manager's Code governed leadership decisions?

I am reminded of the movie Jurasic Park. Jeff Goldblum's character makes this statement, "you spent so much of your time discovering what you can do with genetics instead of asking yourself if you should". Our business graduates should learn to make the right choices based on elevated values, ethics, and morals. MBAs should be prepared to solve business problems with reason and critical thinking. Our future business leaders need to understand just how much their leadership decisions affect so many people, and this all starts in business schools. We do need to change how we create our leaders, and we do need to demand a higher level of ethical behavior in our corporations. Our world is becoming more and more connected, and poor business decisions can have much further reach toady than in the past. Let's hold our MBAs accountable for making better choices and raise the bar for our future corporate leaders.

JP