Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63428
are ill-equipped to do anything about it. Aspen ISIB's MBA research makes clear that given the choice of staying to fight and leav- ing the firm, these future managers will vote with their feet. Yet it should be possible to give students the tools to challenge noxious behavior or a bad decision—not just recognize right from wrong—and to craft alternatives without putting their jobs on the line. In other words, help them to operationalize McKinsey. They set the tone in every elite business school in the country. If it's too late to teach values, how about sending the message that val- ues actually matter in the market- place? An MBA recruiter once told me that if Goldman Sachs posed an ethical dilemma in its standard inter- view, it would reverberate through- out the halls of academia. Deans should require nothing less for access to their MBA talent—even in a down their values. ■ Develop and teach more comprehensive models for measuring business success. The single-minded adherence to increasing share price ("shareholder value") offers a cover for business decisions that will not stand the test of time. What is true value creation? James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, the authors of the best-selling book Built to Last, studied companies that have avoided boom and bust cycles. They found that attention to principles such as treating employees well, creating value for the sur- rounding community, and making environmentally sound business decisions are money-makers over the long haul. They point to leading companies such as BP Amoco, DuPont and Unilever as companies that understand this well and pro- sultants to do their part. The Holy Grail for MBA students at Kellogg is a signing bonus and well-paid job on Wall Street or in an important strate- gy firm like Goldman Sachs or vide models for others. ■ Ask Wall Street and the business con- market. ■ Fight the tendency to define "corpo- rate social responsibility" as good works. Enron excelled at philanthropy, and business schools are filled to the brim with voluntarism and commu- nity charities. Students are confused Ethics courses, billed as such and required for graduation, are at best marginalized and at worst, resented; furthermore, a voluntary ethics class only reaches the choir. If ethics isn't anchored in business reality, it won't sell. Today's students know it's not critical to their future success —or to the immediate challenge of finding a job. if discussions of good behavior are removed from traditional business decisions and resource management. Ask Human Rights Watch about Enron's record in India as it built the Dabhol Power Plant. No amount of support for the Houston Ballet can excuse the injustices per- petrated in India under the rubric of business investment—or for the fact that Enron dodged taxes for four of for real life. The most common adjec- tive associated with Enron is arro- gance. In the days of a booming the last five years. ■ Encourage the development of skills stock price we—the investing public, the bankers, and the analysts—toler- ated and even celebrated the cowboy culture of an Enron. This culture is not only celebrated in many firms, it is also mirrored in business schools that reward "hard" skills at the expense of real-life skills like listen- ing, cooperation, and cultural sensi- tivity. Today, the student who attempts to balance a focus on profits and cash flows with the human and environmental dimensions of the product or investment is forced to the back of the class. Finding that balance is tricky, but no trickier than balancing the conflicting claims of community interests, landowners, employees, investors, pensioners, customers, contractors, unions, and environ- mentalists that now compete for attention in the boardroom. Encourage students to listen carefully to all the voices (especially the quiet ones) and to practice social impact management—to think through the effects of business decisions on all the affected parties and stakeholders—and vice versa. After all, the impact can, and does, run both ways. Welcome to the post-Enron era. It's time to get serious about the ethical training of our future lead- ers. But it will take more than another round of ethics classes. ■ z Judith Samuelson is the executive director of the Aspen Institute's Initiative for Social Innovation through Business (ISIB) in New York City. A shortened version of this article was printed in the Summer 2002 issue of the Ford Foundation Report. BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 59