Better-The-World officially flipped the switch today to open to the public. It is a big day in the office. After 12 months of crazy work it is now live. This social venture has a big vision – to raise a billion dollars for charitable causes by coming up with new and innovative ways to leverage the power of Web 2.0. There is never a better time (or more difficult time) to pull off a new venture not to mention a social venture. But they did it. The idea is not only clever but very much in tune with the behavior of a younger generation. The plan is to bring this to Europe and Australia/Asia quickly. We are proud to be associated with them. I first met these three Ivey MBAs a year ago telling me about this crazy idea…so crazy that it is now live. The world needs more socially minded MBAs, for ten of years we trained generations of selfish, greedy and power hungry MBAs that push capitalism to a wrong direction. That needs to change. B-schools are the best places to begin.
That brings the question, which are the top B-schools that produce most socially minded business people? How do we measure the success of B-schools? How does CSR play in B-schools ranking? Is it just a few electives or it is a fundamental transformation of business education? I don't have any answer or are we interested at all? The Financial Times has released its annual global MBA Rankings in Jan 09. There are 6 business schools from the US in the Top 10 list; the other 4 schools are from UK, France, China and Spain.
Not everyone is happy when their alma mater ranks top. My fellow LBS graduate Andrew Newton (co-founder and editor of APEsphere) wrote “ While I hate to dis my alma mater, what does it say about FT MBA rankings if LBS, a school with poor CSR integration in courses, is ranked no.1? Here’s what he wrote:
“The seeds of my disenchantment, however, were planted when in my final year the business ethics elective was cancelled because only 6 people had signed up to take it. The closest I got to studying any aspect of responsible business at the school was the Leadership and Corporate Transformation elective designed by the late Sumantra Ghoshal and taught by Don Sull during my last term at the school. Subsequently, as my interest in and understanding of progressive business has advanced, I have noted with concern that LBS has a very immature understanding of corporate responsibility. While it has at last made "Business ethics and CSR" a part of the core curriculum, it still appears to regard CSR as a niche subject and teaches it much as it has always taught business ethics. It still appears to find it difficult to integrate CSR into the same mental frameworks that it promotes in each of the other core disciplines?
The Indian School of Business is in 15th place second year in a row. ISB is also one of the few B-schools in India that also provides accommodation for the spouses of its students. It is also one of the most expensive B-schools in India, with a fee of Rs 20 lakh for the one year program which is a pretty good deal compare to what you have to pay for London, Harvard or Stanford. I've never tried to do a real ROI analysis for what I've paid HBS and LBS and what return I am getting for my school fees. I think it is definitely worth it. Here’s the list of the Top 10:
1. University of Pennsylvania
2. London Business School (UK)
3. Harvard Business School
4. Columbia Business School
5. Insead (France)
6. Stanford University GSB
7. IE Business School (Spain)
8. Ceibs (China)
9. MIT Sloan
10. NYU Stern
Other included in the rankings:
11. University of Chicago
15. Indian School of Business
19. Yale School of Management
21. Kellog Business School
34. Cornell Johnson
47. University of Toronto Rotman
48. University of Western Ontario Ivey
71. University of British Columbia Sauder
There are a lot of critics and a bit of blame at B-schools for what happened today and how we ended up with this crisis. We trained generations of greedy managers that push capitalism into the wrong path. Henry Mintzberg (McGill) has been a critic of management education for more than a decade, "Conventional MBA programs train the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences." Despite these positive indicators, there are deep-rooted concerns about the "industry."
B-schools faculties are to blame too. Warren Bennis (USC's Marshall) suggests that they are "institutionalizing their own irrelevance" by becoming too focused on scientific research that has little connection to business reality. This is very true. Too much time wasted writing these working papers that no one reads. It is like digging bones from one graveyard and buries them in another one.
What more should a business school like Harvard should do? They believe that in general there isn’t enough training in soft skills, such as self-awareness and the capacity for introspection and empathy. They also found MBAs lacking in critical and creative thinking, as well as communication skills. I think that is something difficult to teach in school. I’ve hired and coached more than at least 150 MBAs in my career; the biggest challenges are soft skills and creativity. 8 of 10 told me they studied or specialized in “strategy” in their MBAs, this was usually a red flag. When I asked them a few questions around strategy, most didn’t know what they were talking about. I don’t think you can teach strategy in school at all. Strategy involves more than a few tools and frameworks, it needs to take into account of people, culture and leadership. Every time I interview an MBA fresh grad and he/she started talking “strategy”, that’s pretty much bring to a quick end to the interview.
Is there something like MBA in CSR? The Global Executive One MBA program at RSM Erasmus is one such that explores how environmental and social performances do (and do not) go hand-in-hand with financial performance in a global economy. Nottingham University Business School (Ranks 100 in FT rankings) and the University of Geneva are two schools that have specialty MBA programs that focus on corporate social responsibility. I do like to find out what they are up to and report back here.
That brings up an interesting question. Does CSR really matters? If we need to change the future of business, we need to start with business education. When do they start teaching “creative capitalism”? In a much admired and debated speech at the World Economic Forum last January, Bill Gates said that many of the world's biggest problems cannot be fixed by philanthropy, but instead require free-market capitalism—"creative capitalism"—to solve. According to Gates, creative capitalism is "an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities."
