June 17, 2008
George Bush, the MBA President
Europe, old and new, has played host to George W Bush this last week. It was billed as a “farewell tour” – not au revoir, you notice. Farewell.
Europe and Dubya have never really hit it off, with the exception of Britain’s Tony Blair, of course. The suspicion, and lack of affection, was mutual.
Bush, a self-styled “war President”, had his plans for office completely destroyed by the events of September 11 2001. He had barely been in power for nine months on that bright September morning.
We will never know what his Presidency would have been like, given calmer times. As a candidate, he had talked of “compassionate conservatism”, of building an education system where “no child is left behind”. It is fair to say that events, and economic downturn, distracted him from these attractive-sounding goals.
Bush was also the first US President to hold an MBA (from Harvard). He was a believer in Peter Drucker’s “management by objectives” (MBO) approach. I am not sure that his record in office has done a great deal for the reputation of either management education or management gurus.
The US electorate may opt for a dramatic change come November, if the polls giving Senator Obama a healthy lead can be believed. The country could soon be under new and very different management.
And former President Bush may be looked on as one of those CEOs who grabbed the top job full of hope, but then failed to live up to the high expectations he himself had created.
This year is the centenary of the HBS. The true test for American HBS managers is how they and their US companies have performed in the last few years in response to challenges from e.g. globalization, the weak USD, a steep rise in oil & raw material prices, the subprime crisis, etc.
One gets the impression that US managers are too focused on projecting themselves, appearing on TV, writing books, increasing their remuneration, pensions, stock options. So we recognize them more because of their media exposure. Contrast that with the managers of the top 20 German companies who are more focused on running their businesses and less on projecting themselves.
Stefan Stern and Adam Jones might like to try this quiz from a German site, pairing up top German managers with the companies they run.
http://rangliste.faz.net/100/gewinnspiel.php?spiel=koepfe
Posted by: J.J. | June 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am | Report this commentIf arguably a MBA prepares to work/manage a company it does not prepare you for a political position. Be it Harvard, Stanford or whatever. The most sucessfull top-management position G. W. Bush had was at the Dallas Cowboys, and that yes I believe gave Bush more expertise, from a political standpoint than any MBA in the world.
Posted by: Nelson Mendes | June 19th, 2008 at 12:05 am | Report this commentI agree with J.J..
Seriously one wonders if it is already so difficult to do a good job when your devoted just to one thing. How can someone find the time to market yourself and at the same time maintain a top-level performance?