Category: B-schools

Want to do an MBA then start a company? Read on

October 23, 2008 3:05 pm by Adam Jones

Those looking to know more about entrepreneurship – and particularly the way it is taught at business school – might find an excellent new module on the FT’s MBA Gym site useful.

The MBA Gym gives registered users a free, interactive preview of topics covered on a typical MBA course. The new entrepreneurship module covers issues such as business plans, funding needs and the differences between entrepreneurs and managers. Other modules cover topics such as leadership, marketing, strategy, accounting and finance.

Posted in B-schools, Innovation/tech | Permalink

Get Robert Shiller’s Yale course for free online

October 22, 2008 3:49 pm by Adam Jones

The wisdom of Robert Shiller, described by the FT’s Clive Crook as ”one of the world’s outstanding economic thinkers”, is being brought to a wider audience.

Yale University, where he teaches, has just published online the 26 lectures that comprise Economics 252, his introductory course on financial markets. They can be viewed for free or downloaded as MP3 or video files. Transcripts are also available.

I’ve only had the time to dip into the lectures. Much has happened since they were filmed in the spring, so some of the content has inevitably been overtaken by events.

But if you look at lecture eight for instance – Human Foibles, Fraud, Manipulation and Regulation – there are lots of timeless insights into the psychological tics that influence investor behaviour (including one derived from a cruel experiment on pigeons).

Finally, if Prof Shiller’s lectures don’t appeal, you could always eavesdrop on a class discussion of Nabokov’s Lolita or a course of 24 lectures on France since 1871.

Technology – it doesn’t always make us more stupid.

Posted in B-schools, Finance, Innovation/tech | Permalink

Pick of the week

October 17, 2008 1:10 pm by Adam Jones

John Quelch says recession will create a new type of consumer: “the middle-aged Simplifier”. She will shed her possessions and will collect “fleeting but expensive” experiences instead.

I feel like I’ve met her before. Years ago.

Elsewhere:

Female executives thrive more in family companies;
How to wangle an invite onto a company board;
Corporate governance battles fought by foreign investors in Japan;
A pay consultant picks through new curbs on executive compensation.

Posted in B-schools, Corporate culture, Governance/CSR, Hard times | Permalink

A Dickensian way to renew a family business

October 15, 2008 6:57 pm by Adam Jones

Family businesses can’t be run by one generation for ever. At some stage, power must transfer to its children, then its grandchildren. It is a notoriously difficult process to manage.

New research suggests that business-owning families could smooth this transition by involving children as young as six in dinner-table conversations about their trade.

Continue reading: “A Dickensian way to renew a family business”

Posted in B-schools, Corporate culture | Permalink

Au revoir, HBS

October 14, 2008 4:57 pm by Stefan Stern

That’s it – got to catch a plane to NYC for tonight’s FT/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award.

It’s been a terrific few days here at Harvard Business School. Stimulating and fun. Apparently this blog even got a mention over cocktails last night, so to all my reader(s) out there among the HBS alumni: hi!

Everyone here deserves a good celebration to mark the first 100 years of existence. People seem to have behaved themselves, and hardly anyone mentioned President George W Bush (MBA class of ’75). I plan to write a bit more about this event for next week’s paper.

The world will look very different in 2108 – if you believe (as I do) that it will still be here.

You and I won’t be here then, of course, but I have a rather good feeling that HBS will be.

Posted in B-schools | Permalink

HBS: Who will lead… and who will follow?

October 14, 2008 4:47 pm by Stefan Stern

There’s been a lot of talk about leadership at Harvard Business School over the past couple of days. HBS exists to “educate leaders who make a difference in the world”. There is even a banner hanging up on one of the buildings with the words “Who will lead?” on it.

What happens if a leader turns round and finds that there is no-one behind him or her? What sort of leader is that?

And yet only two people that I have heard have discussed the question of followers from the main platform – both (is this a coincidence?) women.

Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University, was the first speaker to raise the question of followers this morning. And she added a crucial rider to HBS’s declared mission statement: its alumni should make a difference in the world and for the world.

Orit Gadiesh, head of Bain Consulting, spoke at length about the mutual relationship that genuine leaders establish with their followers. ”Willing followers are confident that their leaders are on the right path,” she said. And good leaders can be confident that they will be followed. Effective leaders “create that relationship of mutual confidence.”

You don’t have to be female to be a good leader, but maybe it helps.

Posted in B-schools, Leadership | Permalink

JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon reveals secret of success

October 14, 2008 4:30 pm by Stefan Stern

Why has JP Morgan come through this recent period of turmoil in better shape than almost all its major competitors? CEO Jamie Dimon (MBA class of ’82) revealed all at the Harvard Business School centennial conference this morning.

“We suck less!” he declared.

This was perhaps one of his less controversial comments. If you have only one truly honest colleague out of ten around the top table with you, “Sack the other nine!”

Politicians had failed to get to grips with the energy crisis for over three decades. “We deserve $4 a gallon oil,” he said. (Sounds like a bargain to to my Brit ears.)

The whole mortgage business is “basically under-regulated”. CDOs were too complicated – “what were we thinking?!”

And he refused to accept the populist line of attack taken by politicians, that too many businesspeople were greedy and dishonest.

“These businesses are more charitable than the average Congressman – and probably more honest than the average Congressman”, he asserted.

This won the biggest round of applause of the morning.

Posted in B-schools, Finance, Governance/CSR, Leadership | Permalink

Bill Gates cheers up Harvard

October 13, 2008 6:07 pm by Stefan Stern

That famous Harvard drop-out, Bill Gates, has just brought delegates to their feet with a discussion of his work trying to eradicate malaria and HIV/Aids.

At a time when capitalists are being forced to ask harsh questions of themselves, here was a successful multi-billionaire everyone could feel good about.

Were Harvard Business School’s alumni applauding out of a sense of admiration, or relief? Perhaps it was a bit of both.

Posted in B-schools, Governance/CSR, Leadership | Permalink

GE’s Jeff Immelt on leadership renewal

October 13, 2008 3:27 pm by Stefan Stern

Former Harvard MBA Jeff Immelt just delighted a packed conference hall (actually a big tent) with his observations about the need for leaders to renew themselves.

“You’ve got to be able to do this,” he said. “Leadership is really a journey into yourself. I take every criticism personally, I think about them, and I go to bed at night thinking: ‘Oh God, what a failure I am.’ And then I wake up in the morning and I say: ‘Hello, handsome!’ ”

Mr Immelt said that a leader’s (self-)confidence was vital. “You can’t sit there in front of over 300,000 people as day: ‘I don’t know what to do!’ You have to say: ‘We’re gonna nail this one, and here’s why!’ ”

An unscientific poll of HBS alumni here reveals a big majority of Obama supporters. But we are, as Meg Whitman just pointed out, in Cambridge, Mass.

Posted in B-schools, Leadership | Permalink

GM + Chrysler = managerial distraction

October 13, 2008 10:02 am by Adam Jones

Robert Salomon, who teaches corporate strategy at New York University’s Stern business school, is highly sceptical that General Motors would benefit from buying Chrysler. After it was reported that the US carmakers had had talks about a deal, he wrote a blog post entitled “A disastrous deal”. It warned:

There is no quicker way to gain market share and increase pricing power than to remove a direct competitor. However, I’ve never been a big fan of combining two failing firms in the hopes of creating one healthy one. You generally end up with managerial attention diverted to a complicated integration, and away from what they should be doing in the first place - managing the individual businesses to make them healthy.

I asked him for a bit more detail. Did he, for instance, view the merger of Alcatel and Lucent as an example of the sort of managerial mess a GM-Chrysler deal could engender? Yep, Alcatel-Lucent “fits the bill quite nicely”, he reckons.

Further reading: FT’s Lex column; ‘GM Board was cool to Chrysler link’.

Posted in B-schools, Hard times, Strategy/ops | Permalink