Posted on 07/04/2006 4:21:32 AM PDT by Gondring
George W. Bush is the first president with an MBA (from Harvard Business School, no less), but it's not clear that being a master of business administration has made him a better chief executive.[...]
Business schools are a relatively new institution. The MBA was invented in the Progressive era as a way to abort future generations of robber barons. The idea was to train a class of business administrators (the ethos was anti-entrepreneurial) who would expiate capitalism's sins by managing their corporations in keeping with higher morality. The higher morality was whatever the spirit of the age revealed to professors and high-toned Protestant ministers. Over decades, the pursuit of ethical uplift waned, and the pursuit of efficiency and new methods of reading a balance sheet waxed, paving the way for the increasingly empty trendiness of modern management books.
[...A]few weeks ago, Bush said: "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of Defense."
Being the decider-in-chief suggests one paradigm of modern management: the executive who makes the final decisions, the tough calls. He "hears" and even listens to others before deciding, but the point of a decision (from decidere, "to cut off") is to be decisive, not to reason your way to a judgment that can be explained to others.
Bush's management style is long on decisions and short on explanations. He's apparently better at listening to others than questioning their views. He prefers to have around him people whose judgment he trusts implicitly, even as he insists that they trust and abide by his decisions implicitly.
This isn't simple cronyism or "hackocracy," as the left charges.[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The commentary against modern management style is worth reading in full, though the LA Times allows only excerpting here. I'm interested in hearing opinions from MBA/non-MBA folks.
All I have to offer is this:
It's better to have an MBA from Harvard, than to be a divinity school dropout. Or another freaking lawyer.
LOL
You wouldn't happen to be making a very pointed comment against some recent alternatives, would you? ;-)
Hmmmmmm.... What did GW learn at Harvard about business? Did he learn that a business has unlimited supplies of money and can spend at will without any thought about they would pay for it?
Actually, Pres. Bush's MBA training has been very helpful, in that he has had to manage many difficult situations.
What makes George W. Bush different from a Bill Clinton is George W. Bush has self confidence. He knows who and what he is. He is comfortable in his own skin. It is the primary characteristic of people who make things happen.
Clinton could not tolerate an employee that was smarter than he was. Thus you see dingbats like Carville, and Madeline Allbright in his administration. The primary defect revealed in Clinton's sexual escapades was his need to prove his manhood. It is very dangerous to have a president who does not feel equal to other men... who must use sexual conquest to prove his manhood. What many do not understand is that Clinton needed to be caught in sexual escapades. It was how he proved his manhood.
It is also the characteristic of many professors. They fear men who have physical prowess. They are also jealous.
Clinton looked for weak subservient people to staff his administrating who followed his every lead and excused his every failure. Clinton was and is at heart a Neville Chamberlain... always looking for a way to avoid conflict. The Europeans liked him because he is a wimp.
Thus he could make a deal with North Korea that should have not been made. Clinton tolerated attacks on American ships, and embassies. He replied with only enough force to keep the media off his back.
George W. Bush would be the same person making decisions the same way no matter what school he attended. That really ticks educators off. They can't make up his mind for him.
If you want to examine a similar decision making process I would point out how Winston Churchill made decisions. Churchill wanted to take on Hitler in 1936. The elite were aghast and pointed out it would likely cost 2 to 3 thousand lives to take out Hitler. So they waited until it took millions of lives.
Oh yes, the elite in great Britain. Had a similar view of Churchill in the 1930s. In their view Winston was much too aggressive and not able to see the obvious shades of gray the in real world. Dumb old Winston tended to see the world as good guys and bad guys. Winston did have one exception to that view. He saw the educated elites as mediocre guys.. and they hated him for that.
In many respects I see a real similarity between Truman and Bush 43. Truman only had a high school education. It made no difference. Derided at the time by the elites it turned out he was right in nearly every move. Bush 43 has a Harvard MBA . It made no difference. Derided in his time by the elites, it is even now apparent that he was right in nearly every move.
History is very kind to men like George W. Bush and like Churchill and Truman .. he knows it.
There was a time when College Professors were seen as foolish impractical men not to be trusted with anything important. This professor makes a very good case for that view.
Having both a brother and a niece with an MBA I would trust them to run things much better than some east coast liberal elitist or some idiot lawyer who couldn't even carrying his own state in an election.
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The author of this article has misapplied analogies and demonstrated the worst logic I have seen in years. There isn't a single sentence or topic that is actually proven to be true. McNamara's Ford upbringing didn't lose Vietnam, politicians lost Vietnam, yet he is trying to say that politicians are the people we should elect rather than common sense businessmen.
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Ah yes. There's no BS like HBS.
"Over decades, the pursuit of ethical uplift waned, and the pursuit of efficiency and new methods of reading a balance sheet waxed, paving the way for the increasingly empty trendiness of modern management books. "
Huh?!??! That quite a broadbrush swipe.
This is a reach and ridiculously precarious Bush Bash argument. But I guess this is all that the LA Times can muster
I appreciate Dubya and his MBA (and not being a weasel lawyer) on most issues.
But, in honesty, I think his bottom-line business sense has led him
to believe the economics of nearly-unfettered illegal immigration is a
good thing and maintaining our borders is not such a big deal.
Having Rove in attendence at the next La Raza national meeting is
a sign that he's sincere in his views about sovereignity.
And willing to make nice with a racial-politics organization.
http://www.nclr.org/section/events/conference/event_information/speakertalent/
(See Rove on July 11; also note that Sen. Brownback will be in attendance on July 10)
I have my MBA from Harvard and have a couple of friends that are lawyers. MBA's work in business and create products and companies. In business, lawyers act as the agents for people that sue each other. Lawyers are overhead in society. Look at the stats for lawyers in Japan where their economy is not slowed down by these human barnacles... Look at the economies of India and China; is the law a huge factor in their growth? Lawyers are needed for criminal cases and to make sure contracts are valid, but they are not necessarily the best for running large organizations like states and countries....
It is interesting to note the lack of economic commentary these days. Despite the war on terror and the economy that President Bush inherited from Clinton, our economy is in pretty good shape. Not to say there are some major problems with Social Security and other issues that need attention, but rather that things are in much better shape than when he took office because of his leadership.
It is easy to wise crack about looks, and put others down. Post us a picture of yourself, and let's see what good put downs we can come up with!
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
I'll take someone with a functioning moral compass and some common sense. The sheepskin, any sheepskin, is optional.
You gain nothing by making fun of anothers looks, especially when this is intended PRIMARILY as a politically oriented website! You only show how little you respect yourself and demean your own family!
Colleges are designed to turn out the well rounded individual. Those that change the world are never well rounded. They are driven by a goal and only those things that further their quest are important to them.
You mention Gates. Gates with Microsoft accomplished something that had never been done before. PC computer software. College is where one goes to learn how to do what has been done before. There is no college course on how to do what has never been done.
Why didn't some graduate engineer invent the airplane? Why leave it up to two bicycle repair man. The degreed head of the Smithsonian institution had lots of money and government support and he failed. Two bicycle repairmen succeeded.
Edison never made it through the first grade. His teacher sent him home and told his mother he was too dumb to learn. Edison was home schooled.
Why didn't a college graduate do the Ford Motor company?
The Electric light, phonograph, movies, airplanes automobiles, and the PC computer software have changed the world for the better. The men who caused their developement did not graduate from college.
You see development is a top down process. Education is a bottom up process. If a physicist was tasked with inventing the electric light bulb, he would start by studying the nature of light. He would learn all sorts of things about light... The wave forms, the frequency of light waves, the nature of light wave propagation. He might after many years figure out how to make florescent a light bulb.
Edison on the other hand noted that if he put a small copper wire across the terminals of a battery the wire got hot, gave off light, and burned in-two. He reasoned that nothing can burn without oxygen. He therefore put the wire in glass bulb and pumped out all the air. When he tried that the wire did not burn.. it melted. So he looked for a substance that would get hot enough to give off light and yet not melt.
Edison's approach involved no math, little more than simple observation and the knowledge that with out air combustion could not happen.
The primary discovery of the Wright Brothers was that the formula for determining lift was wrong. It had been developed by a German scientist. But that formula was wrong.
How did the Wright brothers learn it was wrong? They built what we today call a wind tunnel and measured the lift developed by a wing surface. The formula said it should give lots of lift. It did not. By experimentation the Wright brothers determined the correct formula for calculating lift. They used it for not only wings and elevators, but for the propellers as well. The Wrights used experimentation to determine the math. Not the other way around.
Those that change the world focus on a goal. The goal is what they want to invent or develop. Then they learn what ever it takes to invent or develop that item. If it takes chemistry they only learn the chemistry they need. If another part takes physics they learn the physics they need. If it takes math they learn the math they need. If it takes electronics they learn the electronics they need. They only learn what they need to do the job.
Compartmentalized education only allows invention by a committee. That does not work very well.
Because they are hoping Bush-bots will attack the conservative for his views?
Like the old B-school saying: "First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people"
Seen that proven many times.
You are missing Kesler's point that being strong in business yet rhetorically weak is inadequate in the political arena.
There are more MBA types in government now. Mitt Romney (R, Governor - MA) and John Lynch (D, Governor, NH) are both Harvard MBAs.... I doubt that the founding fathers intended that lawyers dominate the political scene in America...
Fantastic analysis. Spot on.
good stuff
But we had Craig Benson as governor in NH, who was a "run government like a business" guy, from a successful business background, and he was bad news.
Government is NOT a business. Success in business does not point to success as a political leader.
Tator, this is one of your best. Right on target, in every respect.
Insecure folks who are very smart are almost always a poorer choice for this demanding job than those somewhat less intelligent, but who know themselves, and their limits, and don't push the envelop when it comes to right and wrong. The insecure near brilliant are all too often successful in finessing that roadblock to their ambitions as their high IQ's work overtime to rationalize it all away.
Another BIG LIBERAL MYTH !
Jimmy Carter does not have a degree in nuclear science, nuclear engineering or nuclear physics. He completed the 'standard-for-the-era' general engineering science degree from the Naval Academy. This was SOP for many academy grads. He took nuclear reactor operations training from the Navy as part of his nuclear sub duty training. This Carter uses for his claims to be a nuclear scientist. I also seem to remember he found a way to spend minimal time in the Navy.
Translation: "MBAs are less likely to let journalists tell them how to run the country, so no more of them, please."
Uh huh..
Thank you very much.
Praise from you two is high praise indeed.
I have seen this up close and personal, as they say. I started a successful business. It was not unusual to have people ask me where I went to school to learn what I knew. I had the delight in telling them which university I dropped out of, which of course totally blew away their assumption that people cannot learn unless it is handed to them on a platter in a classroom.
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I have operated several profitable part-time businesses and one full time one which supported me well for nearly twenty years and only closed down because all the customers were other businesses and most of them closed down so I had almost no market left to sell to. I have zero college training in business. I think some people can make decisions and some can't. If someone is prone to make stupid decisions I doubt that all the business schools in the world can change that. A business school may be a great benefit to someone who is capable by nature but sending a fool to business school only produces an educated fool. I have seen the results of decisions made by educated fools and it ain't pretty.
That, or you're simply able to express your perceptions better than anyone I've read on the subject.
Just noticed this was from the Claremonsters
If government was Toyoya,one of every two vehicles would be non-operable and the other would be missing.
Technology is the application of science.
You've summed up much of my own experience. One thing that is highlighted by these observations (not necessarily inferred from them! :-), is that many college educations aren't that great, either...but that the total lack of scientific training results in very little chance of correct results. (And if your experience is like mine, it's very difficult to explain to these folks where they're off the mark since they don't even see the basic flaws in their assumptions...)
And in my experience, the non-technical MBA being brought into a company is a death knell... I've seen so many good firms brought down by MBAs who know how to be decisive more than understand the field and market.
I have an MBA from the University of Chicago, and it the knowledge I gleaned from it helps me immensely in what I do, the practice of law, not to mention helping me to understand better a host of other stuff, including how to manage my money, something lawyers typically are not very savvy about. MBA bashing is just silly. It depends on the actual knowledge that one gained from it, which varies.
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