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.
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.)
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