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--------- Inline attachment follows --------- From: <susanmlewis@prodigy.net< To: Don Miller <themiller@charter.net<, Beverly Jones <BJONES110@houston.rr= .com<, Bob Hurt <bobhurt66@hotmail.com<, Brent Edwards <pamedwards@academic= planet.com<, Christy Wussow <cwussow@houston.rr.com<, Craig Shields <shield= s.craig@yahoo.com<, Darian Hawkins <darianhawkins@msn.com<, David Marye <da= vidandaudra@msn.com<, David Salley <dhsalley@ev1.net<, Helen Mathews <hmath= ews@houston.rr.com<, Joel Anderson <indyandy06@msn.com<, Karen Harrison <th= e-harrisons@houston.rr.com<, Kathy Gibbins <pgibbins@houston.rr.com<, Kurt = Wangenheim <kwangenheim@houston.rr.com<, Lindsay Renaud <lindsayrenaud@msn.= com<, Lmfoust@aol.com, Mariano Gomez <mgomezsa@yahoo.com<, Mark Kiddle <mar= kkiddle@aol.com<, Mary John <sxjohn_2000@yahoo.com<, Mary Sapalio <msapalio= @aol.com<, Mary Vasquez <rvasquez1@houston.rr.com<, melissaevans@pdq.net, M= icah Hatten <dhatten@houston.rr.com<, Natalie Bondareva <natbond@lycos.com<= , Neil Anderson <necanderson@mail.com<, Peter Vint <pvint@houston.rr.com<, = Rob Krotee <rkrotee@houston.rr.com<, Robert Massey <massey.r@worldnet.att.n= et<, Sarah Driscoll <sshimeall@hotmail.com<, Shelly Farias <anthony_f@world= net.att.net<, Tracy Davis <tldavis@houston.rr.com<, Fawcett Jeffery <jlfawc= ett@earthlink.net< Date: Saturday, January 19, 2002 4:25:48 GMT Subject:=20 =20 From: News and Views | Opinion | Wednesday, January 09, 2002 Biz School Blindness Sank Enron=20 By JOHN LEBOUTILLIER=20 arvard Business School: It's called the West Point of capitalism. In fact,= the school's bottom-line-only philosophy has had a poisonous effect on Ame= rican business practices. The Enron disaster is the most recent - and spect= acular - manifestation. To illustrate my point, let me take you back to a classroom at the school i= n the late winter of 1978. The course was productions and operation managem= ent, taught by Chip Bupp, a thoughtful and serious man. On this particular day, the case study involved a company that manufactured= a product that might be harmful, even fatal, to the consumer. The question= was, what should you do, if you were the company's CEO, in such an ambiguo= us but potentially dangerous situation? Several students offered suggestions, none of which galvanized the class. T= hen a hand shot up, and Bupp said, "Jeff, what would you do?" Jeff, with his thinning blond hair, wire-rim spectacles and slight Southern= drawl, was one of the brightest members of the class and a natural leader.= When he talked, as the commercial used to say, everyone listened. "I'd keep making and selling the product," Jeff said. "My job as a business= man is to be a profit center and to maximize return to the shareholders. It= 's the government's job to step in if a product is dangerous." Several head= s nodded. Neither Jeff nor those who agreed with him seemed to care about the potenti= al effects of their cavalier attitude. What if the product really did harm = consumers? How about the company's employees? Were they in danger during th= e manufacture of the product? What would happen to the company if the CEO's= decision was wrong? Few in the classroom that day dared to raise these questions. At Harvard Bu= siness School - and business schools nationwide - you're considered soft, a= wuss, if you dwell on morality or scruples. As the years went by, Jeff had a meteoric career. He became a partner in th= e McKinsey consulting firm. From there he joined Enron and was soon promote= d to president and chief executive officer. Jeff is Jeffrey Skilling, who resigned under unexplained circumstances in A= ugust after only six months on the job. In two stock sales before and after his departure, he cashed out $30.6 mill= ion worth of Enron stock. Skilling and other senior managers encouraged employees to buy and keep Enr= on stock, even when things started to sour, while they were hurriedly selli= ng huge blocks of their own stock. And now Enron has collapsed, "the larges= t bankruptcy case in American history," according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ar= iz.). One analyst told CNBC, "It's the biggest insider trading scandal ever." Ano= ther observer said, "Enron was run to benefit the top executives. They lite= rally looted the company." Yet Skilling proclaims total ignorance of any problems. "I had no idea the = company was in anything but excellent shape," he has said. Articles about Skilling written since the demise of his company cite his ar= rogance and cold-heartedness. But as I witnessed sitting in that Harvard Bu= siness School classroom nearly 24 years ago, the seeds of his destruction g= rew out of a gross misunderstanding about the role of a business leader in = our society. In his view, it is to be "a profit center" and to "maximize re= turn for the shareholder," no matter the peril to consumers or employees. Harvard and other business schools must pay more than lip service to the gr= oss ethical blind spots that the Enron case has exposed. Starting with an a= dmissions policy that selects potential students for ethics and character a= s well as brains, these institutions need to return to the goal of teaching= their students to be good citizens first and moneymakers second. America can't afford many more Enrons - or Jeffrey Skilling-like CEOs. LeBoutillier graduated from Harvard Business School in 1979. He is the author of "Harvard Hates America."
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