Stanford GSB: Stanford Business May 2002

Stanford Business

May 2002, Volume 70, Number 3

Spreadsheet One
*Serving Up Wild Boar
and Witty Repartee
*Forensic Gumshoe
*John Scully Wins Arbuckle Award
*Resources for Global Managers

Spreadsheet Two
*Winter Reading Break the Ice
*John Gardner, Social
Reformer, Dies at 89
*Gardner Awards
*Building Capacity within Nonprofits

Spreadsheet Three
*Green Opportunities
for Entrepreneurs
*Room for Relaxation
*Shultz and Perry on
National Security
*Alumni Authors

Spreadsheet Two

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK MATCHO

Winter Readings Break the Ice

A JUNKIE FOR BOOKS on business topics, second-year student Jeral Poskey suggested coordinating book reading over the December 2000 holiday break with a discussion to follow in January. Student life director Courtney Payne took up the challenge and “Books on Break” became an immediate success. Repeated this past winter, students, faculty, and alumni/ae filled up new book-reading groups within minutes of their posting on the GSB Web site.

“It’s always interesting to see what other things [the professors] like and to know they are multidimensional,” first-year student Adrienne Klembara told the Reporter. She read Snow Country, a book about a Japanese geisha, which was chosen by professor emeritus Jim March. March provided sushi for two group discussions.

In general, readers enjoyed a break from business books, with novels being especially popular. First-year student Carl Palmer did not like reading The Natural Step in Business but said that it generated a great group conversation. The discussions were “more intimate than what you normally see in a large class,” said associate professor Deborah Gruenfeld, who hosted two discussions of the book Our Separate Ways.

The overarching lesson from the experience, according to first-year Shani Jackson, should be that “a simple idea, carried forth, can make a huge impact on the culture of the School.”

Gardner Awards

IN MARCH, the Stanford Business School Alumni Association for the first time presented two awards named after the late John Gardner to recognize the contributions of outstanding volunteers. Jerry Tomanek, MBA ’73, and Noel Fenton, MBA ’63, were honored with the John W. Gardner Volunteer Leadership Award recognizing 25 years or more of service to the School. Lynn Utter, MBA ’86, and Susan Austin, MBA ’93, received the John W. Gardner Volunteer Service Awards.

John Gardner, Social Reformer, Dies at 89

Photograph by John Leschofs

John W. Gardner, who played a central role in the creation of Medicare and coined the term “independent sector” to capture the idea of the latent potential within America’s nonprofit institutions, died February 16 at age 89 in his Stanford campus home. A consulting professor in the School of Education at the time of his death, Gardner joined the GSB faculty in 1989 as lecturer in organizational renewal and leadership and held a University chair in public service. The School chose him to receive the 23rd Ernest C. Arbuckle Award in 1993. Former GSB Dean Arbuckle and Gardner met as Stanford undergraduates, and Arbuckle called upon Gardner for advice when he first became dean.

Gardner was secretary of health, education, and welfare in the Johnson administration, when Medicare was created. He founded Common Cause, a citizens’ advocacy group that aims to make political institutions more open and accountable. He also cofounded Independent Sector, which supports hundreds of nonprofit groups nationwide.

Dean Robert Joss recalled meeting Gardner in the late 1960s when Joss was a White House Fellow. (Gardner helped establish the program.) More than three decades later, noted Joss, Gardner inspired him to become the School’s eighth dean. “He had a tremendous concept of leadership and what it meant to be a citizen,” Joss said.

Building Capacity Within Nonprofits

“I WAS PANICKED the first week at the pace, but as the course went along, the things we talked about fit into a full picture,” said Thomas Haar, director of Family Services Agency Inc. and one of 49 leaders of nonprofit organizations who participated last summer in the School’s first Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders (EPNL). They came from health care, education, and community development organizations.

A similar group of participants was scheduled for this March, and a third session, planned for June, will be held for executives of arts organizations. It is a joint project of the School’s Center for Social Innovation and National Arts Stabilization, an arts group interested in developing the art world’s managerial and financial skills.

The programs offer much of the same educational framework the School long has provided to for-profit leaders in its executive education programs.

The program’s purpose, according to EPNL director and faculty member James Phills, is to provide the growing nonprofit sector with the skills to be effective stewards of the billions of dollars contributed to their organizations every year.

Participants in the first program said they took away new ideas on how to refine their missions, improve their use of human resources, and evaluate their effectiveness; they also made mentoring friendships. Sheryl Brissett-Chapman of the National Center for Children and Families said she was surprised to find how similar her work was to profit-sector entrepreneurship. Added Edward Kelley of RFK Children’s Action Corps Inc.: “Nothing has moved my thoughts about how I manage my agency more than these two weeks.”