Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer |
Obama's Failure to Communicate
"Barack Obama electrified the Democratic convention in 2004 with his speech, and his oratory was a significant factor in his winning first the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. ... How ironic, then, that as I look back at Obama's first year in office, what is most notable is this administration's failure to craft compelling messages frequently repeated -- to control or at least significantly influence how the nation views its most pressing issues."
--Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior, writing in the Washington Post blog "On Leadership."
Health Care is Hurting Democrats
The majority party normally loses seats in midterm elections, but the Republican resurgence of recent months is more than a conventional midterm rebound. The culprit is the unpopularity of health reform, and it means that Democrats will face even worse problems later this year in less liberal places than Massachusetts say Professors David Brady, Daniel Kessler, and Douglas Rivers in an op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Coupling Growth with Climate Control
"The world's major challenge is to devise a strategy that encourages growth in the developing world, but on a path that approaches safe global carbon-emission levels by mid-century. The way to achieve this is to decouple the question of who pays for most efforts to mitigate climate change from the question of where, geographically, these efforts take place. ... A crucial corollary of this strategy is large-scale technology transfer to developing countries, allowing them both to grow and to curtail their emissions."
--Former Stanford Business School Dean Michael Spence, in the second of a series of opinion pieces in the online forum the Project Syndicate. Spence's essays about "The New Wealth of Nations" appear monthly.
Fighting Goliath
The success of our model did not depend on the latest and greatest poverty reduction theory or specific application of our business model that had been researched and developed at the 'hallowed halls of Stanford.' The special sauce directly enabling the success of the Nuru model was embodied in this man walking toward me...humble servant leadership.
--Jake Harriman, MBA '08 in his blog analyzing the first year's success of his nonprofit Nuru working with farmers in
Kuria, Kenya.
Bermont on Design and Leadership
"I see now that designers are people who can make information emotional and visceral, who can make a bigger impact by thoughtfully marrying form and content. ... To make their points they use a toolkit far more expansive than the typical tools of business, like spreadsheets revealing the bottom line or well-reasoned emails. They solve problems with their hands and their hearts, not just a keyboard and reasoning."
--Becky Bermont, MBA '05, is vice president for Media + Partners at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she explores models for collaboration between industry and academia. Bermont writes the blog "Redesigning Leadership" with RISD's president, John Maeda.
Voices
What they're saying at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
A digest of speeches, blogs, videos, and essays from the GSB community.
Stanford Doc Hails Haiti Volunteers
"There are always a few people more interested in citing their credentials than in getting the work done, and media people looking for the sensational angle, but they stood out in stark contrast to the dedicated and tireless people who rolled up their sleeves coming in and hugged going out. Take it from someone who was, as someone suggested to me, in the belly of the beast that when the memories finally register, they will be indelible and life-altering."
—Dr. Paul Auerbach, Sloan '89, blogging in Healthline.com from Haiti. A professor of surgery at Stanford Medical School, Auerbach and six other volunteers from the Stanford emergency department landed shortly after the January earthquake. As more help arrived in Port-au-Prince, Auerbach coordinated the medical activities of nongovernmental agencies.
Online Life Morphing with Real Life
"More of how we live our lives in the real world is morphing into our online social identities and how we use both established and emerging social technologies. … The result is an even richer life … both online and off."
—Gina Bianchini, MBA '00, cofounder and CEO of Ning, writing in the Huffington Post.
ICANN a Virtual Switzerland
"There are certain things [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] can do in cyber-security and certain things we absolutely cannot do. We're fundamentally a bottom-up, community-driven organization [with] a special focus on the domain name system. ... There's cyber-defense and there's cyber-offense. We have nothing to do with offense anywhere, and we have to remain as neutral as Switzerland ... protecting our domain name system through and with our partners."
--Rod Beckstrom, MBA '87, president and CEO of the international nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, discussed the past, present, and future of ICANN during a 30-minute interview on C-Span.
To End the Recession, Think Jobs
"Using GDP growth alone is a very weak and misleading indicator of true economic vitality. The only measures that really matter are, initially, the months before net job growth reemerges and, ultimately, total employment itself. ... It is imperative that the Executive and the Congress focus their full attention on unemployment and on charting a clear path to finding those millions of missing jobs."
--Leo Hindery, MBA '71, writing in the Huffington Post, suggests seven steps to recover jobs in the United States. Hindery is chairman of the U.S. Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation.
- More: Hindery shared his passion for management and stock cars with Stanford Business.
Social Networking According to the Talmud
"People from all over the world can meet and interact virtually on IMVU. It reminds me of a wonderful saying from the Talmud: 'Who is wise? He who learns from all people.'"
--
Cary Rosenzweig, MBA '88, is CEO of IMVU, an online community whose 45 million registered users create avatars and interact through them. His avatar (pictured) is named CaryJay. Rosenzweig was interviewed by the New York Times.
The Road to Stanford
"I had never been out of South Dakota. ... The memory that comes back is driving out to Stanford with the U-Haul trailer, being in the fast lane in traffic and horns honking, people pointing and screaming at me. I asked myself, 'What the hell did I get myself into?' I mean, literally I didn't even realize that there was a fast lane and a slow lane! Once I got on campus, it was very, very easy to adjust. ... Stanford put an emphasis on prior work experience, and so I was able to learn from my classmates as well as the professors. The whole experience was, I'd say, crucial to any success I've had in my business career."
--
Gary Pechota, MBA '74, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is part owner of DT Track Consulting, a business involved in Indian health care. Pechota reflected on his career for Winds of Change, a magazine that focuses on education and career advancement for Native Americans.
- More: Stanford Business caught up with Pechota in 2004, when he was chief of staff of the National Indian Gaming Commission.
Don't Tax Efficiency in Health Care
"Instead of promoting prepayment and integrated care with the right incentives, the best long-term strategy for keeping coverage affordable, this [tax proposed by the Senate Finance Committee] moves us in the wrong direction, toward fee-for-service. ... If it proves to be absolutely necessary to raise revenue by taxing some part of health insurance, it would make more sense to lower the thresholds at which the excise tax on high cost insurance would apply, adjusted for age and other risk factors, thus strengthening the incentive to choose economical care."
--Professor Emeritus Alain Enthoven in an opinion piece.
Advice for Obama's Jobs Summiteers
"Let's focus on developing jobs in America that will make us stronger coming out of this Great Recession than we were going into it. So, how elusive is the solution to America's unemployment spiral? One part of the solution is not elusive at all. It is innovation. ... As the proceedings begin, it is my hope that the participants will share a sense of urgency and a common belief that out of this extraordinary challenge, we can create jobs for today's workers and our next generations. We can innovate our way to a prosperous future."
--Robert Holleyman, SEP '98, CEO of the Business Software Alliance, writing in the Huffington Post on the eve of President Obama's Jobs Summit.
Redirect Pakistan Aid
"The United States should invest both funds and skills in market-oriented solutions with the power to capture the imagination of Pakistanis who, themselves, are looking for a way to change their own lives. ... If even 10% of the annual $1.5 billion [in additional development aid to Pakistan] were devoted to investments in sustainable and expandable innovations for meeting basic needs of the poor, we could see greater trust between Pakistan and the United States, and ordinary people themselves could start to believe in a partnership of change."
--Jacqueline Novogratz, MBA '91, CEO of the Acumen Fund, writing as a guest blogger on NJ.com. Novogratz calls for a redirection of aid to Pakistan -- moving away from top-down "solutions" toward entrepreneurial, market-oriented investment in the poor.
Back From the Brink
"What happened in the world economy is something that happens every 100 or 120 years; it was completely unexpected. ... If what you did was an error, there has to be a change in management. But if it was an act of God, and it wasn't your fault, why? I believe that in many companies [fired execs are] sacrificial lambs, to make it look as if you're doing something when you're not. When you're in a crisis, changing management is a false move."
--Lorenzo Zambrano, MBA '68, longtime chairman and CEO of Cemex, in a Q&A with Business Week, his first since he brought the world's third largest cement producer back from last year's financial crisis.
- More: Zambrano was profiled in Stanford Business magazine in 2008. A major humanitarian, he received two of the Business School's highest honors: the Excellence in Leadership Award and the Arbuckle Award.
I-bank Lesson Learned
"We predicted that six out of ten of these investment bank acquisitions by commercial banks would not work. We were wrong. Nine out of ten didn't work."
--Dick Kovacevich, MBA '67, chairman of Wells Fargo, reflecting on this and other lessons he's learned since business school. He appeared at Stanford as part of the View From the Top speaker series.
In Investing, Two Heads Are Better Than One
"In a complicated task involving critical decisions, working with good partners and listening to them is almost always better that working alone. Somehow, the group process ensures that most bad ideas are weeded out, even if their owners shout and cajole, while ideas that make sense influence the group's opinion, even if their owners speak softly."
--Avner Mandelman, MBA '76, director of Venator Capital Management, writing in the Globe and Mail about applying a lesson he learned at the GSB to his investment strategy.
After the Wall
"I was helping Fox News produce a documentary marking the 15th anniversary of [Reagan's] Berlin Wall address. After the day's shooting, [anchorman Tony] Snow and I walked through the Brandenburg Gate to the former East Berlin, a place that once appeared drab and lifeless but now pulsed with color and energy. In a building that had once housed a branch of the old Communist government, Snow and I discovered a particularly vivid demonstration of the victory of free markets: a Rolls-Royce dealership."
--Peter Robinson, MBA '90, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former presidential speechwriter, reflecting in Forbes about the speech he drafted for President Reagan, urging "Mr. Gorbachev" to "tear down this wall."
Business Recovery Tips
"Is it possible that we have weathered the worst of the storm? While there is no doubt that times will remain tough for a while, smart business leaders are beginning to think about what will come next, and how to be ready to make the most of it."
-- Paul Staelin, MBA '01, vice president of Birst, a provider of business analytics software, writing in destinationCRM about business recovery in 2010.
Anything Goes?
"When does something splashed on Facebook or broadcast via Twitter become bad for my company? The problem is not with my staff but with me. Specifically, photos that I posted on my Facebook page [pictured at right] in September after returning from Burning Man, the weeklong anything-goes festival. Yes, I know it isn't the typical CEO getaway. That's part of the problem."
-- Chip Conley, MBA '84, CEO and founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels, asks readers of BNET a burning question about corporate behavior in an era when anything goes -- or does it?