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Why Send 30 MBA Students Halfway Around the World at Christmas?

Written by Myra H. Strober, Professor of Economics, Professor of Education, School of Education

October 2006

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—Stanford MBA students live in the fast lane. Smart, highly rational, well read, and well connected, many of them will become the key business leaders of the 21st century. But despite their manifold talents and accomplishments, many of them feel woefully ignorant of cultures other than their own.

So every year, during winter break, the Stanford Graduate School of Business sponsors three or four student-led foreign trips. In an increasingly globalized economy, the idea is to provide opportunities for students to come face to face with business, politics, and culture in another country.

In December 2005, my husband and I accompanied 30 MBA students and 10 of their spouses on a GSB-sponsored trip to Israel. Over 11 days we came to know the students well. We found them to be not only business-savvy, but also notably attuned to ethical, emotional, and spiritual matters. It became clear to us that the trip not only exposed students to another society, but also widened their vision of their own potential international impact.

The seven students who organized and led the trip put together a remarkably diverse group of fellow-travelers from fourteen countries—Korea, Japan, the Philippines, India, France, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ireland, Israel, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. One-third was Jewish; the others were Christian, Muslim, believers in one of the Eastern religions, or had no religious affiliation. One-third was women.

We arrived in Tel Aviv in early morning, devoured an exceptionally ample Israeli breakfast, and then headed out for a walk on the beach. It was late December, but felt like early April, with a mild ocean breeze and some hearty souls splashing among the gentle waves. The sand yielded easily as we strolled close to the shoreline. Heading north, toward the Yarkon River, we marveled at the huge hotels, sophisticated cafés, and endless traffic on the boulevard that paralleled the beach. Over the next 10 days we would understand more of the country, meet with Nobel Laureate Shimon Peres and with business leaders, have conversations about religions from Judaism to Bahai.

The first official meeting of the trip was with Ofra Strauss, chairman of Elite-Strauss, Israel's second-largest food company. Started in 1936 as a small family dairy north of Haifa by Strauss's grandparents, who were German Jews fleeing from the Nazis, Elite-Strauss now produces not only dairy products, but also coffee, chocolate, salty snacks, candy, fresh salads, and freshly squeezed drinks.

Strauss took over the company from her father in 1996, after serving a five-year stint at Estee Lauder in New York. She was a terrific role model for the MBA students. The mother of several children, as well as one of the most powerful businesswomen in the world, she had a droll sense of humor and an astonishing mastery of the details of her business.

As she talked, we began to understand how the smallness of the Israeli market obliges its successful companies to become global. She spoke at length about the challenges of managing operations in multiple countries, each with its own culture. This theme was repeated by the business leaders we visited at Eden Springs, suppliers of bottled water to numerous European countries; Teva Pharmaceuticals, one of the major world producers of generic medications; and Netafim, a global producer of irrigation piping.

Omri Padan, owner and CEO of McDonald's Israel, faced other cultural challenges. Although most of McDonald's restaurants in Israel are not kosher, all serve only kosher meat. When Padan opened his first Israel McDonald's, he (and his patrons) learned that cooking in the traditional McDonald's way played havoc with the salted kosher meat, creating a most unpleasant tasting burger. Because McDonald's hallmark assures that all meat is cooked in exactly the same way in all restaurants across the globe, Padan ran into a stone wall when he asked the folks in charge at the international company to agree to change the technique for cooking McDonald burgers in Israel. But ultimately he prevailed, and now he manages 80 successful Israeli McDonald's. The connection between business success and meeting cultural needs was a crucial lesson for MBA students looking forward to managing in a global economy.

Also operating globally were the high-tech companies we called on. The importance of human resources in high-tech was driven home in every multinational we visited. The first was Check Point in Tel Aviv, an international leader in internet security cofounded in 1993 by CEO Gil Shwed after his stint in the Israeli military, where he developed his ideas and techniques. In Haifa's industrial park, we went to Elbit, manufacturer of helmets that allow pilots to see information displayed on the inside of their visor, and talked with its founder, who also had gained his expertise in the military. At Intel Haifa, we heard from Senior Vice President David Perlmutter that one of the major reasons why Intel decided to expand its research facility in Haifa was to take advantage of the highly talented engineers and scientists who had immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Our agenda included meetings with government leaders as well. While the business CEOs taught the importance of cultural values, persistence, and human resources in business success, the lessons from the governmental leaders were more multifaceted, often illustrating the need to consider human and ethical issues in decision making.

In the conference room of his modest Tel Aviv offices, we met with 82-year-old former Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres. The students rose to express their esteem as he entered, awed to be face to face with the man who, along with Yitzhak Rabin, had reached agreement with Yasser Arafat in 1993 and signed a peace agreement with Jordan in 1994.

Short in stature, soft-spoken, serene, and self-deprecating, Peres often had a slight smile on his face, as though he were amused by life itself. In his short introduction, he emphasized his preference for looking forward rather than back. But in response to one of the student's questions about his mentors, he agreed to look back, saying, with great passion, that he'd had only one mentor—Ben Gurion. A man like Ben Gurion, he said, only appears once in a generation. After him, any other mentor would have inevitably fallen short.

Peres' words provided a powerful challenge to the conventional wisdom on mentor succession among students—that potential new mentors must be cultivated on an ongoing basis so that they are ready to guide as soon as current mentors leave the scene. Hearing Peres' feelings about Ben Gurion, students discovered a less instrumental view—that mentors are not fungible, that each is to be truly cherished, and that some can never be replaced.

Peres said that currently his main interests were internal to Israel—developing the Galilee and the Negev Desert. He talked about the difficulties facing overcrowded urban areas and his desire to begin to shift population growth to these areas that are under-populated and receive less than their fair share of investment. It is a tribute to Peres that in Ehud Olmert's current government, formed in April 2006, he is both deputy prime minister and minister of a new cabinet, Development of the Negev and Galilee.

In Jerusalem, we had two additional political meetings. The first was with Benjamin Netanyahu ("Bibi"), the former Likud prime minister who was the chief opponent of Ehud Olmert in the election that was to be held in March 2006. The second was with the highly respected and beloved Aharon Barak, president of Israel's highest court for the past 10 years, and part of the 1978 Israeli negotiating team headed by Menachem Begin that met with President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the successful Camp David peace talks.

Bibi was an eloquent spokesperson for the neo-liberal position. At 56, he was imposing and articulate. As tranquil as Peres had been, Bibi was equally edgy, and their differences in demeanor were as sharp as the differences in their politics. Bibi holds an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and talked forcefully and in detail about his years as finance minister when he redesigned a failing Israeli economy, privatized several governmental functions, and created numerous incentives for economic growth. In discussions with others, including Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, and Uri Reichmann, founder of the first private university in Israel and founder of the Shinui political party, it became clear that both the success of the Israeli economy, and the increase in poverty and income inequality that came along with it, could be laid at Bibi's door. Whether one celebrated Bibi or excoriated him depended not simply on what he accomplished but on the ethical judgments of the evaluator.

Bibi seemed surprised that, during the Q and A, students asked more about politics than about the economy. His responses to their questions confirmed his reputation as a hard-liner on peace negotiations. Passionate in his opposition to unilateral disengagement from Gaza, he called it foolhardy and warned that it would ultimately prove dangerous. Listening to Bibi, students could easily see the stark choice that Israelis would have in the upcoming March election, between Bibi's views and the more peace-seeking views of Peres, Ehud Olmert, and others in the new Kadima party. Three months after our meeting with him, Bibi and his Likhud Party were defeated by Olmert and the Kadima Party.

The venue for our meeting with Aharon Barak was the Supreme Court. Even from the street, it is an imposing building of ultra modern design. But inside, it is simply spectacular, with large halls and courtrooms that tastefully and artistically combine highly polished reddish wood, glass, and Jerusalem stone. Light, which enters the building from multiple angles, is an intrinsic part of the architecture.

As Barak talked about his best-known decisions, limiting the security services' ability to torture terrorists, and authorizing the fence around Gaza and the West Bank, it was easy to see that he was both brilliant and a man of high principle. Students had a sense that Israel, which has dealt with terrorist issues for much longer than the United States, has learned the importance of wrestling continually with the balance between security and liberty.

Concerns about the proper balance between security and ethics came up again in our visit to the Israeli Air Force's (IAF) Flight Academy in the Negev. Our meeting began with a lecture from the director of the Academy, a lifetime IAF pilot whose father and grandfather had also been IAF pilots. Israeli pilots have extraordinarily high status in Israel and the Flight Academy is highly selective. Moreover, only 10 percent of those selected for flight training actually become pilots. The philosophy of the IAF is that, although their primary mission is the training of warriors, first and foremost they must train human beings. Time and again during our visit, but especially when talking to the first-year cadets, we learned that training in ethics provides a bedrock for all other training.

Exploration of the religious complexity of Israel was as much a part of the trip as the business and political visits, and the frequent juxtaposition of the spiritual and rational was a key ingredient of the trip's emotional impact. Students were both intrigued and comforted by the religious experiences the trip provided.

While walking through the lush grounds of the Mount of the Beatitudes along the Kineret (the Sea of Galilee), the place where Jesus is said to have delivered his Sermon on the Mount, we came upon a group of pilgrims from Brazil. Sitting with their faces toward the sea, they were chanting in harmony. Our students from Brazil and Argentina joined them, greatly moved by the singing, but especially inspired when they learned that for most in the group the occasion represented the culmination of a lifetime of saving to afford the trip.

On midnight of Christmas Eve, we attended services at the Scottish Church in Jerusalem, complete with traditional Christmas carols. The entire service was about peace, a precious condition dearly desired everywhere, but especially in the part of the world where our service took place, and many students left the service in tears.

Our religious visits also included the Druze and Bahai. Numbering about one million worldwide, with about 70,000 living in Israel, the Druze faith developed in the 10th century as an offshoot of Ismaili Islam. Many Israeli Druze have been strongly supportive of Israel, and some have become well-known patriots. Israeli Druze began serving in the Israeli army voluntarily in 1948, and at their request, compulsorily, since 1956.

Although it has been in existence for only 150 years, the Bahai have about 5 million adherents worldwide. While our group walked leisurely around the extensive and gorgeously maintained Bahai Gardens, the faith's world headquarters, with its breathtaking views of Haifa and the sea beyond, our guide explained that the Bahai believe in the unity of God and see the religion's fundamental purpose as promoting peace and harmony.

Our most extensive religious experiences were in the Old City of Jerusalem. From Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, we had a birds-eye view of the Old City, including the Temple Mount, said to be the place where God stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, the place where Jesus was crucified, and the place where Mohammed ascended to heaven. Today, the site is enclosed in a magnificent mosque, the Dome of the Rock. Looking at the beauty of the city laid out at our feet, it was hard to believe how much strife the area has witnessed over the centuries and how contentious it remains.

We entered the Old City via the Lion's Gate. Starting at the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, we retraced the route that Jesus was said to have taken before his crucifixion. From there, we walked through the Muslim Quarter, and then into the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site. The stones from which the Wall is built are gigantic, dwarfing the astounding number of people praying there. Many of the students' classmates gave them notes to place in the Wall's crevices, an old custom by which Jews are said to communicate with God. But it was almost impossible to fit the notes in. Every crevice within reach was jammed. Anyone watching the students at the Wall would have been fully persuaded that business students are most assuredly not "all business."

While the business, political, and cultural parts of the trips were carefully planned, it may be that the students themselves were the single most important factor in the trip's success. The bus rides were times for unbridled hilarity, repackaging the lessons of the trip and transforming them into treasured memories. Three of the students were first-rate comedians. Taking as their raw material the events of the trip, they satirized speakers, students, guides, and themselves. One performed his side-splitting monologues daily on the mike from the front of the bus. The other two worked from the back. Alternating the roles of straight man and comic, they teased, mocked, and mimicked for hours at a time. All three could have alternate careers on Saturday Night Live.

On one of the long bus rides, the trip leader for that day noted that it was Rachel's birthday and suggested we celebrate by singing Happy Birthday to her in each of our languages. There was uniform enthusiasm for the idea, and we serenaded in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Japanese, Filipino, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Bulgarian. But the coup d'gráce was Hoyon, singing in Korean, for it was then that we discovered our very own Frank Sinatra. Every day from then on, whenever there was a lull, a chant would rise up from the bus: "Hoyon, Hoyon, Hoyon." But Hoyon played hard to get. It wasn't until the last day that he finally agreed to croon again, and once more the bus went wild with screaming from his numerous fans.

On the last day of our trip we visited Masada, King Herod's former fortress in the desert. We rose early from our hotel at the Dead Sea, and began climbing at 4 a.m., reaching the top at sunrise. A flat-top rock about 440 feet above the Dead Sea, Masada has deep gorges on all sides. After Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 CE, a group of Zealots moved to the abandoned fortress with their families and holed up there. In 72 CE, a Roman general decided to conquer it and end the Zealots' resistance. According to the historian Josephus, the night before the Romans entered, the Jews at Masada killed themselves rather than be conquered.

It is hard to equal Masada in grandeur and narrative, but the breakfast picnic we had at an oasis in the dessert afterwards was astonishing in its own way. The comments in response to the leadership team's request for reflections on the trip made it clear that this had been no ordinary tour. The Israelis were thrilled at having been able to share their country with their classmates and observe it anew through foreign eyes. Several of the Christians said they had been awed by the Brazilian pilgrims at the Mount of the Beatitudes and by Christmas Eve services. The American Jewish students were impressed by the ability of the Israelis to live with the intractability of their situation, and endeavor to make peace with neighbors that seek their extinction. And everyone admired the ability of business leaders in a small country to create and successfully manage truly global businesses, as well as the ethical integrity of so many of the political leaders.

But perhaps the most poignant statement came from our French student, who said that what he had learned from this trip was the misunderstandings (his word) between the French and the peoples of Israel had been going on for centuries. It was his plan, he said, that some day, when he attained a leadership position in France, he would mitigate those misunderstandings. What more could we hope that a trip might inspire?