MBAs Are Not Menaces; Many Do Good
Lately, whenever someone who holds an MBA does something ethically questionable, it has become fashionable not to blame the person, but her degree.
For instance, Charles Warner wrote on the Huffington Post recently about Washington Post publisher Katherine Weymouth, who took some heat for her proposed idea of hosting salons in which lobbyists and government officials could pay to have "off the record" dinners with Post reporters. He blamed two things for this integrity-compromising proposal: Weymouth's privileged upbringing and her MBA degree. He said:
It almost seems that Weymouth ... arrogantly believed she could do no wrong, which likely comes from a sense of entitlement after getting a job she didn't earn and, of more concern, from what she learned in her MBA program -- think of your own needs first, not about the core values of your organization, and not about customers.Warner does admit at the end of the article that it probably isn't fair to blame Harvard Business School for its graduates' ethical lapses and asks a fair question that has been on many minds lately: "What values are MBA programs like Harvard's teaching?"
Still, this moment of rationality comes at the end of a rather incendiary article titled "MBAs Are a Menace to Society," again implying that the public failing of any MBA condemns the rest of us.
MBAs doing good
So, in the spirit of journalistic fairness, I'd like to leave you with a list of six MBAs who are using their powers for good. There are many more among their rank, of course, and I invite you to leave their names in the comments section. If you are an MBA doing good, feel free to brag about yourself.
While this list doesn't even begin to counter the recent spate of negativity directed toward MBAs, it will at least serve as a reminder that MBAs, like people from all other walks of life, come in all stripes:
- 1. Chandler Arnold -- Stanford MBA, Senior Vice President of First Book
- 2. and 3. Jonathan Greenblatt and Peter Thum -- Kellogg MBAs, founders of Ethos Water
- 4. Ron Gonen -- Columbia MBA, Recycle Bank founder; 2009 United Nations Enviroment Program Champion
- 5. J.J. Ramberg -- Stanford MBA, founder of Good Search and Good Shop
- 6. Andrea Wenner -- Columbia MBA, Out2Play founder