AMERICA ON SAME PATH AS ENRON

The Enron story is old hat. Now, no one is interested. However, in its day, the story drew much public attention. The media worked the details repeatedly and in detail, perhaps because the startling collapse of a banner company destroyed the present livelihood and future pensions of thousands and thousand of workers. It started a chain reaction that destroyed accounting firms and even the Government of Gray Davis in California. The story made names like Andrew Fastow and Jeff Skilling the subject of conversations over kitchen tables. All of this made it seem as if I had learned everything I could about that disastrous business collapse. But, as I so often am, I was wrong.

Malcolm Gladwell, as staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine, published a book with the misleading title, What the Dog Saw: Little Brown and Co. 2009. He included in that book an essay, The Talent Myth, he had written July 22, 2002. The lesson we did not learn from the blitz of Enron stories was that hiring top MBA talent could have devastating consequences for a company. The college degree, Master of Business Arts, is a certificate indicating professors have succeeded in schooling their graduates in greed above morality; the bottom line justifies sin. The better more highly rated business schools are the most destructive to our business health.

In contrast to a MBA, a degree in business involves learning about accounting, contrasts, negotiating, among a whole host of other things. They are not the same thing even though a degree in business is a prerequisite to a MBA. A graduate with a degree in business can make a valuable contribution to society. What happened at Enron is that absolutely every one in the company was hired because they were willing to do “what it takes” to make money. The overriding principle was to do what ever it takes to increase the bottom line. In my blogs on firetreepub.blogspot.com I have mentioned many times that we need greedy people and altruist just as we need hawks and doves. If we have all hawks, we kill each other in wars and if we have all selfish people, we have Enron. Gladwell, in his essay, seem to blame Enron on lack of proper ‘company” organization, which is a different approach. I am saying Enron needed exceptionally talented people who cared about employees to counter the greedy. The problem is that our educational institutes are pumping out MBAs right and left but there is no such thing as a degree in altruism available from business colleges. Unfortunately, our society seems to be out of balance for the near future; we are heading in the same direction as Enron, with the Tea Party leading the charge; not necessarily people with MBA’s, but nonetheless greedy.

URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated