Andeisha Farid, a graduate of the 10,000 Women program in Afghanistan (a partnership between Goldman Sachs – Thunderbird – American University in Afghanistan) just received Vital Voices’ Entrepreneurial Achievement Award for her work building the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization, which runs 10 orphanages in Afghanistan and Pakistan with over 450 children of diverse ethnicities.

One interesting question that was brought up was whether we may be going too far in trying to incorporate values into the curriculum or whether, on the contrary, we may not have gone far enough.  According to one view, our responsibility would be limited to teaching the best tools available and letting students draw their own conclusions in terms of how to apply them.  Yet, the reality is that one cannot possibly separate values from tools because tools are embedded with values.  As some of the participants pointed out, as educators we have done a good job at teaching tools, but we are yet to figure out an effective way to convey a sense of professional ethics and social responsibility in the application of those tools.

Another question that was brought up is whether we should choose between being a “development school” or a “business school.” As several of my colleagues argued, one cannot possibly separate business and development on a global stage.  Business cannot flourish in the absence of basic infrastructure and human development.  Conversely, economic development cannot take place in the absence of a vibrant business community.  Any attempt to help leading companies and business leaders succeed in the developing world (which happens to hold the greatest growth opportunities over the next decade) must necessarily integrate business and development disciplines into the curriculum (which has been a signature of Thunderbird for decades).

I picked up today a few thought-provoking and timely quotes at the Corporate Citizenship Conference (The Economist, NY) where I’m speaking tomorrow about Thunderbird’s collaboration with Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women initiative:

“For our business to be sustainable, the communities where we do business have to be sustainable,” Alex Cummings, The Coca Cola Company.

“We serve 4 billion people, which is almost 60% of the world population.  To delight the other 2 billion potential customers currently undeserved we have no choice but to grow sustainably and responsibly,” Melanie Healy, Procter & Gamble.

“Companies cannot do everything but they must do something.  Concentrate on the areas where you can have the greatest impact given your capabilities,” President Bill Clinton.

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” – Henry Ford

DISTANCE-learning business education is a resounding success story. [...] If, perhaps, the very top tier of universities are yet to offer distance programmes, still some very notable ones do: Carnegie Mellon or Thunderbird in America, Warwick or Instituto de Empresa in Europe, for example.

Yet students who take their MBAs at a distance can find themselves railing against some intense snobbery. Full-time counterparts often decry that the only way to take the degree is to immerse oneself in the experience—to take time out from one’s career to contemplate.

Perhaps, in an ideal world.

The Open University Business School dean James Fleck likes to question the term “distance education”.  The relationship between a student on the last row of a 350 student amphitheater and her professor is more accurately described as “distance” than the very intimate relationship that technology can afford between learners and instructors and among learners themselves.  We definitely need a new language to describe what these programs do.

The Economist also hints at an old debate in higher education, and which technology is allowing us to revisit through a new lense: the democratization of access.

Distance-learning programmes fall into two distinct camps, both of them laudable. The first might be labelled “democratic” (see page atricle). These are programmes that are open to all, regardless of geographic location, previous work experience or, because they are often cheap, ability to pay. It is easy for an MBA at a prestigious institution to sneer, but there is nothing to say that business education should be the bastion of the elite. Of course, there will always be a demand for Harvard MBAs in the boardrooms of McKinsey or Barclays. But business education is fundamentally about personal betterment. And that is something to which everyone should be able to aspire.

[...] The second type of programmes [...] apply stricter entrance criteria and are offered by more traditional universities. Where students are expected to have good first degrees and significant work experience. And where the degree they receive will be of an equal standing to the full-time variety. Students might choose such a programme because they are in a part of the world which lacks high-quality schools, and it is the only option available to get a good degree. Or they may just prefer the idea of working at the time that suits them best.

A quote from Ben’s posting:

Hoping to learn about Vietnam and the people, I have learned about myself. This is, I suppose, one of the benefits of cultural exchange. I love this kind of learning. The ability to apply the knowledge I have picked up at Thunderbird and before Thunderbird in a real setting has been wonderfully practical. The ability to do so at an international destination has been inspirational. For me, this experience has been a cultural learning experience both of the culture of Vietnam and my own individual culture. In the brief short time I have been here I have reassessed my individual responsibility toward those around me, my affinity to an assortment of foods, my low appetite for risks on the road, and the importance of family in celebrations. Seeing life lived in a different way has presented me with a new vantage point to view the way I live my life. Learning about the local culture has not only taught me who the Vietnamese are, but also who I am. This is what makes this experience so rewarding.

So far the public debate has been either wasting time in a state of denial of the evidence (”it snows ergo there is no global warming”), ridiculing the global governance process as displayed in Copenhagen (”why should we pick up the tab if others aren’t doing their share”), or focusing on the costs of dealing with the potential catastrophic phenomenon (”why should we care about a long-term phenomenon when we have a 10% unemployment” or “reducing carbon emissions will end our economic dominance”).

It is time we begin to spend some air time and bandwidth discussing also the tremendous opportunities that lie within the low-carbon economy.  Economists predict that containing carbon emissions can entail anywhere between a cost of 5% of world GDP (the equivalent of the economy of France) to a gain of 2% (the equivalent of India), with some consensus around a cost of 1%.

Avoiding a potential global disaster will test our capacity to innovate, to come up with new technologies for producing and consuming energy, new low-carbon cities and lifestyles, new business models that do not rely in the combustion of cheap fossil fuels.  Business that ignore this, may become economic fossils themselves.  Those that understand it may find the greatest business opportunities of the modern era.

The Thunderbird Oath is the first of its kind in the world.  It was the result of a student led initiative in 2004-05, which was later endorsed by the School’s faculty and board of trustees.  Students began a voluntary campaign to sign the oath at every graduation ceremony since 2005.  The oath was incorporated into the admissions process in 2006, and since 2008, it has been a formal element of the commencement exercises.  The new website will now allow the 35,000+ alumni from around the world to join the movement.

In 2009 a group of MBA students from Harvard Business School launched a similar initiative (MBA Oath) that ended up capturing the support of over half of their graduating class and spreading to other schools around the world.  In 2009, a group of Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum also committed to a professional oath, which is open for public support at globalbusinessoath.org.  In 2010 a new foundation was created to support and coordinate these multiple initiatives (which are still using different texts).

It’s official, The Oath Project website is out.  A couple of months ago, a foundation was created to try to bring together a web of until now loosely coordinated initiatives, which include the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Global Business Oath, the student-led initiative MBA Oath, and the Thunderbird Oath of Honor.

The Oath Project foundation starts up its activities with a small board (Profs. Rakesh Khurana, Nitin Nohria, and Robert Kaplan of Harvard and yours truly) and an international council of CEOs and thought leaders (still under construction).  The foundation is being managed by the Aspen Institute (Business and Society Program).  The first objective is to try to harmonize the text of the oath and to produce a version that all groups can feel comfortable with.  Second we want to support any group that wishes to join the movement and adopt the oath.  Third, we will try to share ideas as to how to bring the oath to live.

Last week in Davos I had the pleasure of moderating a session titled “Rethinking Business Ethics” which included, in addition to a few but mighty YGLs from South Africa, the UK, Israel, and the US, UN Global Compact Executive Director Georg Kell, Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle, Monterrey Inst. of Technology President Rafael Rangel and Ecolab CEO Doug Baker.  During the session Georg Kell announced the support of the UNGC to the initiative.  The week before, the steering committee of the Principles of Responsible Management Education agreed in NY to also lend its support to the Oath Project.

In sum, the stars are beginning to align beautifully.  With the backing of the WEF Young Global Leaders, the UN Global Compact, the Aspen Institute, PRME, and the MBA Oath, the experiences of a few business schools, and the backing of thought leaders of the caliber of Khurana, Nohria, Kaplan, Matthew Bishop and WEF founder Prof. Klaus Schwab, we are on our way to transforming management into a true profession.  Join the movement!!

Bishop and Green argue that the efficient market hypothesis has been taken dangerously far and that we need a new form of capitalism grounded on a more sophisticated understanding of human behavior, an argument that seems to be gaining support (see my review of Justin Fox’ The Myth of the Rational Market).

Bishop and Green dedicate a chapter to the idea of a Hippocratic Oath for business managers (with a direct reference to the Thunderbird experience) which they believe can contribute to the necessary professionalization of management and its commitment to the public interest.

In the presentation of the book in Davos last week (see inserted picture) Matthew Bishop recognized he had been initially skeptical about the power of an oath to change behavior, but that the current course of events make him believe that a change in values by those in charge of large corporations and financial institutions is long due, and that a professional code of conduct embedded in business schools and perhaps eventually in professional associations, could contribute to such change.

I asked our trustees to dig deep into our mission, “to educate global leaders who create sustainable prosperity worldwide“, and to imagine how Thunderbird could evolve throughout the next decade, leaving aside (in fact questioning) the constraints of the traditional academic model.   What if we looked ourselves not as just a graduate school of management worried for its competitive position, but as a community of scholars, students and practitioners focused on creating sustainable prosperity worldwide.

I provided the following “incendiary” statements, not as expressions of what we are or must be, but as what-ifs to make us think differently about ourselves… What if:

• We don’t measure our success by what other deans think of us but what impact we have
• We don’t measure our success by how many people we exclude, but how many lives we touch
• We don’t measure our success by how much money our graduates make, but how much value they create
• We don’t invest in students with the highest GPA (Grade Point Average), but the highest GPL (Global Potential to Lead)
• We are not people who serve the market, we build markets that serve people
• We are not a think-tank, but a do-tank
• We don’t measure the quality of our research by how many papers we publish but how many people care to read them

Here are some of the highlights of our subsequent discussions:

General

• Thunderbird is not just a fine graduate school of business, it is much more.  Thunderbird is a community of shared beliefs and values, dedicated to the common goal of developing leaders committed to build an inclusive and sustainable global economy.
• While Thunderbird needs to continue to excel as an academic institution, it should not let traditional academic measures dictate its conduct or constrain its actions.

Our promise to our students

• To help them inspire confidence because of their skills and trust because of their values
• To receive a transformational learning experience, including experiential, hands-on modules in locations around the world, that will equip our graduates to create value in their organizations (our graduates are known for being able to “hit the ground running”)
• To combine strong values (global citizenship, ethics, social responsibility) and equally strong and practical skill sets, based on an intimate understanding of the evolving needs of employers
• To provide first-hand experience in the emerging economies that will drive demographic and economic growth over the next decade
• To provide a sense of belonging to a global community of practice that will support them throughout their careers
• To deliver learning in flexible formats to accommodate different lifestyles and economic realities (for example, special, scaleable forms of delivery, which can bring costs down and improve access in certain emerging markets)

Our promise to enterprises

• To be a trusted partner in the development of the global leadership talent of public and private organizations, for-profit or not
• To provide a constant pipeline of new leadership talent with strong values and skills
• To break down barriers between learning and practice
• To provide learning environments that are effective and efficient (in the use of time, for example, by using advanced technology)
• To provide a values-based education
• To focus on quality and impact, not on elitism: we will help develop the talent organizations need
• To allow participants to continue to engage with the broader Thunderbird community
• To creatively integrate degree and non-degree solutions
• To incorporate innovation and creativity to our programs

Our promise to thought leaders

• To be a source of ideas with real impact
• To be a platform, a megaphone to give a voice to powerful ideas (from our faculty, our community or elsewhere) that can help create sustainable prosperity worldwide
• To shape the thinking of those who shape business environments (e.g. policy makers, regulators…)
• To be a source of insight in the markets of the world with the highest business potential, the greatest development need, and the least attention from academics

Our promise to practicing global leaders

• To serve leaders throughout their careers
• To act as a meeting point, a forum, to help develop human and social capital
• To serve emerging leaders with the highest potential to have an impact (e.g. women entrepreneurs in emerging economies)
• To offer personalized development solutions combining degree and non-degree
• To incorporate strong values as well as focus on cross-cultural understanding, and appreciation for decision making frameworks in different cultural settings

Our promise to the developing world

• To help develop entrepreneurial talent that can have an impact and drive economic development
• To partner with organizations that can help identify, support and fund new global leadership talent and entrepreneurs that can create economic growth
• To incorporate strong values and professional ethics in our programs
• To extend our presence in 20 locations (high opportunity, high need) by 2020… not in bricks and mortar, but in hands-on programs
• To help develop the capabilities not only of entrepreneurs, but government officials and regulators