The "Poison Ivy" Growing at Harvard Business School

I read recently that business and political pundits say that President Bush has ruined the Republican "brand" for years to come. Ha! (That's what they said about President Nixon. Tell that to President Reagan.)

However, I think that W. has ruined more than "the Republican brand." What W. has really ruined from a business "branding" scenario is the prestige and credibility of what it means to have a Harvard Business School "brand" degree. Yes, W. is a graduate of the elite Harvard Business School - as are hundreds of the Wall Street bankers, executives, and accountants who got us all in this mess.

What are they teaching them there in Cambridge's Ivy Halls? Are we are we sure that it's not poison Ivy growing there?

Harvard: a brand name that you could slap in front of anything - and sell. Tell someone your doctor went to Harvard, or a candidate for a job, or something published with Harvard in front of it, and there's instant credibility. I dare remind everyone that Barack and Michelle Obama are associated with the Harvard "brand" as well (but for what it's worth, not the business school).

In the recruiting world, a Harvard MBA is considered to be one of the most prestigious graduate degrees in the world. It's coveted by the corporate world and clearly throughout the Wall Street banking community. A Harvard MBA. That's a "brand," right?

So it's not just President Bush, who is an alumnus of this elite program, but also many of the Wall Street men and women who have been using what they learned at Harvard Business School to guide our economy.

Of course, you can't judge or blame an entire educational institution for the deeds of its graduates. Can you? I mean, if someone gets hired based on the brand name of the institution where they received their graduate degree, why can't you judge how their work performance reflects what they learned there?

So, I don't lose any sleep over how George W. Bush "ruined" the Republican brand, but I feel sorry for what W. and the Wall Street elite - most of whom have gone to the Harvard Business School brand - have done to the economy. Maybe Harvard should do a case study or write a fancy paper on how many Harvard Business School graduates work for these bailed out companies. Then, collect all of the Harvard professors who are teaching all these people - and fire them! Look, the facts are just bad press for the credibility of the Harvard "brand," but these individuals are actually dangerous for the rest of us as we try to navigate and survive in the corporate America that many of these people seem to be running.

For my part, I am sending a bottle calamine lotion to Harvard. Like I said... it has to be "poison ivy"!

Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins) and can be reached at [e-mail].

Comments

[marykennedy]

Stephen, I absolutely agree with you. Harvard seems to have a special cachet. Remember the interview scene in The Firm? Tom Cruise (playing Mtchell McDeere) is being interviewed by senior partners of a law firm. He has a Harvard Law degree and he knows they don't. He was smart enough to check out their backgrounds ahead of time. He knows he he has the edge in the interview. Grisham writes, "They came from inferior schools--Chicago, Columbia and Vanderbilt.. He knew they would not dwell on academics." So McDeere gets a free pass because he has that better-than-gold Harvard Law degree...mary

[RobertHenryEller]

Stephen: Let's do the math:

According to Nobel Economist Joe Stiglitz, the Iraq War will end up costing the US 3 trillion dollars. We'll leave out the cost of the banking crisis - the origins of that pre-date Bush, although you could easily assign a trillion dollars worth of responsibility for that to Bush's administration.

There are about 65,000 living HBS alumni. Unless each one of them has produced (3 trillion divided by 65 thousand) 46 million dollars in economic value to the United States, the "equity value" of Harvard Business School's contribution to the country is negative.

Now that, my friend, is what I call brand destruction.

Robert

[nezumi]

I agree. What remains of excellence if it bows to the parents of rich kids? I would not argue against a high tuition, if it comes with true competition.

[darthdarcy]

Kudos to you; Harvard Business School and also a degree from Yale should cost half what it has the past few years after the way they soiled their reputation with the Bush family offspring..!

If Stanford takes back Condi Rice it's brand and value of a degree, should also suffer likewise..!

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate your comments. As a non-political broadcast journalist, I refrain from sharing my political views, so I feel it necessary to point out that many of the Wall Streeters and politicians involved - equally responsible for this mess - aren't Republicans. Michelle and Barack Obama certainly aren't.

--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[DonD]

For years, the most bragged-about statistic in MBA-land has been the starting salary paid to recruits from top-ranked B-Schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, etc. These data were critical to attracting high-quality applicants. Today, it would be interesting to add up the collected losses incurred by alumni/executives from these various schools to measure how much each of these programs has cost the United States treasury.
THAT would be interesting data; and probably not too difficult to compile. But don't hold your breath...

[TParrish]

Unbelievable. George Bush,an inarticulate man who cannot think on his feet has a Masters Degree...in anything. This goes a very long way toward explaining the neo conservative disdain for education and academic achievement.

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

DonD, you have a great idea. Wouldn't it be great if we could make the schools pay back that money to the US Treasury? The Harvard endowment alone could probably cover that. But like I said, it would be just as interesting to go back and find out who these professors are teaching these people - LET'S FIRE THEM!

--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[BethStuart]

Harvard Business School is actually located in Allston, not in Cambridge like the rest of Harvard. Many in the Harvard community view it as an expensive trade school and an embarrassment to the Harvard brand. George W. Bush has contributed greatly to that embarrassment although Jeffery Skilling (former Enron CEO and current guest of the U.S. prison system) made his own contribution.

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

Again, I know my blog is focused on Bush, so I understand. You're right. It's people like Skilling and the rest of his Wall Street cohorts that have given Harvard a bad name. Who are these professors?? Don't you think they should be fired?
--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[iambusto]

People go to Harvard (or any top 5-10 business schools) not for the education/professors per se. Its because of networking contacts ("rolodex effect"). and there is no denying that its still the top notch determinant of begining of an amazing career.

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

I can't disagree with that.
--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[mmgbizgirl]

Everyone knows that daddy got him into Harvard. A bribe that backfired on our nation.

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

If you beileve Oliver Stone, that's true. But my point is, who is teaching these people, however they got in? Who is giving them the degrees, and why haven't they been fired?
--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[anywho]

What happen to Wall Street is not taught at Harvard. This was a classic Ponzi scam, nothing to do with "business" and all to do with greed and theft.

[Rule Of Law]

How many here know that Harvard is not, strictly speaking, just and educational facility, but a corporation? And that graduating from Harvard is really more about the connections one makes there, than the education, per se? And that between the grads of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, we pretty much have the top flight Elite families perpetuating their hold over our economy and our country? To say that what has happened wasn't "taught" at Harvard, or any of those schools, is to be blind to the fact that ethics and business morality have been late comers to their curriculum, and that the lessons learned at your mega-wealthy Alumni-donor daddy's knee suffuses the entire system.

The Ivy League in general is just the minor leagues for the Pros on Wall Street.

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

ETHICS, ETHICS, ETHICS. You are 100% right about the Ponzi scheme, and so is the second blogger about ethics. Why aren't there more ethics courses being taught? Who are the professors who taught people like W. and his esteemed fellow alumnus from Enron? Why are these professors still working?
--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[thankgodimanatheist8]

I think it is time to have a moratorium on Business schools and law schools.....

Imagine how much more competitive we would be if the brightest and the best students studied science and engineering and actually produced things rather than being leaches on the wealth of this nation by developing negative things like hedge funds and suing everyone.

Also please change the tax laws so we tax purely financial instrument by 99% or even 110%.

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

I couldn't agree with you more, as do many of my MBA and law school friends who are now practicing but are now having their own ethical dilemma of why they got their degrees. It seems like having "Harvard" before your degree is a sure way to bulletproof your career. That pretty much guarantees you a job for life.
--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[psychomom]

I was secretary to a Harvard Business School professor 10 years ago. One time he had me arrange a meeting for him with a student who was failing due to poor writing skills. I was amazed and asked the prof., "don't the students have to write an essay to get into HBS?" The prof. replied, "Yes, but a lot of potential students pay people to write the essays for them." That sheds a lot of light on the subject, doesn't it?

[juliette23]

That sounds about right. Blue blood neopotism and legacies to the Harvard Brand make it diluted. What would Cotton Mather think?

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

Psychomom, your blog alone is absolutely unbelievable. It goes back to the ethical issue that I've talked about all along - where are the ethics courses? Who are these professors? Why are they accepting this behavior? And why are they still working? Wouldn't you love to be in HR at Harvard? It seems like you can never be fired!

--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.

[Oxonian2001]

I think it's high time to debunk the myth of Ivy superiority--and not just Harvard Business School.

To be sure, th Ivies have produced some brilliant and highly talented people--including Obama himself--and, for the most part, we can assume that the average Ivy grad will have a more solid foundation of knowledge than a grad from a lesser known university (assuming approximately the same level of intelligence): just compare George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.

Nonetheless, I can remember far too many instances of Ivy mediocrities from my years in England at a centuries old university: those who complained that it was "too hard" while also claiming that they were "being discriminated against because they were American." (Please!)

What the Ivies do consistently produce, for better or worse, is confidence as well as competitiveness--by any means necessary. Since the average employer tends to be entranced by those who exhibit such traits without sufficiently examining the entire package, they are taken in immediately. (Like "we" did with Bush!) And coupled with an overreliance on the good'ol boy network where friends unthinkingly hire other friends, it's not surprising how Wall Street--and indeed the corporate world--has landed in this present mess.

Frankly, I evaluate Ivy grads like I do designer duds: with great care. Some are worth it, some aren't.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Good points all, and much my own thinking.

Let's not forget that the fact that a given student is ATTENDING an elite institution often (not always) indicates that a formidable "good old boys 'n girls" network is already in place........ headed by dear old mom & Dad.

Witness our current President, .....who started off on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
regards
tm

[Stephen Viscusi - Huffpost Blogger]

Can I summarize your blog in three words - "smoke and mirrors"?
--Stephen Viscusi is the author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). He can be reached at [e-mail], and visit his website, www.bulletproofyourjob.com.