Upon Further Review
I found “Fixing America’s Leadership Deficit” in the June Bulletin to be a brief but exciting summary of the three-person panel discussion that took place at the Kennedy School of Government last March. For a while, it appeared that one of the panelists from HBS, Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, would reduce the discussion to a nonproductive, ideological exercise when she observed, “We’ve had 25 years of right-wing ideology saying that the only way to get elected is to run against government.”
But I underestimated the power of KSG professor David Gergen. Building on the cogent comment of the third panelist, HBS professor and former Medtronic CEO Bill George, that we have been choosing “takers” instead of “givers” as our government leaders, Gergen took issue with Kanter’s aforementioned critique of conservative ideology and explained how the problem of takers versus givers was “generational, not ideological.” Reason and civility to the rescue!
I was embarrassed for HBS, as I felt we had been badly trumped by KSG. But then I arrived at the article on social entrepreneurs and HBS’s Social Enterprise Initiative. A prominent leader of, and spokesperson for, this outstanding private-sector success story: Professor Kanter.
Samuel F. Heffner III (MBA ’70)
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Right Wing, Left Wing, West Wing
HBS professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter cites 25 years of right-wing ideology as contributing to today’s so-called [political] leadership deficit. When I was at HBS, I don’t remember any of my professors as having been openly left-wing or right-wing political ideologues. We studied business management and the “bottom line.” But since Professor Kanter has introduced the subject of political leadership in a Harvard forum in a partisan fashion, here’s a “bottom-line” assessment of “right-wing” HBS graduate President George W. Bush (MBA ’75): growing economy, narrowing budget deficit, and no jihadist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. I understand the rationale for the Kennedy School as a home for politically assertive professors. I don’t understand the same for HBS.
Steve Taylor (MBA ’71)
Park City, UT
Is Current Capitalist Model Sustainable?
The March Bulletin was uplifting. I was very pleased with the news about Al Gore visiting the campus and Garry Emmons’s article addressing the problem of a growing population of poor people in our world. It is good to see the School move forward on an effort to take — I hope — a leadership position and promote discussion and action on some of the most critical problems facing the world in the 21st century.
I hope you will focus a major part of your efforts on developing answers to a very important question that many people (including people a lot smarter than I am) have about the basic feasibility of sustaining and spreading current American habits of material consumption.
I have spent some considerable effort trying to get a handle on the question of sustainability. My conclusion would be that we are now facing the consequences of the many failures of American and world leadership in the previous century. It appears likely that we are now in the position of standing on the deck of a sinking ship, and all we can do is argue about the colors of the missing life rafts.
William A. Dark (MBA ’72)
Cameron, TX
Bob Anthony’s Contributions
The March article on Professor Emeritus Robert Anthony does not sufficiently underscore the extraordinary contribution that he made to advancing management practice. Beyond numerous specific involvements and program contributions at HBS, his work is notable for extending the idea that information could be used not just for after-the-fact scorekeeping but for real-time managerial decision-making. In particular, he was in the vanguard of advancing the idea that information could be used to plan the implementation of strategic objectives and then control the ongoing operations of those business-implementation tasks in real time.
Leonard Marks’s conclusion to his June letter — “We truly lost a legend!” — is an understatement.
Stephen E. Roulac (MBA ’70)
San Rafael, CA
Add Social Entrepreneurship to Executive Education
Your June article on social entrepreneurship was interesting on many levels. Having recommended the OPM Program to many people over the past 25 years, I am disappointed that it does not have a more significant focus on the area of social entrepreneurship. You might find there is an audience for it. Many people attend the program because they are looking for something new.
Alfonse M. Mattia (OPM 9, 1984)
Edison, NJ
