I have read several critical news articles recently in business publications about the failing of business schools to educate MBAs about ethics, and judgment, and things having to do with being responsible for the impact their decisions have on society.  I could take offense because I have one of those degrees except their desire reflects my own, which is to make more conscious citizens of business leaders.  The front pages of newspapers are full of greed and avarice.  One particularly crisp WSJ opinion article was written by Michael Jacobs.  Mr. Jacobs is a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flager Business School.  He also was director of corporate finance policy at the U.S. Treasury from 1989-1991.  He expresses substantial concern about lack of business education on the responsibility of boards of directors.

I have hope for education, though.  I had my first opportunity in 2001 to judge the International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition (ICBSC), an annual April event where student teams from around the world convene at the Bahia Resort in San Diego to make their final decisions on a business that they have run, in executive teams, since February.   They are engaged in a substantial business strategy simulation.  Prior to arriving they have forwarded a strategic business plan to judges and by the time they arrive for the culminating weekend of events they have already provided the judges an annual report reflecting three years of decisions running an international public company.

I now judge the ICBSC every year.  My passion has grown for this collegiate experience so much that I joined three others to constitute a board of directors who share my passion to advance and enhance the simulation, which has been under the care of David Fritzsche, retired professor, for many years.  He has enabled the board, and we are fresh and new but the simulation is not, having been held for 45 years.  The University of San Diego (where I received my MBA) hosts the simulation thanks to USD’s Business School Dean David Pike.

My fellow founding board members for this business simulation are Robin McCoy, visiting professor at USD and  Ph.D. candidate; Michael Slater, CEO of Nic Software; and Glenn  Murray, finance and technology consultant.  Robin is also the administrator for the annual event and faculty advisor for the USD executive team.

The simulation reflects reality well.  Like in real life, eventually bad decisions catch up to you.  In real life, we are now seeing executives and corporations run by those executives running aground.  Except for the fact that their poor decisions affect so many other people, I say GOOD!  I want these lessons to stick, and to be a part of informing higher education, and to bring us back to basic common sense that if something isn’t good for everybody, it isn’t good for anybody.

As the world has gotten smaller, it has gotten visibly more interdependent.  Do you remember when you could take a sip out of a stream and trust that it was clean?  I do.  When did we start needing to buy bottled water?

The hope for our future and the survival of the planet is in the hands of the young, and I want to see business education take a proactive part in generating decisionmakers who consider others when making their choices.  The ICBSC gives me hope, and I hope you know of other places in the education system where hope is present.  If you do, please comment so we can be encouraged together!

This picture is one of the 2009 ICBSC executive teams (competitors) presenting to their board of directors (the judges), explaining their decisions in a board meeting.  Experience is the most powerful teacher and these students get a real business experience in spades.

A client of mine e-mailed me a nice note which read,   “Attached is the latest financial data – notice, I am still using your key indicators … just another example of your very valuable coaching efforts.”  That is a nice compliment, but I would have felt much better if the indicators had included better news.  They reflected broken promises from clients who committed, used expertise they didn’t pay for and then cut the budgets for those projects.

You don’t have to go very far to get bad news.  However, there can be good news in the bad news, which comes from a reorientation toward what is most important.  I think something big is happening that isn’t necessarily bad at the end of the day.  It is, however, extremely uncomfortable for those of us who have gotten used to being comfortable.

I am going to take a big leap here, and express a spiritual belief.  You don’t have to agree with me and I don’t have to be right. It is a useful view for me from which to approach the choices I make.  I believe there is a power that causes the invisible force, the energy field that puts the light in our eyes.  It is the Universe/God/Higher Power – whatever you call it, generating a factor of unpredictability that provokes lessons to us in this earth school that we inhabit as humans.

That said, I view this economic crisis as a wake-up call, that what is important to us had better start resonating more with what is important to the world as a whole, not just me, me, me.    For example, perhaps, just a perhaps, the lesson for the aging population who wants to sit at the beach and sip margaritas but whose retirement fund has shrunk in half, is that their experience and maturity are needed in this world to bring the earth back into balance.  No more starkly selfish consumerism, let’s get wholesome together.  Are you aware of the swirl of garbage in the ocean the size of the United States that needs cleaning up?  The message here is, “Don’t check out, proactively stay in the game. “ And yes, there are some unfortunate victims.  They need our help and a measure of compassion.  I understand volunteerism is up.  One way we can feel better about our own lowered standard of living is to help those who don’t have it as good as we do!

I often read O Magazine as my personal escape. I flipped it open recently to a story about an autistic child who played in a basketball game and  scored 14 points in a short quarter.  And I can’t tell you how many people have e-mailed me the link to the Susan Boyle Performance.   Why are we riveted to these stories?  Because they bring us together in humanity.  The common, ordinary person is actually extraordinary in his or her own unique ways, in those moments.  Every once in a while that extraordinary talent or moment is amplified and we all get collective goosebumps, because in another moment he or she could be us – any one of us.

So how do we cure the economic blues, one  thought at a time?  The thoughts we are having will either bring possibility for a greater good into existence, or be a victim story, or contain a lesson we learned or didn’t learn.  We have choices about what we think and how we characterize our own experience of this recession.

Speaker, author and a past client James Ray said, “The only competition you will ever have is the competition between your disciplined and your undisciplined mind.”

Isn’t it time for a little discipline around what goes through our minds and what comes out of our mouths in these confronting times?  Maybe you already have, but if you haven’t I say let get back to the basics of what’s important, which are our values, our relationships, supporting one another, seeking the truth in the moment, being inspired and inspiring with our courage and a higher perspective than me, me, me.

By the way, The picture at the beginning of this blog post is a photograph taken by Dr. John Prieskorn, an accomplished photographer, author, spiritual leader and at one time school superintendent.  I am happy to count him as one of the people who has influenced my life in profound ways.  If you like this photograph and would like to be in touch with John to see more of his work, please place a comment and I will gladly connect you to John.  This picture is the wallpaper on my big computer screen, to remind me it is the heart that should lead.  When the heart leads, we focus on other, not on self.  This picture also reminds me that nature carries many messages that are worthy of noticing.  It is a picture of the bark of a tree.

I love to read the NY Times on Sunday mornings over a cup of coffee with my favorite person in the world, my husband Larry.  This past Sunday we were sitting in a quite breakfast spot, big windows thrown wide open, in downtown San Diego, where we live, having brought our NY Times along.  I opened to my favorite business column, the Corner Office with Adam Bryant, to a significant article on Nell Minow.  I remarked to Larry because he knows Nell.  Larry characterized Nell as “One of the luminaries of corporate governance today.  She has been called by Fortune magazine the ‘Queen of Corporate Governance’ and by Forbes the CEO killer’ because she brings to everyone’s attention the best and the worst of corporate governance today.”  Larry is a well-known expert on corporate governance himself, which is how he knows Nell.  I will share about Larry another time.

In that moment I was interested to learn what Nell, co-funder of the Corporate Library, a provider of corporate governance research, would say about leading people, which is always the topic of Adam’s column.  If you are interested,  you can read the entire  section yourself.

What I liked was her “we” orientation, and her accountability orientation.   She parallels parenting with managing people.  She doesn’t like meetings, and she is very clear about the agenda and desired outcomes going into meetings.   Yea!

How she got into corporate governance, however, was fascinating to me.  It was sheer serendipity that she met Bob Monks and they have been business partners for 23 years.   Together they have accomplished amazing things.  I will steal an idea from her – well, maybe two ideas.  When she hires, she looks for humor in someone and she won’t hire anybody who can’t write.  She asks applicants for a writing sample that can sway her hiring decision either way.  Actually, now I’m a little nervous – what if she reads this blog?  I’m just starting to blog – perhaps she has a few tips for me!  Nell?  Are you reading?  I welcome any comments from Nell or from you about blogging, about being great leaders, and reminding ourselves to keep our sense of humor!