VIEWPOINT by Francis D. Tuggle
As a business school dean, part of my job is to recruit the best students we can educate and prepare for the challenges of working in and leading business enterprises. I also track the quantity and quality of students enrolling in business schools across the country.
These days I worry a lot about what prospective students in business think about the profession. I fear that the “public face” of business is not so attractive.
In the 21st century, commerce clearly is the leading institution in advanced civilizations.
I like to think that the prospect of global conflagration is diminished through international trade. I like to think that peace and democracy are promoted by free market enterprise. I like to think that scientific, technological and health advances are facilitated by market capitalism. All this requires astute, able people at the helm of our corporations. But, getting the best and the brightest to concentrate in the arena of business often is difficult.
For centuries, the most able citizens, in search of personal fortune and professional advancement, went into politics, the military or the ministry.
Businesspeople didn’t count for much in the time of the pharaohs, but being in the pharaoh’s cabinet sure did. Being a businessperson in the Napoleonic era did not lead to fame and fortune, but being in his army sure did.
The rise of business organizations as an institutional presence in society did not really occur until the late 1800s, and business institutions as a major societal force didn’t flourish until the mid- to late-1900s.
Previously, most business was conducted by family farms and clans of craftsmen, retailers and merchants. The prevalence in society of free market capitalism is a rather recent phenomenon.
How to keep feeding businesses the best and brightest workforce is an issue that keeps me up at night.
What is the public face of business today? Who do students, selecting what they want to do with their lives, see extolled in the media?
They see defendants take the stand or head off to prison,Ken Lay of Enron, Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco and Martha Stewart of her eponymous firm. Who wants to hold up Al “chainsaw” Dunlap for emulation?
Even when they’re not indicted or convicted, who best portrays business today? Donald Trump has a hit TV show. While I cannot bring myself to watch it in its entirety, I have been subjected to snippets of it,his bad hairdo, his scowling face and his signature “You’re fired!”
The Donald seems to delight in firing people. I’ve been fired a couple of times, and I’ve had to fire a few people (for what it’s worth, the latter have troubled me far more than the former). This is not behavior to be admired.
If firing people is the image prospective students get of business, if that’s what’s portrayed as where the excitement lies in the business world, we’re all in deep, deep trouble.
We have got to get better role models,the wealth creators, the innovators, the risk takers,in front of the to-be workforce. People such as Michael Dell, W. Ross Perot, Jeff Bezos and Sam Walton need to be celebrated. Orange County has its own set of business heroes who need to be touted,Bob Cole at New Century Financial, David Pyott at Allergan, Henry Samueli at Broadcom, Dwight Decker at Conexant, and (dare I say it?) George Argyros at Arnel and Chapman.
Week after week, the pages of this publication are filled with stories of people who are making a difference,they’re advancing their firms, they’re adding to local economic health and they’re making Orange County a better place to live and work.
If bright students today don’t see the allure of business, the potential to do good while doing well, the intellectual challenges of leading complex organizations in a dynamic society, these students are going to want to be the next Elliot Spitzer, the next Michael Oxley, or the next Paul Sarbanes. Don’t we have enough of those types already?
“Doug” Tuggle is the Robert J. and Carolyn A. Waltos Jr. Dean of the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University.
