Two Schools Of Thought

*These essays are in no way an endorsement of either candidate by the authors or by Jungle. Matter of fact, after reading them both, we couldn't even decide who to vote for.

Why

An MBA Should Be President
By Jerry Strawser
Dean, Mays Business School,
Texas A&M University

A popular Harvard Business School case study about leadership ("Launching the War on Terrorism" by Michael Roberto and Gina Carioggia) has students evaluate President Bush's reaction in the days immediately following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many MBA programs make use of the case method, which allows students to place themselves in a leadership position and evaluate various potential courses of action. Cases provide students with the ability to learn from history and are just one element of an MBA program that gives individuals the qualifications to hold the highest elected office in our land.

The case method is not the only way MBA programs differ from law school programs. First and foremost, business and economic issues-on which the president spends a great deal of time-are the focus of MBA curricula. Business schools give people the ability to understand issues such as international trade, the impact of various business and economic decisions on world economies, major labor disputes and issues, the impact of taxes and interest rates on investment and innovation, leadership vis-ˆ-vis Congress and the cabinet, and organizational issues associated with the federal government. In addition to these, MBA curricula focus on the core competencies in many areas that are essential to the office of president of the United States: leadership and accountability, integrity and ethical values, strategic thinking, analytical and decision-making skills, and written and oral communication skills.

A theme that's been echoing throughout the presidential campaign is the creation of new jobs. Entrepreneurship (whether creating a business plan for a traditional start-up or family business or understanding how to commercialize and market new technologies) is getting increased attention from business schools. Many top MBA programs are partnering with faculty colleagues in the colleges of science and engineering to assist in assessing the commercial viability of technologies created in their laboratories (our own MBA program recently held its second "Technology Transfer Competition"). The ability to envision future opportunities that are reinforced by these and other types of entrepreneurial competitions common to many MBA programs is absolutely essential in maintaining a strong national economy.

A second important characteristic of MBA programs is the work experience requirement for their students. While it varies from university to university, the typical MBA student will have between five and eight years of professional work experience before returning for his or her studies. This experience provides an additional dimension of diversity to the MBA student body. That diversity, coupled with the extensive use of team assignments and group projects in most top MBA programs, requires students to interact and solve problems with people who are much different from themselves. In so doing, MBA students must weigh differing viewpoints, clarify and justify their own positions, and ultimately make an important decision. These activities parallel those of the president of the United States.

The president is often referred to as the "chief executive officer" of the country. There's a strong parallel between the two positions: No CEO can be expected to have deep knowledge of every area of operation, just as the president can't be expected to have a deep knowledge of every foreign and domestic affair. As a result, both persons rely on trusted colleagues (cabinet officials, executive vice presidents) to provide advice and counsel. However, at the end of the day, presidents and CEOs need to make the decision they feel is most correct. It is no coincidence that over 35 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs possess MBA degrees, because these degrees provide many of the core competencies necessary to successfully lead a large organization. These same competencies will also provide one with the ability to lead the nation.

What does the future hold? It certainly seems that, in recent years, more and more congressional seats and governorships are being contested and won by successful businesspeople. They are running under the mantra that government needs to operate "like a business." As the pool of potential presidential candidates reflects these elected officials, it would not be surprising to see an increase in the number of business school graduates pursuing the highest elected office in the land.

Why
A Lawyer Should Be President
By John Garvey
Dean, Boston College Law School

The idea that someone who's been a lawyer might become president is hardly a bizarre one. Three of the last 10 presidents have been lawyers, and we're accustomed to seeing lawyers throughout public life. Still, it's worth exploring what it is about learning and practicing the law, as opposed to studying and working in business, that would make someone a good president. One element is training. Legal education places an emphasis on developing communication skills. It's important in the practice of law-whether you're appearing before a jury or an appellate court, or negotiating an agreement-to be able to take very complex ideas and make them comprehensible to your audience. This is obviously a skill that's very important to someone in public life who is constantly required to take positions on complex questions and not only defend those positions, but persuade others to agree.

Second, lawyers are trained to think ahead. I often get to see law students and business school students taking the same course work together on some project. I'm struck that the tendency of the business students is to look on the upside, to think about how much money can be made, while the tendency of the law students is to think about what will happen if something goes wrong. It's probably a good thing that the business students are so optimistic; you want people in business who are inspired by success and who don't spend too much time thinking about what will happen if they go bankrupt. But few business failures could be as catastrophic as most public policy failures, and it's good for a government to be led by someone who's been trained to think four moves ahead and plan for any contingency.

There are qualities good lawyers possess that help make them good leaders, although they don't possess these qualities exclusively. For the most part, lawyers who are at the pinnacle of their profession have a great ability to see the big picture. They're able to recognize all the elements that factor into any given situation. Corporate leaders are able to do that as well. Lawyers are also good at negotiation, as are business people. As part of their training, lawyers are taught to put themselves in the other person's position, to see what his or her best case is. That would seem to be very useful to someone engaged in diplomatic affairs, where differences in language, customs, and history can be so important.

But the fundamental advantage lawyers have over business executives is simply the milieu in which lawyers operate. The object of business is profit, to make money for a particular group, the shareholders. The object of government is not to make a profit, but to advance the common good. There are more interests to reconcile. Success is defined in a different way. And the laws are written with the point of view that they represent everybody. So the subject lawyers truly study, the subject they come to master, is the common good-how to sustain it, how to protect it.

I've recently been reading Alexander Hamilton, the new biography by Ron Chernow. Hamilton studied law at King's College, which is now Columbia (Boston College Law School hadn't opened its doors yet), and it's wonderful to see how his legal training served him not only during the war and the Constitutional Convention, but in helping him recognize the new nation's need for a solid economy, strong banking, good credit, and security. Hamilton focused on developing the common good-as all good lawyers do.

One of the ongoing jokes in our culture is that we have too many lawyers, and all they do is prey on the poor and simple and sue McDonald's. But the fact is, the more complicated our society becomes, the more we turn to lawyers to help us achieve our enlarging ideas about what a just society is. Sometimes I think about what America was like when I graduated from college in 1970. There was no EPA. No Title IX. No Internet. No WTO. No educational acts for handicapped children. We were only sixteen years past Brown vs. Board of Education, five past the Voting Rights Act, six past the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A lot has changed since 1970. And in the scheme of things, the changes came first, and the lawyers came after. As the world changed, we realized we needed new rules, and we called the lawyers. People had ideas, dreams, visions, ambitions. Lawyers helped them realize those goals.

Again and again, lawyers are the people we call upon to help us define and enforce rules that make the modern world work for the common good. Certainly a person who's good at that would make a fine president.