I'm partial to the "consumption good" argument that faculty members generally like to do research (either for personal or socialization reasons), so supporting research helps keep quality minds engaged at your institution.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/28/nber
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Do CEO's Matter?
From The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/steve-jobs
The short answer appears to be "having a leader" matters, but since most leaders are relatively close in ability and since most times and most organizations don't really have great need for strong, clear leadership, "who" that leader is, usually doesn't matter all that much . . . unless you're in a crisis period, working for a closed & heirarchical organization, and in a field that typically sees lots of dramatic change. In short, Steve Jobs probably matters, but most CEOs don't have that much of an effect on the performance of an organization . . . on the positive side, that is. One bad leader, especially in an organization heavily structured around the figure of the CEO, can do incredible damage. Better to have a system that produces a string of "mediocraties" and doesn't rely overly much of the leader but on the strengths of entire organization than to have one great leader and come to rely too much of being able to replicate that great leader over and over again. All it takes is one bad apple in a leader-driven culture to destroy the work of many, many good leaders.
Business scholars have spent more than half a century of research to come to these conclusions. I think political scientists and historians could have told them something similar a few millenia ago (read the Greeks) or for sure a few centuries ago (read Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc.) about the nature of leadership in large organizations, but other than Sample and Drucker, how many leadership gurus have read the classics? Hmm . . . (spoken as an historian, obviously). :-)
The short answer appears to be "having a leader" matters, but since most leaders are relatively close in ability and since most times and most organizations don't really have great need for strong, clear leadership, "who" that leader is, usually doesn't matter all that much . . . unless you're in a crisis period, working for a closed & heirarchical organization, and in a field that typically sees lots of dramatic change. In short, Steve Jobs probably matters, but most CEOs don't have that much of an effect on the performance of an organization . . . on the positive side, that is. One bad leader, especially in an organization heavily structured around the figure of the CEO, can do incredible damage. Better to have a system that produces a string of "mediocraties" and doesn't rely overly much of the leader but on the strengths of entire organization than to have one great leader and come to rely too much of being able to replicate that great leader over and over again. All it takes is one bad apple in a leader-driven culture to destroy the work of many, many good leaders.
Business scholars have spent more than half a century of research to come to these conclusions. I think political scientists and historians could have told them something similar a few millenia ago (read the Greeks) or for sure a few centuries ago (read Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc.) about the nature of leadership in large organizations, but other than Sample and Drucker, how many leadership gurus have read the classics? Hmm . . . (spoken as an historian, obviously). :-)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Review of Gladwell's "Outliers"
I always enjoy reading Gladwell, but I'm also always left with this nagging feeling that I've been flim-flammed somehow. The stories tie too neatly together. The world is confused, then someone has a bold insight, and suddenly everything makes sense, and if we just implemented this great insight, the world would be a much better place. In my world, transitions are much slower and messier than in Gladwell's world, but he's a lot more interesting to listen to.
From his latest work, I've picked up a few things.
1) I'm intrigued by his argument (again, lots of people have people have been saying similar things for a long time, so the story is messier than what Gladwell presents) that IQ accounts for only so much when it comes to worldly success. In fact, there's a threshhold of about 120, beyond which, there's a serious law of diminishing returns. Other types of intelligences (emotional, practical, creative) come to the fore at that point. It would be interesting to do a study of our Honors students, for example, 10 and 20 years out. How much did success in their fields correspond to ACT, for example? We all know the anecdotes of the "C" students who made it big and the "A" students who floundered in life. And if it turns out that "leaders" aren't made in the IQ lab, then are we really privileging the "right" type of student in recruiting? I know, this goes back to the 19th century method of looking first for "character," and that method was very heirarchical and discriminatory ("character" was found in people who looked alike and came from the same social circles), but maybe they had something right that we've lost in our emphasis on IQ and cognition?
2) This argument applies also to our process for hiring good teachers. Southwest's motto is "hire for attitude, train for skill." But we cull candidates based in large part on terminal degrees, experience, and professional accomplishments such as publications. If Gladwell's right about success being determined less by innate cognitive abilities (being born a "genius") and more by socialization, practice, multiple intelligences, etc., then perhaps we have this backwards? To take a JBU example, of our top 9 professors according to our student evaluations, 8 of them are women. Women make up about 25% of our faculty but 89% of our top teachers. Furthermore, 6 of those 8 do not have terminal degrees and none had their terminal degrees when we hired them. In other words, what we "think" we should be looking for when we hire people turns out in large part to be misguided when viewed from the perspective of the main job we ask our teachers to do, namely teach.
3) Being an outlier is both easier to become (it's less about genetics and more about effort and opportunity) than one might think, but it's also harder than one might think (it takes 10 years of real effort with lots of expert support and by someone who has a lot of talent to begin with, and even then you need to hit just the right window of opportunity).
From his latest work, I've picked up a few things.
1) I'm intrigued by his argument (again, lots of people have people have been saying similar things for a long time, so the story is messier than what Gladwell presents) that IQ accounts for only so much when it comes to worldly success. In fact, there's a threshhold of about 120, beyond which, there's a serious law of diminishing returns. Other types of intelligences (emotional, practical, creative) come to the fore at that point. It would be interesting to do a study of our Honors students, for example, 10 and 20 years out. How much did success in their fields correspond to ACT, for example? We all know the anecdotes of the "C" students who made it big and the "A" students who floundered in life. And if it turns out that "leaders" aren't made in the IQ lab, then are we really privileging the "right" type of student in recruiting? I know, this goes back to the 19th century method of looking first for "character," and that method was very heirarchical and discriminatory ("character" was found in people who looked alike and came from the same social circles), but maybe they had something right that we've lost in our emphasis on IQ and cognition?
2) This argument applies also to our process for hiring good teachers. Southwest's motto is "hire for attitude, train for skill." But we cull candidates based in large part on terminal degrees, experience, and professional accomplishments such as publications. If Gladwell's right about success being determined less by innate cognitive abilities (being born a "genius") and more by socialization, practice, multiple intelligences, etc., then perhaps we have this backwards? To take a JBU example, of our top 9 professors according to our student evaluations, 8 of them are women. Women make up about 25% of our faculty but 89% of our top teachers. Furthermore, 6 of those 8 do not have terminal degrees and none had their terminal degrees when we hired them. In other words, what we "think" we should be looking for when we hire people turns out in large part to be misguided when viewed from the perspective of the main job we ask our teachers to do, namely teach.
3) Being an outlier is both easier to become (it's less about genetics and more about effort and opportunity) than one might think, but it's also harder than one might think (it takes 10 years of real effort with lots of expert support and by someone who has a lot of talent to begin with, and even then you need to hit just the right window of opportunity).
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Boring CEOs are the Best CEOs?
Oversimplified, to be sure, but the idea, which I (and probably others) first read about in Collins that great (i.e.“level 5”) business leaders tend to be humble, boring, obsessive types keeps showing up in other studies as well. You want “interesting,” go to the arts (New York, L.A.). You want “charismatic,” go to politics (D.C.). You want “effective,” go to business (Bentonville). And trying to mix these worlds (which Brooks claims that the art and political worlds are trying to do to the business community in these recessionary times) will be bad for business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“All this work is a reminder that, while it’s important to be a sensitive, well-rounded person for the sake of your inner fulfillment, the market doesn’t really care. The market wants you to fill an organizational role.
The second thing the market seems to want from leaders is a relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence.
For the same reason, business and politics do not blend well.“
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“All this work is a reminder that, while it’s important to be a sensitive, well-rounded person for the sake of your inner fulfillment, the market doesn’t really care. The market wants you to fill an organizational role.
The second thing the market seems to want from leaders is a relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence.
For the same reason, business and politics do not blend well.“
Monday, May 11, 2009
Show Me the Money!
“Common themes [for private universities] are that it took much more money and more creativity to fill classes this year than in the past. Merit and need-based aid were up at many institutions. Discount rates -- the percentage off published costs that students actually pay -- are also up. In many cases, college officials say that they let spending and discount rates rise this year, and that the real challenge will be next year, because they won't be able to afford similar increases.”
Our JBU experience, from what I know of it, would seem to mirror some of these national trends.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/11/enroll
Our JBU experience, from what I know of it, would seem to mirror some of these national trends.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/11/enroll
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The Harlem Miracle
Brooks is summarizing educational research from an African-American economist, Roland Fryer, about the “no excuses” approach that has been shown to work in low-income areas.
“Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&em
“Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&em
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