Ethics- Risk, Harvard, Yale and Their Colleages Still Don't Get It
You would think they would see the futility from the legal profession—we set up mandatory CLE and Ethics courses to disguise the fact that we as a profession would rather mask the problems with our profession rather than face them head on. People insure they provide high quality service and “do the right things” not because they are required take a few courses on legal subjects or ethics but because of whom they are and what they believe their profession expects from them. It is a cultural problem that starts at the quality of people who we select as law professors and who law schools select from their applicant pool.
Well, Harvard and its MBA school are about to replicate the same flawed practices to deal with their tarnished brand. The problem they believe is to develop courses on risk. They are going to review articles (I hope this is one of them) critical of the institution and its “tarnished” (try destroyed) reputation. Stanford is developing a course entitled: “Understanding Cheating”. The Dean of Boston University School of Management has even suggested that they may examine the fact that they are part of the problem.
You do not have to teach people not to cheat—they know when they are cheating. You don’t have to teach public company CEO’s that there is no way they are worth 15 million dollars in lifetime, let alone a year. These are not great leaders. These are people who have such low self-esteem they have to surround themselves with weak boards who continually have to stuff dollars in their pockets to create a sense of self-worth.
Harvard, Stanford, MIT etc. are the problem—starting at the top and working its way down through the type of people they select to attend their institutions. My son is an example in contrast—rather than pay $90,000 a year to listen to a bunch of professors who would have difficulty running a hot dog stand, he is starting a business with a real respect for the fact that his investors trusted him (yes trust). He lives on noodles to insure he controls costs and can make payroll.
He is making an idea a reality and if he is successful he may well become wealthy, but there is still considerable risk he may fail—imagine he understands risk without ever having had to take a course on it at Harvard.
Occasionally, he expresses some envy at the things others around him have that he would like. Then, I have to tell him the bad news—someday he may actually be able to afford all those things, but what he will value most is what he has right now.
