专访MIT斯隆商学院荣誉院长：热爱你正在做的事，并把它做好（zt）

小呵呵

Love what you do and do it well (zt)

Wallstreetcn Exclusive: Interview with William Pounds, Professor and Dean Emeritus of the MIT Sloan School of Management.

By Ting Yan, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Wallstreetcn

Credit given to Paul Samuelson

Ting Yan: How would you describe your leadership style when you were Dean of Sloan School of Management? How did you manage to keep a group of top-tier professors under your leadership?

William Pounds：
The beginning of my style was that I liked my colleagues. I both liked and admired them. I saw my job as helping them do what they wanted to do, whether teaching or researching. And of course, they liked that, and the result was they did wonderful work. They did wonderful things, not because of me, but because of their talent.

Ting Yan: How did you manage to attract those top-tier economists?

William Pounds：
Well, it wasn’t me that attracted them. They wanted to work close to Paul Samuelson, who was here at that time. What I would have done, if he weren’t here? I don’t know. I would say it probably would not have worked out so well. I give him the credit.

“I long for the days when we were more different than we are.”

Ting Yan: In Sloan’s formative period, with almost no money, alumni, or reputation, how did MIT Sloan in the 1960s and 1970s differentiate itself?

William Pounds：
That was what we were doing, we are differentiating ourselves, and we had help. I think it was the Ford Foundation that sponsored a study of business education in the United States in the late 40s or early 50s, at the time the Sloan School was just getting started. That report said that, business education at the time was essentially based on apprenticeship. Existing business schools were teaching how business was done by the people who were doing it. Business schools were not advancing the state of management, but simply transmitting it as it was - not as it might be.

Business schools were – and to some degree, still are - somewhat separate from the main university. The main university is science and humanities. And then there is the business school.  But there is a law school, and the medical school, as well.  These are professional schools around the edges. Business schools were seen as sort of dull places attracting not very good students, not very good faculty. They were nice people, but not very interesting. The report recommended that business schools join themselves more closely with their university colleagues.

A report, very similar to that, had been written about medicine fifty years before saying that medicine was learned by just learning from somebody who was doing medicine. It recommended that medical schools be established at universities. Business schools fifty years later got the identical recommendation.

The established business schools like Harvard and Wharton and some others thought it was a joke, they were doing fine, doing what they did: teaching cases, reviewing how it was done. So Sloan and Carnegie, these two business schools nobody ever heard recognized that the way to differentiate themselves was to do what this report said, which was to become part of the university. So instead of hiring businessmen, or people knowledgeable about business, Carnegie and MIT hired people who were academics - economists, computer scientists, mathematicians, sociologists, who didn’t know how to spell business in the hope that these folk might change the way business is done – and it worked.. Finance is totally different today than it was when I studied it in the 50s. And it largely grew out of these schools. I think you can make th same claim about operations. I used to teach about ways that computers might be helpful in manufacturing - a shocking idea at the time. These ideas had exactly the effect they were intended to have - and have attracted both talented faculty and students

Ting Yan: Based on your observation, how MIT Sloan and MBA education in general, have changed over the past 50 years?

William Pounds：
I would say, first of all, we’ve learned a lot. What we now teach in finance is totally different than what we tried in finance when I first came here. We used to teach finance about people who had financial jobs, did them.  then, we threw all that away and we decide to ask how do capital markets work, and completely rethinking corportate finance. To some degree, I think it also happened in our teaching about operations. Our teaching in that area is now based largely on engineering calculations.

But since those early days all the schools have converged. We still do what we did, but we also use cases. And Harvard and Wharton have become more analytic and more theoretical. So the style that we started has kind of metastasized . All business schools have evolved.  Harvard is good, Wharton is good, MIT is pretty good too.

Ting Yan: It is becoming more difficult to differentiate?

William Pounds：
I long for the days when we were more different than we are. We now compete for the same people for our faculties, which is why we have become more alike. I think there is room for a school to decide to do it quite differently. Who knows if it would work, but I think it would be fun to try.

Ting Yan: Financial industry has changed，so what do you think of the latest financial crisis has changed MIT Sloan or MBA education?

William Pounds：
The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 was caused by people who didn’t understand modern finance. They found they could sell products they didn’t understand at high prices to people who also didn’t understand them. That is never a good idea – for long. So there is nothing wrong with the financial theory. It was the people running the industry who didn’t know (or perhaps care) what they were doing that were the problem.

As time goes by and people who do understand move into a positions with senior responsibility, I don’t think you will have those problems again. At least that’s what we hope.

Ting Yan: What about the industry impact? Fewer and fewer people would like to pursue a finance career after the crisis.

William Pounds：
I am not close to the market these days. But many students I meet at lunch would be happy to get a job in Goldman Sachs.

I think for a long time, the schools, all the school, long ago, stopped training managers; they are training advisors, investment bankers, and consultants. And you know, there is a certain amount of handwringing about that. Maybe we should be working harder on management. That’s one way that a school might differentiate itself.

Ting Yan: What about the financial crisis impact on corporate governance? There were a lot scandals during the crisis.

William Pounds：
Well, I am not very sure it very much has changed, I think we are still susceptible to those risks. There have been laws passed, accounting has changed a bit. But I doubt that anything has changed anything substantially, The risk remains.

Ting Yan: Can we avoid another crisis?

William Pounds：
I can’t guarantee you that there won’t be one. As you read in the Wall Street Journal everyday people are worried now. They are making low quality auto loans. And so it goes,.

Ting Yan: So where are we?

William Pounds：

Well, we will have a period of safety, then another crisis. I think maybe there is a very slight trend towards improvement. But it is very slow and very uneven.   

It is useful to remember that that our imperfect system has worked very well over the years except for the occasional unfortunate wobble.

Ting Yan: What are other worrying signs you see?

William Pounds：

It is kind of things you read in the paper. You see people making loans to people they know they can’t repay. That’s a worrying sign.

Finding the right CEO is like arranging a marriage

Ting Yan: You need to choose the right CEO, and everything else will be Fine?

William Pounds：

Yes, but finding the right CEO is very difficult. And it’s a risky bet, no matter how careful you are, no matter whom you hire. It is like arranging a marriage. Suppose you say, find me a husband. I bring you someone and I say, here he is. You say, really? It might work. In many parts of the world, that’s how it’s done.  Families work out marriages.

The task is similar to finding a CEO for a company. You want someone who would fall in love with the company, and who will do what the company needs. But you know, love is a hard thing to predict. And some people get a job they don’t or can’t love - and things don’t go so well.  There is no magic formula that I am aware of. You try to pick the right person. You just do the best you can, and hope that it works – just like every marriage.

Ting Yan: What are the best practices when they recruiting or evaluating CEO?

William Pounds：

Well, we just went through an election, right? You asked, how do you decide, who do you vote for. Well, you listen their talks and so on, that’s how. It is not different in finding a CEO. You just talk to people and somebody begins to make sense. Maybe this will work, I have been on many such committees and I am always uneasy at the end. And there is never more than, if you are very very lucky, three people that you might think might be okay. But it is often only one. And you keep thinking should I pull the trigger and hire this one or just keep looking. Well, at some point you pull the trigger and hope for the best.

Ting Yan: Also, you worked for the Rockefeller family for about ten years, what was the most significant achievement you think you’ve made during that years?

William Pounds：

Well there is no doubt about that. The Rockefeller family has avoided the kind of internal struggles that have destroyed many wealthy families.  I played only a minor role in that outcome while I was there but I consider it a major achievement.


Ting Yan: Do you have any specific examples?

William Pounds：

Opinions differed on the refinancing of their ownership in Rockefeller Center.  Conflict was avoided by means of a trust established in the 30s and the actions of its Trustees with whom I worked.

Ting Yan: How did they do it at the right time?

William Pounds：

You can never be sure about timing.  The Trustees acted to diversify the portfolio of assets in the Trust because they believed it needed to be done.  That by hindsight it looks like they did it at the right time was just a happy accident.

Ting Yan: There must be a lot conflict interest? Did you need to deal with it every day?

William Pounds：

Conflict was avoided by the fact that most assets were liquid and owned by individuals who could do with them as they liked.

Ting Yan: So they authorize the trustees to make the decision?

William Pounds：

The person establishing a Trust empowers the Trustees.  No further authorization is required.

Love what you do and do it well

Ting Yan: Could you talk about the path that brought you to MIT?
William Pounds：
Looking back it is easy to describe my path. Each step is listed in my resume.    But as I lived those years I had no idea where the path might lead. I consider it very fortunate that it led to MIT.

Like many people, my career was made up of a series of choices that I made in response to invitations or offers made by others.  After studying engineering I was offered a job by Kodak, a company that at that time ruled the photographic world. When the Korean War started I was going to be drafted into the army but at the same time the Navy offered me entrance into its flight training program.  As a result I learned to fly fighter planes off aircraft carriers. It was a great job, and I really liked it.

When I finished my naval service , I went back to Kodak for a short time but was then offered admission to a graduate program in mathematical economics. Partway through that program I decided it was time for me to grow up, and get a job. So I took a job that was offered me in a paint factory in Cleveland, Ohio where we made paint for automobiles. I’m told that MIT discovered my existence through Carnegie where I had gone to school and they invited me to join the faculty as an assistant professor. After 5 years or so, I was invited to be Dean of the Sloan School., Until that happened I had no idea that I would ever be a Dean.

Ting Yan: Why do you think they chose you as the Dean?

William Pounds：
I can’t say why because I was not part of that process.  I was just doing my job from day to day.

The person that hired me to come to MIT was Dean of Sloan School when I met him. 5 years later, he was invited to be President of MIT.  He invited me to be Dean.and I said, yes.

Ting Yan: When you look back, is there anything you would like to do differently?

William Pounds：

I think it all worked out pretty well. I don’t think about that a lot, to be honest.

Ting Yan: I want to ask something about career advice. A lot of young people like me, after graduation, and worked for several years and they concern about to do what you love or love what you do.

William Pounds：

I recommend the latter. Love what you do - and do it well - because if you do you present job well and enjoy it, something you might like even better might come along.

青影