Use o instinto para decidir

O headhunter americano David Nosal dedicou os últimos 20 anos de sua
carreira para recrutar diretores e presidentes para grandes empresas
de tecnologia e fundos de investimento.

Essa experiência o fez ter uma relação privilegiada com os profissionais mais talentosos do mundo. Trabalhou por 18 anos em duas das principais empresas globais de recrutamento de executivos:

Heidrick & Struggles e Korn/Ferry. Nesta última, realizou mais de 100 buscas para posições de presidente e muitas outras para postos de direção nos Estados Unidos e no resto do mundo.

Os colegas de trabalho atribuem parte do sucesso de David à dedicação que ele emprega nos projetos que realiza. Às vésperas de concluir trabalhos importantes, o headhunter costuma dar turnos de 18 horas no escritório. David deixou a Korn/Ferry em 2007 para fundar sua própria
consultoria, a Nosal Partners, sediada em San Francisco, na Califórnia, Estados Unidos. Há poucos meses, abriu uma filial em São Paulo. Em sua primeira visita ao escritório no Brasil, deu a seguinte entrevista a VOCÊ S/A.

O senhor já disse que, quanto mais rápido os jovens executivos decidem e quanto mais acertadas são suas decisões, mais eles crescem na hierarquia das empresas. Os mais velhos reclamam, no entanto, que os jovens são despreparados. Como se resolve essa contradição?
Se um jovem executivo foi beneficiado por superiores que lhe deram responsabilidades e autoridade, a idade estampada no papel é o menos relevante. É verdade que antigamente havia mais estágios hierárquicos a ser cumpridos, e por isso a maturidade para ser chefe vinha com mais naturalidade. Hoje em dia, em termos de velocidade de tomada de decisão, é muito importante que os jovens não fiquem excessivamente paralisados em análises. Para tomar uma decisão há de se ter um equilíbrio entre dados que podem ser matematicamente calculados e
outros que não podem. Esses últimos vêm da intuição. Minha recomendação é obter o máximo de informação o mais rapidamente possível e tomar uma decisão instintiva em cima disso.

As habilidades que o senhor procurava em um presidente há dez anos são diferente das de hoje?
As habilidades são as mesmas. Para ser bem-sucedido, um líder precisa agregar grande paixão pelo seu trabalho, empatia elevada com as pessoas e, claro, o senso comum necessário para gerir uma empresa. Mas vale ressaltar que normalmente o presidente não é o funcionário que mais conhece as técnicas e as finanças da empresa. Basicamente, o presidente tem a capacidade de se cercar de pessoas brilhantes. Ele não apenas escuta o que elas têm a dizer, como as inspira a fazer coisas grandiosas.

Muitos empregadores reclamam que o jovem rapidamente desiste da empresa quando percebe que uma promoção vai demorar. Está faltando paciência ao jovem?
A geração de hoje não define mais um objetivo profissional com um horizonte de 20 a 30 anos, como no passado, mas sim com um horizonte de um ou dois anos. Tudo bem, desde que não se esqueça de que é preciso construir uma história, ter resultados consistentes para apresentar no currículo. A coisa mais importante é fazer o seu trabalho excepcionalmente bem. O seu empregador ou outras empresas vão reconhecer essa contribuição. Promoção e compensação serão consequências.

O que pesar, então, ao receber um convite de outra companhia?
Você deve perguntar o que está faltando na sua empresa atual, mas com os pés no chão. Se falta algo, sugiro combater esse problema, de alguma forma, junto aos seus superiores, antes mesmo de analisar qualquer transferência. Se não houver solução, há três perguntas a considerar: ?A nova oportunidade me fornece uma ampla área de responsabilidade? A cultura corporativa se assemelha à minha própria cultura ou ao meu estilo de ser? Terei a oportunidade de gerenciar
equipes e projetos??. Considere também a sua felicidade.

Quais são as habilidades que mais fazem falta a um jovem?
O que muitos jovens não parecem ter é a capacidade de ouvir e entender verdadeiramente o que está acontecendo ao seu redor. Alguns gostam tanto de falar que acabam não ouvindo os comentários e as questões que estão sendo feitas sobre aquele projeto. Chegam com uma ideia
praticamente pronta e não abrem para discussão. Os jovens precisam escutar e ajustar intuitivamente o seu discurso e o seu estilo conforme os dizeres dos demais.

Como os jovens líderes brasileiros são vistos fora do país? Que
conselho daria a eles?
Minha observação é de que a cultura brasileira é mais otimista e entusiasmada que a maioria mesmo em tempos difíceis. Esse otimismo é um atributo que muitos outros executivos e países podem aprender. Mas se por um lado há uma emocionalidade mais acentuada, digamos assim, há
mais dificuldades de planejar no longo prazo, o que exige análises mais frias e racionais. Meu conselho é: encontre alguém para se espelhar, um mentor para aprender, de preferência alguém mais velho e disposto a lhe dar conselhos. O objetivo é observar e absorver
qualidades e habilidades específicas de comunicação, carisma e habilidades técnicas. E incorporar esses elementos ao seu próprio DNA profissional.

Fonte: Você S/A por Bruno Vieira Feijó

Turismo cresce em SP, que vira bola da vez nos guias de viagem

21/01/2010 - 07h58
Turismo cresce em SP, que vira bola da vez nos guias de viagem

PRISCILA PASTRE-ROSSI
da Folha de S.Paulo
O número de turistas na cidade de São Paulo teve um salto de 37,8% entre 2004 e 2009. No ano passado, 11,3 milhões de visitantes estiveram na capital, que no próximo dia 25 vai comemorar seus 456 anos.

Os números são do Observatório do Turismo, o núcleo de estudos e pesquisas da SPTuris. E, antenados, os guias publicados no exterior já tratam a cidade com mais respeito.

Quando visitar SP, use colírio e evite "ressacão", dizem guias
São Paulo é melhor capital para turista, diz pesquisa nacional
Em SP, Metrô tem passeio guiado por centro e avenida Paulista

Juliana Moraes/Folha

Mercado Municipal de São Paulo, localizado na região central, é um dos principais pontos turísticos da capital paulista
O "Wallpaper City Guide São Paulo" recomenda aos leitores que a cidade seja descoberta antes de ser invadida por uma horda de turistas. Terminam o texto de apresentação com um enfático: "Vá logo".

Nos bairros que mais aparecem nas páginas dos guias, caso de Jardins e Vila Madalena, não é mais tão raro esbarrar com gente de fora que não esteja apenas de passagem para uma reunião de negócios. Vira e mexe eles estão por aí, tentando encontrar a caipirinha em bares e restaurantes que raramente têm a oferecer o cardápio traduzido para o inglês.

Revisitando São Paulo

Para avaliar o que os estrangeiros leem sobre São Paulo em edições recentes de guias de turismo editados no exterior, o que os atrai à capital paulista e o que eles são levados a conhecer, a Folha, neste caderno de Turismo (íntegra disponível para assinantes do UOL e do jornal), reuniu alguns deles.

Além do "Wallpaper City Guide São Paulo" --editado no Brasil pela Publifolha analisou os já consagrados "Michelin Brésil", "Fodor's Brazil" e "Lonely Planet Brazil" e os diferenciados "Total São Paulo - A Guide to the Unexpected", da americana e filha de vietnamitas Phuong-Cac Nguyen, e "Living in São Paulo", editado pela Larousse.

Tuca Vieira/Folha Imagem

Fachada do Museu Paulista, da Universidade de São Paulo, antes conhecido como Museu do Ipiranga, na zona sul da capital
Descobriu coisas engraçadas, como o conteúdo dos glossários de expressões em português --entre elas, "o loco!", definido como sinônimo para "oh, man!"--; endereços que não costumam estar nos roteiros convencionais, como a Passagem Literária da Consolação (na Consolação com a Paulista); e algumas dicas que podem assustar os turistas, como a que diz para que eles tenham cuidado com os motociclistas, que podem "ser ladrões".

Para dar dicas que não estão nesses livros, e que podem ser fruídas pelos próprios habitantes da cidade no clima de comemoração do seu 456º aniversário, consultamos ainda sete paulistanos, que falam dos melhores lugares para ir sozinho, namorar ou ir com os amigos.

Leia a reportagem completa na edição de hoje da Folha (disponível para assinantes do UOL e do jornal)

Inde, Brésil, Etats-Unis : ils ont expérimenté la discrimination positive

Inde, Brésil, Etats-Unis : ils ont expérimenté la discrimination positive
LEMONDE.FR | 19.01.10 | 12h53 • Mis à jour le 20.01.10 | 16h47

L'Inde, terrain d'expérimentation précoce
Alors qu'en France, les grandes écoles ont finalement accepté, lundi 18 janvier, l'objectif du gouvernement d'atteindre 30 % d'étudiants boursiers, Le Monde.fr se penche sur trois expériences de discrimination positive menées à l'étranger.

L'Inde est un des premiers pays au monde à avoir expérimenté des politiques de discrimination positive. En effet, dès le XIXe siècle, les colons britanniques ont mis en place un système de quotas (reservations) pour favoriser la caste des intouchables. La portée de ce geste est toutefois restée limitée et n'a jamais menacé la mainmise sur la société des "deux fois nés" (les brahmanes, les guerriers, les marchands).

En réservant des écoles, à partir de 1892, aux "depressed classes" – le terme officiel pour désigner les intouchables jusque dans les années 1930 –, les colons ont porté leur taux d'alphabétisation à 6,7 % pour les garçons et 4,8 % pour les filles en 1921, un taux qui est resté extrêmement faible. Une politique de bourses s'est progressivement développée. En 1934, 8,5 % des postes vacants de la fonction publique leur ont été réservés, un taux porté à 12,5 % en 1946 pour être proportionnel à la part des intouchables dans la population. En parallèle, la politique de réservation a été étendue aux populations tribales (7 % de la population en 1951). Reste que ces quotas n'ont jamais été remplis, soit par manque de candidats, soit parce que les responsables d'universités ou d'administrations ne se souciaient guère de les faire respecter.

DES CASTES AUX "GROUPES RÉPERTORIÉS

En 1947, à l'indépendance, le principe de "discrimination positive" n'a pas été remis en cause. Mais son extension à la catégorie intermédiaire des castes dites "arriérées" a provoqué l'opposition des élites indiennes. Les "backward classes" incluent en effet des catégories très hétéroclites, allant de castes impures, comme les blanchisseurs et les barbiers, dont le statut se distingue à peine de celui des intouchables, aux castes nobles, comme celles des cultivateurs et des propriétaires fonciers. Leur réserver des places dans les universités et les administrations revenait à directement menacer les "deux fois nés".

Un des problèmes rencontrés en Inde tient au fait que la discrimination positive prenant en compte l'appartenance à une caste revient à figer le système. Or les castes ont été officiellement abolies par la Constitution promulguée en 1950, tout en restant l'élément structurant de la société. Dans le rapport "La commission sur l'égalité des chances : quoi ? pourquoi ? comment ?" (février 2008), portant sur la création d'une agence gouvernementale consacrée à la discrimination positive, un comité d'experts préconise de ne pas restreindre la question de la diversité sociale à celle des castes, qui par ailleurs ne concernent que les hindouistes (82 % de la population) et ne prennent pas en compte les autres minorités : musulmane, sikh, chrétienne. Le rapport précise que "l'identité des sections déshéritées n'est pas tant fondée sur la religion ou les castes, mais plutôt sur leur enlisement dans la pauvreté, et par conséquent leur incapacité à avoir accès aux mêmes opportunités".

UNE EFFICACITÉ LIMITÉE

Le 10 avril 2008, la Cour suprême a toutefois approuvé l'extension des quotas fondés sur les "groupes répertoriés" – les seuls désormais recensés – dans les collèges et les universités. En plus des 22,5 % de places déjà réservées aux étudiants des "castes et tribus répertoriées", 27 % sont dédiées aux étudiants issus des "autres classes arriérées". Au total donc, près de la moitié des places universitaires sont réservées aux étudiants des catégories défavorisées. La Cour suprême a posé plusieurs garde-fous à cette discrimination positive : les plus privilégiés des basses castes sont exclus du dispositif, qui devra être réévalué tous les cinq ans.

Sa mise en place a cependant lancé une vague de manifestations dans le pays. La levée de boucliers est même venue de la part de membres des castes inférieures, estimant qu'il valait mieux leur donner de meilleures opportunités dès le plus jeune âge, grâce à une meilleure éducation primaire et secondaire. Car le système de quotas n'a guère fait preuve de son efficacité. Si plusieurs dalits – intouchables – ont accédé à des postes de responsabilité politique, la part des intouchables vivant sous le seuil de pauvreté a été multipliée par six entre 1950 et 2005.

Mathilde Gérard

[-] fermer "Brésil : de la difficulté de définir la couleur de peau"
Brésil : de la difficulté de définir la couleur de peau
Au Brésil, les Noirs ou Métis représentent environ 45 % de la population, mais seulement 15 % des étudiants. En revanche, ils sont largement surreprésentés parmi les couches les plus pauvres de la société, constituant par exemple 90 % des analphabètes. Cette situation est le résultat de siècles d'esclavage et de persécution des populations noires et amérindiennes. Le Brésil a été un des derniers pays au monde à abolir l'esclavage, en 1888. Mais si les esclaves ont été affranchis, l'Etat ne leur a pas donné les moyens de s'intégrer dans la société.

Le principe de discrimination positive pour favoriser l'accès des plus défavorisés à l'enseignement supérieur a vu le jour au Brésil en 1995, sous l'impulsion du président Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Mais c'est Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, l'ex-métallo arrivé au pouvoir en 2002, qui a poussé le concept le plus loin.

L'accès aux quelque 200 établissements supérieurs publics brésiliens est conditionné à la réussite d'un examen : le vestibular. Pour ceux qui échouent à ce concours d'entrée, il reste la possibilité d'intégrer l'un des 1 800 instituts privés, généralement très chers et moins performants.

NEGRO, PRETO OU MORENO ?

Depuis 2000, près de cinquante universités ont mis en place un système qui "bonifie" les notes de certains élèves au vestibular, en fonction du niveau de revenus de leur famille, mais aussi de leur couleur de peau. Cette mesure, qui a permis entre 2001 et 2008 à près de 52 000 étudiants des classes sociales les plus pauvres d'accéder à l'université, ne s'est pas instaurée sans heurts. Plusieurs journaux, dont l'influent hebdomadaire Epoca, ont crié au scandale, dénonçant le "mépris du mérite".

Par ailleurs, la définition de l'appartenance ethnique reste problématique. Il existe au Brésil plus d'une centaine d'adjectifs pour qualifier la couleur de peau. D'une région à une autre, ces qualifications varient, alors que tout Brésilien, ou presque, peut revendiquer un ancêtre noir ou métis. En 2003, un cas avait fait grand bruit : Diego Designe, blanc de peau, s'était inscrit comme Noir à l'examen de comptabilité de l'université de Rio de Janeiro, où il avait été admis grâce aux quotas. Cloué au pilori par la presse, il avait finalement renoncé à profiter abusivement de ce passe-droit.

CRITÈRES RACIAUX, CRITÈRES SOCIAUX

Le gouvernement a donc décidé de s'appuyer sur d'autres critères de quotas. En novembre 2008, les députés ont approuvé un projet de loi réservant 50 % des places dans les universités publiques fédérales aux élèves ayant effectué leur scolarité dans l'enseignement public. Car c'est là que le bât blesse : la quasi-totalité des élèves des écoles et lycées publics, dont l'enseignement prépare mal aux études supérieures, sont d'origine modeste, tandis que les classes aisées envoient leurs enfants dans des établissements privés à meilleure réputation.

La mesure, détaillée par le portail d'information UOL prévoit, en outre, de réserver 25 % des places aux élèves dont les familles ont des revenus inférieurs à une fois et demi le salaire minimum. Mais le projet de loi doit encore recevoir l'aval du Sénat. Or son feu vert est incertain : en cause, indique Ultimo Segundo, un amendement, introduit depuis le vote des députés, incluant de nouveaux quotas sur la base de critères raciaux. La Cour suprême doit se prononcer le 5 mars sur ce sujet.

Demain : L'Inde, terrain d'expérimentation précoce

Mathilde Gérard

[-] fermer "Aux Etats-Unis, des critères de sélection complexes"
Aux Etats-Unis, des critères de sélection complexes
L'"action affirmative" – pendant américain de la discrimination positive – est née de la lutte pour les droits civiques et l'abolition de la ségrégation raciale. A la fin des années 1960, le gouvernement républicain de Richard Nixon entend favoriser, par des politiques de traitement préférentiel, l'accès à l'emploi et l'admission dans les universités de certains groupes ayant fait l'objet dans le passé de pratiques discriminatoires. Cette politique est toutefois intéressée et vise à rétablir l'ordre public à la suite d'une vague d'émeutes raciales qui font plus de 170 morts et 7 000 blessés entre juin 1964 et 1968.

L'affirmative action américaine désigne au départ des dispositions destinées à susciter en amont une augmentation du nombre de candidats noirs à certains postes. Ce n'est que dans les années 1970 que se met en place une politique de recrutement spécifique, avec dans certaines universités, l'instauration de quotas ethniques.

DISPOSITIFS INFORMELS

Ces derniers ne font pas long feu puisqu'en 1978, l'arrêt Bakke de la Cour suprême condamne la faculté de médecine de l'Université de Californie, qui réservait 16 % de ses places aux étudiants noirs et hispaniques. Mais si la Cour suprême rejette les quotas, elle fixe la diversité comme objectif de recrutement. Les universités doivent donc revoir leurs programmes de recrutement pour les rendre informels et flexibles. La prise en compte du facteur ethnique doit être un élément positif parmi d'autres dans l'examen des dossiers pour atteindre la diversité.

En 2003, trois étudiants blancs recalés par la faculté de droit de l'université du Michigan, s'estimant lésés, saisissent à nouveau la Cour suprême. "Au-delà de l'interdiction des quotas, la Cour précise alors dans son arrêt que la valeur attribuée au facteur racial ne doit pas être quantifiée à l'avance", indique Daniel Sabbagh, spécialiste de l'affirmative action et directeur de recherche au Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI-Sciences Po). En d'autres termes, le "bonus" attribué aux étudiants noirs ou hispaniques ne peut être fixé par avance. En parallèle, la Cour suprême confirme la validité des programmes visant à obtenir une "masse critique" d'étudiants noirs ou hispaniques dans les universités. Cette "masse critique" n'est pas quantifiée, et les moyens pour y parvenir ne sont pas précisés. La Cour suprême entérine ainsi le principe de programmes informels et flexibles.

REJET POPULAIRE

Depuis le milieu des années 1990, plusieurs Etats ont toutefois rejeté la discrimination positive. Au Texas, dans le Mississippi et en Louisiane, le dispositif a été temporairement aboli par des décisions juridiques, avant d'être réintroduit par l'arrêt de la Cour suprême de 2003. En revanche, dans cinq Etats, la question, soumise par référendum, a été durablement tranchée. Le premier à abolir l'affirmative action a été la Californie, en 1996, suivi de la Floride, de l'Etat de Washington, du Michigan et plus récemment du Nebraska. Mais l'abolition ne concerne que les universités publiques. En Californie par exemple, l'université privée Stanford continue de pratiquer très activement la discrimination positive.

"A chaque fois que la question de l'action affirmative est soumise à référendum, le vote débouche sur l'abolition du dispositif à une très large majorité, remarque Daniel Sabbagh. La contestation porte sur des arguments juridiques, moraux et philosophiques, pas sur les données empiriques fiables d'évaluation des programmes."

Des chercheurs ont révélé que dans les universités de ces cinq Etats ayant aboli le dispositif, la part des étudiants noirs avait chuté de façon parfois drastique. Une étude menée par trois chercheurs de l'université de Floride, publiée dans la revue InterActions, montre par exemple qu'à l'université de Los Angeles (UCLA), la proportion des étudiants afro-américains en première année est passée de 7,3 % en 1995 à 2,3 % en 2005.

ALTERNATIVES

En Floride, la baisse a été moins flagrante : la proportion de Noirs est passée de 11,3 % en 2000, date à laquelle la discrimination positive a été jugée illégale, à 9,4 % en 2005. L'abandon de cette politique a été compensée par un système d'admission automatique des meilleurs élèves. En parallèle, l'université a augmenté le nombre de places disponibles.

"Des dispositifs alternatifs sont venus se substituer à l'affirmative action", relève Daniel Sabbagh. Ainsi, au Texas, depuis 1997, chaque lycée, riche ou pauvre, peut envoyer à l'université les 10 % d'élèves les mieux notés. "Le Texas a élaboré une batterie d'indicateurs de désavantage, tous plus ou moins liés au fait d'être noir ou hispanique", poursuit le chercheur. Chaque candidature à l'université est examinée à l'aune d'une série de question : le candidat est-il bilingue (ce qui favorise les hispanophones) ? A-t-il fait sa scolarité dans un lycée autrefois victime de ségrégation ? Sera-t-il le premier dans sa famille à obtenir un diplôme, etc.

L'université de Berkeley a quant à elle mis en place une approche "holistique" de l'examen des demandes d'inscription – une référence à la médecine holistique, qui privilégie une approche globale de la santé d'un individu. "Après les évaluations séparées des différents volets de la demande [notes, activités extra-scolaires, motivation...], dans la phase finale, une seule personne prend connaissance de l'ensemble du dossier", expliquait au Monde un porte-parole de l'université en janvier 2007. "Nous pouvons ainsi évaluer l'éligibilité d'un élève, non pas seulement en fonction de ses résultats scolaires, mais en tenant compte du contexte local."

EFFICACITÉ

Les politiques d'action affirmative ont-elles joué leur rôle ? "A court terme, elles sont efficaces et arrivent à faire entrer plus de Noirs et d'Hispaniques dans les universités", estime Daniel Sabbagh. Les études empiriques montrent par ailleurs que plus l'université est sélective, plus le taux d'obtention des diplômes est élevé pour toutes les catégories d'étudiants. L'explication de ce paradoxe tient à la motivation des étudiants sélectionnés et aux moyens dont disposent les meilleures universités pour accompagner leurs étudiants. Mais dans les universités moins sélectives, il demeure un écart de performance entre étudiants.

Quant à savoir si l'affirmative action à l'université a favorisé l'intégration plus large des Noirs et Hispaniques dans la société, la réponse est complexe. Certes, le nombre de Noirs appartenant à la classe moyenne a quadruplé, tandis que le nombre de Noirs pauvres a diminué de moitié. Mais 25 % des Afro-Américains continuent de vivre sous le seuil de pauvreté, contre 8 % des Blancs, et la ségrégation géographique continue d'être une réalité, Noirs et Blancs n'habitant pas les mêmes quartiers.

Mathilde Gérard

Business Going Holistic!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/10mba.html?scp=1&sq=Multicultural%20Critical%20Theory&st=cse

January 10, 2010
Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?

By LANE WALLACE
A DECADE ago, Roger Martin, the new dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, had an epiphany. The leadership at his son’s elementary school had asked him to meet with its retiring principal to figure out how it could replicate her success.

He discovered that the principal thrived by thinking through clashing priorities and potential options, rather than hewing to any pre-planned strategy — the same approach taken by the managing partner of a successful international law firm in town.

“The ‘Eureka’ moment was when I could draw a data point between a hotshot, investment bank-oriented star lawyer and an elementary school principal,” Mr. Martin recalls. “I thought: ‘Holy smokes. In completely different situations, these people are thinking in very similar ways, and there may be something special about this pattern of thinking.’ ”

That insight led Mr. Martin to begin advocating what was then a radical idea in business education: that students needed to learn how to think critically and creatively every bit as much as they needed to learn finance or accounting. More specifically, they needed to learn how to approach problems from many perspectives and to combine various approaches to find innovative solutions.

In 1999, few others in the business-school world shared Mr. Martin’s view. But a decade and a seismic economic downturn later, things have changed. “I think there’s a feeling that people need to sharpen their thinking skills, whether it’s questioning assumptions, or looking at problems from multiple points of view,” says David A. Garvin, a Harvard Business School professor who is co-author with Srikant M. Datar and Patrick G. Cullen of an upcoming book, “Rethinking the M.B.A.: Business Education at a Crossroads.”

Learning how to think critically — how to imaginatively frame questions and consider multiple perspectives — has historically been associated with a liberal arts education, not a business school curriculum, so this change represents something of a tectonic shift for business school leaders. Mr. Martin even describes his goal as a kind of “liberal arts M.B.A.”

“The liberal arts desire,” he says, is to produce “holistic thinkers who think broadly and make these important moral decisions. I have the same goal.”

Ever since 1959, when two influential studies by the Ford and Carnegie Foundations chastised business schools as being too vocational, most M.B.A. programs have taken anything but a broad approach to their subject matter.

With few exceptions, traditional instruction has involved separate disciplines like finance, marketing and strategy, with an emphasis on quantifiable analyses and methods. While some valued what a liberal arts background could provide, the dominant view was that those elements had no place in professional business schools.

BUT even before the financial upheaval last year, business executives operating in a fast-changing, global market were beginning to realize the value of managers who could think more nimbly across multiple frameworks, cultures and disciplines. The financial crisis underscored those concerns — at business schools and in the business world itself.

As a result, a number of prominent business schools have re-evaluated and, in some cases, redesigned their M.B.A. programs in the last few years. And while few talk explicitly about taking a liberal arts approach to business, many of the changes are moving business schools into territory more traditionally associated with the liberal arts: multidisciplinary approaches, an understanding of global and historical context and perspectives, a greater focus on leadership and social responsibility and, yes, learning how to think critically.

Two years ago, for example, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford made a sweeping curriculum change that included more emphasis on multidisciplinary perspectives and understanding of cultural contexts. The first-quarter mandatory curriculum, for example, now includes a class called “The Global Context of Management and Strategic Leadership.” First-year students also must take a course called “Critical and Analytical Thinking.”

“If I’m going to really launch you on a career or path where you can make a big impact in the world,” explains the school’s dean, Garth Saloner, “you have to be able to think critically and analytically about the big problems in the world.”

Mr. Saloner says Stanford wants its business students to develop “a lens that brings some kind of principled set of scales to the problem.” In other words, he says, students need to learn to ask themselves, “In whose interest am I making the decision?”

Students in the critical-thinking course explore difficult, broad problems that require value-laden trade-offs. For example, should Google locate its servers for Chinese customers outside China, which might provide inferior service, or inside China, where material could be censored?

But changes like Stanford’s are far from universal. The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business has decided to keep its disciplined-based approach. “We are happy with what we do, it is good for us and it matches Chicago, our faculty and our values,” said its dean, Edward A. Snyder.

Nancy McGaw, deputy director of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit that studies leadership issues, said: “We don’t see wholesale changes yet. We’ve been through this enormous crisis and there are some people who are saying maybe we can do things differently and avoid it next time. But many students still go through M.B.A. programs without being touched by this kind of thinking.”

John J. Fernandes, president and C.E.O. of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, estimates that only about 25 percent of association-accredited schools are making significant curriculum changes focused on what he calls “the creation of more sustainable leaders.” But he expects that to reach 75 percent in 10 years.

Professor Garvin of Harvard agrees, saying that there is “an imperative for change.” “At this point,” he said, “the forces for change are real, and the need for change is real, and the blueprints are already in process.”

ONE of the most distinctive blueprints being developed is at the Rotman School. In addition to discipline-based courses in areas like finance and accounting, first-year students now take “Fundamentals of Integrative Thinking,” which focuses on understanding and analyzing how people use models in their everyday lives.

For example, Mr. Martin says, students analyze how a book becomes a best seller, and then learn how to break the model down to its core assumptions and logic.

In a followup practicum, students practice what Mr. Martin calls “the art and science of building new models,” using real-world problems, like developing a growth model for an alternative airline or a model for reviving Yahoo Canada.

In the second year, students can take electives ranging from design-thinking classes in the school’s “Design Works” facility to a capstone course taught by Mr. Martin. Called “The Opposable Mind,” this course focuses on developing and practicing the personal skills necessary to be a good integrative thinker and manager.

In one exercise, taken from Mr. Martin’s own experience as a consultant, he videotapes students as they replay a contentious meeting in which two corporate executives disagree on their conglomerate’s strategy. Two other students play consultants, and practice what Mr. Martin calls “assertive inquiry” to explore the assumptions and validity of each executive’s argument. The students then generate new options to try to produce a better outcome.

“We analyze the tape with them and have them repeat it several times to see how they can do better,” says Mr. Martin.

Brant Carson, a 2009 Rotman graduate who now works for McKinsey & Company, says: “I constantly hear Roger’s voice in my head reminding me that everything doesn’t have to be an either/or solution.”

Mr. Martin started working integrative thinking into the curriculum with a couple of elective classes. At the same time, he began marketing the school as a place where students could learn “a new way to think.” Since 1999, Rotman has doubled its enrollment and faculty — changes he attributes to what he calls the school’s growing reputation as a place of innovative thought.

But does Rotman’s curriculum really create a fundamentally different M.B.A. graduate? At least some people think so.

Steve McConnell, a managing partner of NBBJ, an architecture firm based in Seattle, noticed a distinctly different approach in the Rotman students he hired.

“They seemed to be naturally free of the bias or predisposition that so many of us seem to carry into any situation,” he says. “And they brought a set of skills in how you query and look into an issue without moving toward biased or predetermined conclusions that has led to unexpected discoveries of opportunity and potential innovation.”

For example, he says, the approach allowed one Rotman graduate to see that a major NBBJ health care client needed fewer facilities than conventional studies indicated — an insight that saved the client a significant sum.

Innovation, of course, is a business buzzword. So some business schools are embracing an innovation-oriented approach known as “design thinking.” Rotman has its “DesignWorks” department; Stanford has the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, known as the d.school, where business students can take elective classes in design thinking.

“Critical thinking is an ability to understand a system or a statement and respond to it,” explains Tim Brown, president of IDEO, the design firm whose founder, David Kelley, was the main force behind the d.school’s creation. “What’s different about design thinking is, it’s focused on taking that understanding you have about the world and using that as a set of insights from which to be creative.”

Instead of presenting existing problems to analyze or solve, design-thinking classes send students to do something akin to anthropological field work to find the problems. Then they field-test solutions, refining as they go.

“What I learned at the d.school was markedly different from what I learned in the business school,” says Laura Jones, who got her degree last year and is now a manager in global innovation strategy for Visa. “At business school, there was a lot of focus on, ‘You’ve got a great idea; here’s how you build a business out of it.’ The d.school said, ‘Here’s how you get to that great idea.’ ”

OTHER prominent business schools are also making curriculum changes, though the specifics and degree vary. The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia recently introduced design thinking into its curriculum and has built an innovation lab, called I-Lab, to accommodate the classes’ informal, collaborative style.

The Yale School of Management recently restructured its core curriculum around different “organizational perspectives” like customers, investors and society, instead of traditional disciplines like finance and marketing. “The faculty realized that in contemporary management practice, there’s no such thing as just a ‘marketing problem,’ ” says its dean, Sharon M. Oster.

Yale has also added a “problem framing” course that tries to have students think more broadly, question assumptions, view problems through multiple lenses and learn from history.

“There’s a great deal to learn from Bismarck, Kissinger, F.D.R. and J.F.K. about problem framing,” says Paul Bracken, a professor who designed the course. “I never understood why business schools didn’t mine this literature.”

Harvard hasn’t redone its curriculum, but the school has expanded its classes in global perspectives, corporate and social responsibility, and what it calls “authentic leadership development.” “We’ve been teaching the theory of leadership forever,” Mr. Garvin says. “But leadership is increasingly being treated at a skills level, with students working in small teams and in an experiential way, with reflective and field exercises. That’s a pronounced shift.”

The changes are also not limited to graduate programs. Because business is now such a popular undergraduate degree, the Carnegie Foundation is arguing for greater integration of the liberal arts with undergraduate business programs.

Will any of these changes have a big role in preventing future economic crises? Opinions here are more mixed. If businesses’ pay systems keep rewarding short-term, high-risk or narrowly focused behavior, many say, what business programs teach is unlikely to have much impact.

“As Upton Sinclair said, it’s amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he’s paid a small fortune to not understand it,” cautions John Bogle, the founder and former chief of the Vanguard Group.

Mr. Martin agrees that the problems that led to the crisis are bigger than business schools alone can address. But he’s still optimistic. “The vast majority of our students want to be a positive influence on the world,” he says. “And if you give them ways of thinking that help them with these complicated dilemmas, they’ll make choices that are in some sense more worthy and have a higher moral quality.”

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Stitching the World Together

January 6, 2010
CURRENTS


By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA — We tend to think that machines connect the world, but it is really in fact people. In the past, it was pilgrims and explorers and colonizers who, in variously benign and cruel ways, drove interchange among peoples. It was they who gave this pastel-hued city on the Caribbean its Spanish-Islamic arches, a cuisine that might blend tamarind and steak and corn in a single dish, and salsa songs equally indebted to the European and African pasts.

Today it is not pilgrims or colonizers who bind us, but a new class of the globally connected who are relentlessly cross-pollinating the human community. They are becoming some of the world’s most culturally consequential people, but we know little about them as a class.

I have had close encounters with them in Mumbai and New Delhi, Washington and Cambridge, Bangkok and Hong Kong, and now in this percussive Colombian city. I have seen how they are stitching the world together one restaurant recommendation and friend request at a time, and this column is in their honor.

They come in several types, though some of them straddle more than one:

THE ANOINTERS They are geographic early adopters: investors who bet on places still thought risky, then see fat returns when the fearful finally join the bandwagon; tourists who venture to countries thought unsafe, as Colombia is thought by many, benefiting from the lower prices and thin crowds, and then spreading word of the new reality to the less-daring; buyers from Bergdorf Goodman who decide whether Moscow’s or Cape Town’s fashion week has become big enough to attend; event managers who decide where to gather a film festival, software conference or corporate confabulation.

THE REPLICATORS They are corporate colonials: expats, country heads and corporate transfers seeking to spread not civilization but best practices. They come from New York and Seoul to build foreign offices of Goldman Sachs and Hyundai. HSBC has a special squad known as the “Marines,” who must be ready to relocate on a few days’ notice. Replicators bring world-class managerial techniques to the countries they inhabit; the best of them imbibe new ideas from the locals that they relay to headquarters. They often spend a disproportionate amount of time ensconced in five-star hotels, but they are adventurers doing business where it is not yet fashionable and raising everybody’s game.

THE APPRENTICES They travel abroad from less-connected countries, apprentice in the best universities or companies in the world, then rush home to apply their discoveries. They are not interested in hanging around. They have worked back home; they know the opportunities and gaps; they come to learn what cannot be learned easily at home. Upon returning, they tend to bring in better systems and processes, and they adapt alien models to local realities. If Replicators bring cellphone towers from the West to India, Apprentices create Indian companies that let village-dwelling farmers bank on their phones.

THE DOCKS They are the globalized locals in less-connected societies who serve as receivers for the outside world. They are in a place to stay. They are the keepers of its institutional memory, but speak in a language that foreigners understand. They know what in their society will most appeal to outsiders; they are expert explainers who do not tire of giving the same late-night tour. They live on the social-networking sites Facebook and Orkut and aSmallWorld. They possess insider knowledge: in Shanghai and Buenos Aires, they will tell you which local dive is best and which tailor won’t rip you off. They are respected within their societies because they broker access to foreigners and foreign opportunities.

THE SWITCHBOARDS They do not live in interesting, out-of-the-way places themselves, but they know everyone who does. When in university, they make friends with the foreign students; five years later, they have a guest room awaiting them in a dozen countries. They are collectors of internationals, and connectors, too. Someone working on children’s issues in Zimbabwe may be too enmeshed in the cause to come upon someone similarly engaged in Bolivia. Their mutual Switchboard friend will insist that they connect and perform a Switchboard’s favorite art: the intro e-mail, with a clever subject line.

THE FUSIONISTAS They are bi-everything, or almost everything — biracial, bicultural, bilingual. They are diplomats’ children, first-generation immigrants, the returned offspring of émigrés. They long agonized over a split identity, and perhaps suffered through high school with their inability to answer the question “Where are you from?” Now it’s payback time. They have figured out how to turn hyphenated confusion into a competitive advantage by serving as cultural bridges. They own East-meets-West fashion boutiques in the developing world; they throw dinner parties with soul food and kimchi in rooftop New York apartments.

This connective population deserves further study. They are not necessarily the richest people in their societies, but they often belong to the educated upper-middle class. They share a restless bent of personality. They fancy themselves as adventurers, although in a way they are quite conservative: far from being hippies and backpackers, they roam the world for the sake of work, not play. They hope to join the establishment, not overthrow it.

They can fear commitment — tending to be renters, not buyers, for example, even when they can afford to buy. They find it hard to mate with those less restless and seafaring than they. But they also struggle to hold steady relationships with others of their ilk, bouncing around the world. Video calls on Skype soothe the anomie that comes with ambition.

At first, it was an extra-helpful, eccentric friend here and there. Then there seemed to be more and more such people, but clustered in particular cities like New York and Shanghai. But, increasingly, they are everywhere, connecting, bridging, even in out-of-the-way tropical towns like this one.

So the next time you eat Greek-French food in Tokyo or watch a Chinese-American’s avant-garde film about Beijing or hear in Berlin that Beirut is the new vacation spot, you will be watching the pilgrims and explorers of our own age at work.

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