Turning a Corner

Ethics is a far more subtle phenomenon than most people would like to think. We tend to compartmentalize our world and in doing so, we regard leaders as clearly ethical or obviously unethical. In hindsight, we always point to overt ethical missteps and say, "how did the SEC miss that?" or "why didn't someone blow the whistle?" But the reality is that most ethical issues aren't grand or seemingly significant enough for individuals to pause and consider them.

We are lumbering through on-campus interviews for summer internships this month, and one common behavioral question is "Tell me about a time you faced an unethical situation." I don't know what other people say when they get this question, but I imagine many are hard-pressed to think of a situation they are comfortable talking about, if they can think of anything at all. This, I would argue, is because overtly unethical (and usually illegal) activity, even though perpetrated by someone else, is highly embarrassing and difficult to talk about in an interview, and subtle unethical behavior, the kind we are surrounded by, day in and day out, often goes entirely without notice.

For instance, slacking off is unethical--when an individual doesn't pull his or her weight, someone else has to fill in the gap or the business suffers. This is true of team projects here at business school and it's certainly true in the real world. Start-ups have very little tolerance for poor performers, and one or two really bad apples can lead to the dissolution of the entire firm.

Last week in my Entrepreneurship and Private Equity class, we discussed the management and organization of high-growth businesses. One feature of the CEO's position that Professor BenDaniel astutely pointed out is that the CEO is the role model to which every employee responds. People come into the office based on when the CEO comes in, they limit expenses during travel based on the CEO's example, and they even treat their colleagues with a similar degree of kindness and respect as the CEO exhibits towards them. What is so remarkable about this phenomenon is that individuals aren't inherently ethical or unethical--they are inherently malleable.

For the most part, no one is even conscious of how they are being influenced or whether their behavior is ethical. In the beautiful words of C.S. Lewis: "The moment of his consent almost escaped his notice; certainly, there was no struggle, no sense of turning a corner. There may have been a time in the world's history when such moments fully revealed their gravity...But for him, it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter among fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make men do very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men," [That Hideous Strength].

The Other Side of the Table

From the moment I stepped into the real world, I began to develop a profound interest in making, marketing, and selling products. And as I try to decipher a career path in the bombarding cloud of finance, consulting, marketing and general management opportunities presented to MBAs, I realize more and more that products--real, discrete, tangible, usable, products--are what matter most to me.

Yesterday, two of my peers and I headed to the lab of a local start-up to evaluate the company for Big Red Ventures, the Johnson School's student-run venture fund. Meeting with the entrepreneurs and seeing the technology first hand went a long way in demonstrating what the company is all about--something that words and numbers on paper really can't do. One of the most interesting aspects of the experience for me was seeing what it's like to sit on the other side of the table. For once, I was the one evaluating the company from the outside, looking in. The product was not mine to market or to sell, but only to touch and feel (and consider for funding).

I can see why so many people want to be venture capitalists--ostensibly it's a pretty sexy job and there's a great deal of power in it. The venture capitalist is the gatekeeper of new technologies, particularly the capital intensive ones. As a country, we hope our VCs are on the ball, lest another country fund better projects and steal our innovative edge right out from under us.

I think that on the whole people believe that the great products and inventions will somehow find a way to the market, in spite of the system, but that is far too optimistic. Great technologies are born and die all the time because they can't reach their markets--either because the capital isn't in place to get them there, or because the people that created them simply don't have the wherewithal to market them adequately.

In part, I guess that's my entrepreneurial aspiration--to make sure that the products I believe in get a fair shot at the market that would want them and need them, if only it knew of their existence, had easy access to them, and trusted in their longevity.

My Kind of Town

Love of a city is a special kind of love. For some, it can be as powerful as love for another human being. People long for their cities when they are separated for too long; they reminisce about their cities when they are in other cities; and they gloat about them, as if they are proud parents.

I spent the past week in Chicago with four of my friends from the Johnson School. We picked Chicago as our destination almost at random--our only criterion was to be in an exciting place, where hot spots and history abound. I also had the good fortune of seeing my two best friends from high school, who live there now, and they showed us some of the magic of their city.

As MBAs, most people have two main questions lingering in their minds with everything they do: what company do I want to work for; and where is that company located. Some of us are driven by the need to try someplace new--to keep ramblin' on. Others seek their hometowns and proximity to family and friends. Most of us, given the flexibility, will ultimately follow the job of our dreams to whatever promised land it forces upon us. Lucky for us, it's far easier to fall in love with a city than with a person. Cities take us in, accommodate us with restaurants and nightlife, relax us with bookstores and coffee shops, fuel our minds with history, music, and art--and they all do it so well and so differently.

We had so much fun in Chicago and it's hard to say whether it was because of Chicago--jazz at the Green Mill, watching the Bulls lose, improv in Wrigleyville, limitless sushi, the list goes on--or because of the people I was there with. My guess is a bit of both, but mostly the people.