Yesterday morning one of my recommenders came by my desk at work and gave me a press cutting from the Financial Times. The story was a book review of Philip Delves Broughton's new book, Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School (or in the UK called What They Teach You at Harvard Business School: My Two Years Inside the Cauldron of Capitalism).
Below are extracts from the piece in the Financial Times, as well as another piece I found in a different paper, The Times. Enjoy!
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All business schools pride themselves on recruiting “poets”, the non-traditional students who bring a different perspective to the classroom, usually populated by engineers, bankers or information technology specialists – or in the case of Harvard, according to Delves Broughton, by the “three Ms”: mormons, military and McKinsey.
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Two themes stand out. The first is the extent to which students use their two years at HBS, frequently described by the school as transformational, to enact their aspirations and change their working lives. The answer in Delves Broughton’s cohort would seem to be very little, with most graduates succumbing to the inexorable pull of the lucrative banking and consultancy sectors, which they often went to HBS to escape.
The other is that of ethics. During his time at HBS, US business schools faced a dilemma after one applicant found a way to hack into the applications website and discover unofficially whether he had been accepted. He published the relevant web addresses online and many others followed suit, leaving an electronic trail. Harvard, like other top schools, rescinded any offers intended for these applicants. A straw poll in Delves Broughton’s class shows about three-quarters believe the Harvard administration‘s decision was “excessive and self-righteous”.
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The result of Delves Broughton’s time there is this funny and revealing insider’s view, revealing precisely because he is genuinely fascinated by the world of business, and his fascination is infectious. Yet feelings of unease emerge even before he arrives. He reads a student guide on What to Bring. “Don’t bring that guitar . . . Don’t bring any books from literature or history classes . . . Don’t bring your cynicism. Do bring all the diverse rest of you. We can’t wait to share the experience.” Immediately, his bolshie British bullshit- detector thrums into life: “Who were these people? And why did they talk like this? Why can’t I bring my cynicism? Or my books? Aren’t they a part of the ‘diverse rest of me’?” “Your calendar will be jam-packed with amazing, fun things to do,” warbles the guide.
Amazingly, despite this terrible threat, he persists. Instantly, he is swamped with work: company case studies, spreadsheet analysis, books called things such as Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, intended to make him feel he’s doing something terribly daring and manly. He is surprised at the large presence of earnest Mormons and unimaginative former-military men in this cauldron of capitalism. But gradually this begins to make sense, for HBS is pervaded with an oppressive atmosphere of unquestioning obedience and creepy religiosity. There is the confessional My Reflected Best-Self exercise, to encourage students “to create a developmental agenda for leveraging their reflected best-self” and “work maximally from positions of strength”. Approved results sound like this: “I do not take on the negative energy of the insecure . . . I stay centred . . . I try to model the message of integrity, growth and transformation.” Delves Broughton is quietly incredulous that people actually talk about themselves like this, in public, straight-faced.
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