SCHMITTblog

Corporate Eudaimonia: How can we prevent corporate scandals?

I met up with an old friend of mine, Robert Millard, who studied psychology with me in the doctoral program at Cornell. Back then, and still, I called him “Millard” and he called me “Schmitt.”  Now you know where the “Schmitt” thing started.

Millard brought this nicely bound book titled "Experiments in Ethics," by Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton University Professor and world authority on moral philosophy. The book is terrific; we debated it over scotch (Millard) and gin & tonic (me) till the wee hours. (If you care to find out my preferred brand of gin, read "Big Think  Strategy").

The problem with ethics discourse, according to Appiah, is roughly that it views ethics and morality as a series of decision situations of the "trolley dilemma type" (a run-away trolley hurtling down the tracks  is on course to kill five people on its way;  you can save the five or hit a switch that directs the trolley to a side track and only kill one) or the “Asian flu type” (choosing between two policy options in preparation for an outbreak of the Asian flu; if we do nothing 600 people will die; if we choose option A, 200 will be saved; if we choose option B, 400 will die).

While such exercises somewhat inform us about how people think and behave, these studies all have a major shortcoming: they are about moral emergencies that rarely occur in real life. That is, when was the last time you decided alone in seconds with a clear set of well-defined options about an issue of great moral significance -- such as life and death? Because they are bereft of life, these models are ill-fit as normative models of ethical decision-making and behavior.

Instead, according to Appiah, ethics is about a good life: eudaimonia, as Greek philosophers called it. Eudaimonia is often translated as “happiness” (that is, a feeling); but is more appropriately viewed as a "good, flourishing life." The bottom line: without some sense of ethics, a happy life may not be a good life.

Now, precisely structuring decision situations and laying out their parameters is a favorite exercise of decision theorists at business schools. It’s called the "management science"  approach. (The next day, in a talk by a business historian, I learned that this is the result of a re-education process sponsored by the Ford Foundation after World War II aimed to turn a prior generation of business school faculty into "management scientists.").

If Appiah is right, this approach to corporate ethics may be doomed to fail. Yet, the success of alternative approaches to moral re-education of our MBAs – such as scolding (“don’t cheat, don’t lie”) or using ex-cons to scare them straight - also remains to be seen.

So, what does Appiah recommend business educators do to prevent corporate scandals? I found the following quotes on a Princeton weekly bulletin page:

"I don’t think teaching morality or ethics in the classroom is going to stop people from doing bad things... And I don’t think that more moral philosophy in the business schools is going to help here...The role of those of us in the normative disciplines is not, in my judgment, to tell people what the right answers are to ethical  questions: it’s to provide them with the tools for thinking about them themselves."

Safwan est beau

Hi folks,
It's been quite some time since I've blogged.  What can I say, the English Premier League just doesn't inspire me like the World Cup (not enough Germans to hate or Argentines to love; but did you see Carlos Tevez's goal against Manchester United? Fantastic).
One thing does inspire me however: A Safwan Sighting.
Oh yes, my friends, our lovable colleague was seen on the premises last Thursday for a faculty meeting (Queen Noor gave him the afternoon off).  And let me tell you, he was looking as RAVISHING as ever.  Some background: For years Schmitt  and Safwan, who joined the Columbia Business School together just about the time that I was in eighth grade and still hairless like you-know-who, have been sniping at each other, grappling to achieve the status of Supreme Style Leader of Columbia Business School.  For his part, in the last few years Schmitt has been alleging that Safwan has lost some allure, lost some hair, and picked up some je ne sais quoi around his waistline.   
I beg to differ.
Schmitt might wear Ozwald Boateng, but Safwan is a brand in and of himself, in a suit or out of one.  There's Madonna, and there's Safwan, and like Madonna, Safwan is hot as hell for his age.  And while it is perhaps true that he may have helped himself to a little too much kibbeh over dinner in the Royal Court, in the last 12 months he still got more real estate than Schmitt in the New Yorker. 

Levav

Personal Branding Is B.S...

I'm in a state of existential despair.  I am preparing a new session for my branding class this evening, which is starting in 10 minutes.

The session is on "personal branding" a topic which has generated a lot of books and interest of late.  I stayed up all night reading the best sellers and am, frankly, astonished.  There is nothing there.  Let me give an example of what you can learn from these books...

(under the heading "Your Brand Promise as a Spouse or Life Partner"):

How can I apply my brand promise so that I am both distinctive and relevant in this particular relationship?

[Mcnally & Speak.  Be Your Own Brand]

Conclusion: personal branding is b.s.  Funny thing, "b.s." has been one of my catchphrases for years (both the initials of my name, and a favored exclamation).  In fact it's been part of my personal brand, you might say.  Just like Ozwald Boateng suits, cool personal websites, and not parting my hair on the left any more.

Hmm.... maybe there is something to personal branding after all?

Have to run to class!

Skinny Ties

Suddenly those skinny ties are everywhere!  I saw them at the Oscars: all the cool actors were wearing them.  The only ones that still showed up in the dated bow tie outfits were the low-hierarchy documentary film editing folks.  Last night the host of American Idol wore a skinny tie.  Anderson Cooper will most likely be next.  Even Levav, my most fashionable academic colleague, may be pulling out his by next year's Oscars.  (My other colleagues may never have stopped wearing theirs from 20 years ago.)

So, it’s time to make a major wardrobe shift myself.  Watch out for an auction of my “old” ties on this blog soon.

If you didn't keep your own Miami Vice black leather skinny tie, try:
http://www.findcoolclothes.com/01187.html

Managerial Relevance

I am working on the “Managerial Relevance Statement” for an academic management journal. Here is the instruction to the authors. Read closely (underlining added). Hilarious!

Your statement should be one concise paragraph (no more than 200 words) written in language accessible to a practicing manager that describes the managerial relevance of your paper. Depending on the nature of the work, this may stress the importance of the problem, the significance of the tools to management issues or insights that could deepen a manager's perspective on specific decision making scenarios. This should NOT be a repetition of your abstract (which should summarize your contribution for a research audience). Nor should it be an argument that practicing managers should want to read your paper. Since Management Science is a scholarly journal, most papers are not appropriate for practitioners. But the problems, methods and insights they contain should be of interest to practicing managers. This paragraph is your opportunity to explain why they should care that your work exists, even if they will never read it directly. [sic]

Singing the Brand

See the managers of Bank of America sing the praises of the union with MBNA.

Just in case some of you find this ridiculous, you are not alone.  The Wall Street Journal finds that
"to sing a sultry ballad about the union is arguably pushing it."

**SCHMITT theme song “I Wanna Dance, Dance, Dance Till the Sun Goes Down” and strobophonic special effects courtesy of Musical Fantasy Light, made in China.

Video: Experience Marketing Seminar

I was thrilled to hear that thousands and thousands of executives watched the online seminar I produced last month for Financial Times' FT.com -- based on my 3-day executive program in New York on "Experience Marketing."

The Financial Times is now offering the online class to all, available without registration!  For those who missed it, click here to experience all 5 sessions of the class:

• Day 1: Why experiential marketing?

• Day 2: Key concepts in experiential marketing

• Day 3: The framework for managing customer experience

• Day 4: Implementing the customer experience

• Day 5: Using experience to drive bottom line growth

Or just click below to SEE THE VIDEOS without all the class material. (The sound is a little quiet, so TURN UP THE VOLUME.)

SCHMITT Wears Zachary Prell

A former student of mine has launched a luxury men's shirts brand, and I just bought three of them.  Watch this video to find out about the new global brand "Zachary Prell."

WHERE IDEAS MEET BEER

Just got back from a ten-day trip to Korea, China and Italy.  Before I left for the trip, I was holding the first SCHMITT OKTOBERFEST REUNION, an event for the Columbia executive MBA students that took my Munich seminar over the last three years. 

The theme of the reunion was “Where Ideas Meet Beer.” 

I have felt for a long time that the separation between ideas and beer is not only artificial but also unnecessary.  So, to set the record straight once and for all, I created the d’Wiesn Bierideen Lecture where – and I am quoting – “ideas are presented that lend themselves toward the consumption of beer and are best consumed under the influence of beer.”

The inaugural speaker was my colleague Don Lehmann who spoke on brand equity illustrating his ideas with lots of beer examples.  The speech was interrupted multiple times by toasts featuring the German drinking song “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit.”  It is precisely this sort of Bierideengemütlichkeit that is key to innovation, as I will argue in my forthcoming book to be published by the Harvard Business Press next year.

On Wal-Mart And Facial Hair

(Don’t worry. Not more Levav!)

How do you reposition a brand to be current – I mean “really” reposition it. (Let’s call it: “really new positioning” in analogy to what some researchers call “really new products.”) Clearly not by looking at a few dots in your two dimensional perceptual map.

One way to stretch the imagination is to take a look at hot trends (general ones, not within an industry) and make them relevant to the brand.

That’s what I asked my students to do today in my class today: First, create a visual/mood board of the current image of a well-known brand. Second, create another board that explores a hot lifestyle trend among consumers (identified by my own brandkultur researcher team). And third, to come up with a creative way to reposition the brand in line with the trend -- expressing it in a cool new product, service, or launch event.

We thus repositioned, for example, Kellogg’s Cornflakes with a trend I called “spiritualism,” Delta with “health and wellness,” and Wal-Mart with the new trend of “facial hair.”

Facial hair as a trend? “Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol?” You bet. In fact that is the title of a recent New York Times article in the Fashion & Style section. Among its evidence… Ralph Lauren runway models who look like Ulysses S. Grant, fashion editors and hipsters expanding on last year’s whiskers with full bushy growth, and of course George Clooney’s beard grown for his role in Syriana.

"This is some sort of reaction to men who look scrubbed, shaved, plucked and waxed," said the designer Bryan Bradley, who stepped onto the runway after his Tuleh presentation looking like a renegade from the John Bartlett show, at which more than half the models wore beards: untidy ones that scaled a spectrum from wiry to ratty to shabby to fully bushy.

"It's less 'little boy,' " Mr. Bradley said. "For a while men have looked too much like Boy Scouts going off to day camp."

Yes, I tried to give the students difficult matches between trends and brands.  But their repositionings showed real creativity. As for Wal-Mart, the retailer could capitalize on the trend of the moment with barber shops and specialized facial hair aisles.

If you just stretch the brand imagination a bit, the far-fetched seems quite doable!

Posted by SCHMITT