October 2002, MIT Sloan website

MIT Sloan celebrates 50th anniversary, looks to management's future

More than 1,000 alumni and friends returned to the MIT Sloan School of Management Oct. 10-12 to celebrate the School's 50th anniversary and to predict and debate the future of management.

Several of the speeches and academic discussions focused on the need for greater corporate responsibility and the importance of understanding and adapting to rapid changes in technology.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a 1972 MIT Sloan Fellow, delivered a stirring keynote address to kick off the celebration at Kresge Auditorium. He reflected on his close association with MIT Sloan and highlighted the importance of corporate responsibility to the global community.

"Over the long run, human well-being can be dramatically advanced by well-functioning markets," said Annan, "but markets themselves cannot be sustained if they do not ensure human well-being."

With the media listening, Annan also reiterated his position that the next step in keeping Iraq's nuclear threat in check should be reinstating United Nations arms inspectors.

Management's future
The event was as much a serious look at management's future as a celebration for MIT Sloan alumni, as prominent speakers, faculty, and alumni tackled such topics as corporate responsibility, globalization, marketing, technology, and corporate governance.

It featured speeches from GM Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner, Jr.; HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, a 1989 MIT Sloan Fellow; and Boeing Chairman and CEO Phil Condit.

Both MIT President Charles Vest and Richard Schmalensee, John C Head III Dean at MIT Sloan, spoke. Each underscored MIT Sloan's pivotal role in shaping the field of management and developing management tools now deemed essential by businesses worldwide.

MIT Sloan faculty led academic panels on some of the most vexing questions in the field of management, and a cross-section of MIT Sloan faculty provided updates on their research.

A sponsor of the event, General Motors provided an array of classic cars and concept cars from the 1950s and today. On display outside Kresge Auditorium, the cars drew crowds of celebration attendees and others from the MIT community.

Close ties with MIT Sloan
Among MIT Sloan's most prominent alumni, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a champion of corporate responsibility, Annan was a fitting speaker to begin the celebration.

He began by speaking fondly of his days at MIT Sloan in the early 1970s. He said the lessons he learned here on how to manage change have been integral to his success at the United Nations. He said he valued not only his education at MIT Sloan but also his close association with the School as an alumnus.

In 1982, for example, when he was working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, he said he and his colleagues sought the counsel of MIT Sloan Professor Edgar Schein, a renowned organizational expert, on how to manage the crisis with the boat people in Vietnam.

Annan and his colleagues anticipated a formal one-hour session with Schein, he said, but what transpired was an exhaustive, three-hour soul-searching session that yielded a new, more effective organizational approach to the crisis.

"I'd like to think that we are replicating that exercise on a global level among people and nations," said Annan, "as we strive to build the trust, confidence, and the sense of shared values and responsibility needed to address the urgent issues and threats of our time."

Importance of corporate responsibility
At the heart of Annan's message was an appeal for corporations to fulfill their obligations to the global community. The issue is at the forefront of his agenda at the United Nations.

In an age of interdependence, Annan said progress is possible only if people and nations have confidence that global markets and the international system in general are responding to their needs.

He highlighted the United Nation's Global Compact, which he proposed in 1999 as a way to help companies develop and promote global, values-based management and which he said is now gaining momentum.

"The Compact has become more than a call to action," said Annan. "Today, it involves not only businesses but also labor federations and non-governmental organizations. It has promoted the importance of universal values and encouraged investors to look harder at opportunities in the least developed countries, particularly in Africa."

Annan's advocacy of the Compact and corporate responsibility resonated with the MIT Sloan community. Several MIT Sloan professors — most prominently, Professor Richard Locke — are integral players in the Compact and have conducted groundbreaking research on values-based management.

Fiorina: Character counts
Adopting values-based management is vital not only if corporations are to serve the global community but also if they are to solve the crisis in public confidence triggered by recent corporate ethics breeches, said HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina.

Addressing the gathering Saturday morning, she delivered a passionate speech on how corporations must take on the challenge.

"If we are truly embarking on a new age of reform ... leadership is not going to come from government or oversight organizations," Fiorina said. "True leadership must come from corporate America itself."

She said companies must recognize that their character is as important as their capabilities. She said that open doors, open debates, and open access are necessary from the boardroom to the shop floor.

HP pioneered the notion of a values statement, Fiorina said, when it crafted a statement in 1957 that aimed not to create values but to reflect the values and corporate culture that had evolved since the company's inception.

The company continues to uphold those values, she said, with a policy of openness, respect, integrity, contribution, teamwork, and collaboration. Before its merger with Compaq, she added, HP conducted an extensive "cultural due diligence" to integrate the companies' values.

Fiorina said values-based management has helped sustain HP, and she urged executives to embrace new corporate governance regulations as a return to fundamental values.

"The important thing is to understand that good corporate governance is not something that is being done to us," she said. "It is not something being foisted on us. The values we are being asked to live by today are the same values we used to build the strongest economy on earth. The values we are being asked to live by today are the same fundamental values we know we must act upon every day to build effective teams and companies: open doors and open access and open dialogue in the boardroom and on the shop floor; equity; consistency; alignment."

Celebration of innovation, leadership
The event culminated a yearlong celebration of MIT Sloan's 50-year history of innovation and leadership in management theory and practice.

Though its roots date back to 1914, with the creation of Course 15, MIT Sloan was officially opened in 1952. It was funded and inspired by MIT alumnus Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., who saw the opportunity to apply MIT's rigorous approach to research to the problems of industry.

As Alfred P. Sloan had hoped, MIT Sloan faculty and alumni over the past 50 years have had a central role in shaping global business practices. In many ways, said Dean Schmalensee in welcoming attendees, the celebration marked the fulfillment of Mr. Sloan's vision.

"When MIT established the Sloan School in 1952," he said, "it charged Sloan with an ambitious mission: To change the way management is done. Looking back over these past 50 years, we've done a very good job of living up to that ambition."