Harvard Business School - Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 10 text:

lm the Importance ut Being Tough-Minileil VVILLIAM JAMES, a great teacher of philosophy at Harvard during the early years of this century. made the useful distinction between people who are tough-minded and people who are tender-minded. These terms have nothing to do with levels of ethical conduct: the toughness referred to is toughness of the intellectual apparatus, hardihood of the spiritfnot toughness of the heart. The tough-minded have a zest for experience, they dare to grapple with the unfamiliar and wrest useful truth from stubborn new factsg theygdo not wall themselves in with comfortable illusions. For two years the Business School has tried to make you tough-minded. lYe have forced you to acquire knowledge by the hard route of the case method instead ofthe easy route of the text book and the lecture. Vile have expected you to dig things out for yourselves, because we wanted you to develop powerdbecause we wanted you to understand that education is a process of drawing out the students mind, not of pouring in the instructors ideas. If we have been at all successful in this undertaking, you are not under the illusion that the Business School provides you with any body of specific knowledge, any set of formulae, any ready-cut pattern of behavior that will enable you to go out into the world of business and be successful administrators: on the contrary, you are aware that the principal value of your professional training at the Business School lies in the power you have developed to analyze a situation, to work out a programlof action, and to carry that program into effect. All this means that the Business School has given you the initial impetus toward being tough-minded. But you have to keep it up after you leave the School: for the rigorous discipline of the School's training you have to substitute your own discipline. What are some of the characteristics of the tough-minded professional business administrator? There are three which I think are impor- tant for you. as graduates of the Harvard Business School, In the first place, if you are really tough-minded, you won't look for the easy job. Some jobs offer an easy transition from school to business, because they involve the making of analyses, the giving of advice, opinion, and criticism, without the responsibility of carrying out the action recommended. These jobs look attractive, but they frequently prove to be blind alleys because they do not build the necessary qualities of disciplined leadership. Don't start with this kind

Page 9 text:

IIEIIIIIATIIIN To JVlaIcoIm Perrin? IVIiuNair WE osoicmr inns Boar Admired and respected for his Fighting spirit, intellectual honesty, and good iudgment, he is an outstanding leader in the Field of retailing and a teacher whose genuine good heartedness and sincere willingness to help others win the attec- tion of all with whom he comes in contact.

Page 11 text:

of joh when you leave the School. Instead, look for an active jolt in the front line trenches ot Ivusiness, even though it may not lic strictly a white collar jolt. Xou can he an expert later. In the second place, if you are really tougli-minileil you won't lie looking for the easy answers. Business prohlcms 1lon't lensl themselves unfailingly to one-,simple right method ot' analysis which inevitahly arrives at the one and only correct answer. If knowledge of a few formulae and aliility to manipulate a slimlc rule were enough to produce the right answers in liusiness, then you may llc sure that the demand for really good lnusiness executives would not so greatly exceed the supply. Business can hire plenty of average-grade tr-clinicians who can figure the right answers to the prolwlenls that lend themselves ln exact routines and procedures, Business, hy and large, does not pay a very high price for that kind of ability. What business does pay a premium for, and what the business com- munity vitally needs, arc qualities of judgment and leadership. You can't develop those qualities if you are looking for the easy answers. To over-simplify the world they live in is a favorite device of the tender-minded. Finally, if you are really tough-minded, you won't always try to play it safe. You will cultivate qualities of initiative anrl venturesomeness. You will not he afraid to aet. even if you have to act on imperfect knowledge. for you will realize that all knowledge is imperfect and experimental rather than final. You will not be afraid to take chances. It is a mistake to think that the proper use ot' a Business School training is to enable you to avoid all risks. You can never hope to make a perfect hudget of income, expense, and protitz if you think you are doing so you are prohalsly playing too safe. The essence of profit in a changing world is risk and uncertainty. Your ohjective should he not the avoidance of risk, but the intelligent assumption of risk. Today. more than ever, it is more-not lessi risk-taking that American lsusiness vitally needs, Don't use your Business School training to seek a stodgy, conservative safety, ln-cause, parafloxically, when all husiness tries to play it safe there is no safety for any husiness. Profes- sional training for business administration is successful only if it produces a goodly numher of men with a genius for risk-taking and a capacity for leadership. You have heard much in recent years to the effect that the doors of opportunity are rapidly heing closed in this country. I want to say to you as earnestly as I can that if there are any doors of opportunity heing closed in this country, they are not doors of the environment, they are doors of the human spirit. If you are tough-minded you will use your Business School training to open those doors, not to close them. -Malcolm P. McNair