Harvard Business School - Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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TII BEGI WITH ln the Nineteen Forty-Qne Yearboolc we have tried to present a useful and pleasant cross-section ot the Harvard Business School . . , vvhere future captains ol industry spend their apprenticeship in the pursuit of a Firm business Foundation and in the development ol sound iudgment in order that they may better serve country and lellovvman in their chosen Field. 3 02891 ROI:-1

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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

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IIN THE INSIDE HE DIGNITARIES HE SECCDND YEAR MEN HE FIRST YEAR MEN HE DIVERSICDNS HE INFCDRMAI. HE FRATERNAI. HE DIRECTGRIES AND ADVERTISEMENTS