dispatches from the new world of work

"Top Line," If You Please!

My snailmail offerings recently included an opportunity to donate to the Stanford B.School. (Admission, though reluctant: I've done so in the past.) Part of the inducement was a photo of four recent Deans. To be sure, one bagged a Nobel in Economics; however, he's offset by another who was chief of Enron's board audit committee.

But it was something else that struck me. The quartet represented: finance, economics, accounting, finance. What's missing in this picture?

Duh!
THE TOP LINE!

And so I was led to wonder:

Will my alma mater ever have a ... MARKETER ... as Dean?*
Will my alma mater ever have an ... ENTREPRENEUR ... as Dean?*
Will my alma mater ever have an ... INNOVATION GURU ... as Dean?*
Will my alma mater ever have a ... SALES SPECIALIST ... as Dean?*
Will my alma mater ever have an ... PEOPLE/HR PERSON .... As Dean?* **
(*Fat chance!) (**HR/People Person is not, strictly, "top line" ... though it's a helluva lot closer than accounting!)

Now this will surprise you, but I'd vote (this is a "voting" day ... see riff on Gerstner above) for bringing back a deposed prof, who was a student favorite: Jim Collins! Actually, I'm not so sure Jim is a "top line" guy ... but at least he's not from the finance-accounting-economics school-of-passionless-management. Hey, a guy who invented B.H.A.G.s—Big, Hairy Audacious Goals—can't be all bad!

Tom Peters posted this on 12/08/04.

Comments

Stanford rules - you, Michael Dell, et. al!!!

Posted by Freeman at December 8, 2004 10:07 AM

It is a Good Old Boys club. Same as NFL head coaches and Fortune 500 CEO's. They are all risk adverse and do not like shake up. From what I have seen they will take a known average person over an unknown above-average person due to that risk aversion.

Posted by Chris Woodruff at December 8, 2004 10:52 AM

I personally dont have grudge against Accounts /Finance people...but prop'in them up. Yes I do. Why ?? b'coz If these accounts /fiance peeps run companies their main objective is bottom line profits and the only way to archeive zero costs is to get the company closed down.. !!

..and no, this comment was prep'ed based on what I hear and see...

Posted by /pd at December 8, 2004 10:58 AM

HR People preferable to Finance-Accounting-economics ?

Aaah !

That feels good to hear when Tom Peters says that !

So good, that I bragged about it on my Blog too!

Posted by gautam at December 9, 2004 4:29 AM

Mercer and the Society for Human Resource Management just reported a survey showing the salaries for HR professionals are increasing significantly -- hmmm? I wrote about it here:

http://strategichr.typepad.com/

Posted by AW at December 9, 2004 10:10 PM