[Short Draft] The BYU Management Society: Growing Moral and Ethical Leadership Around the World
Posted on October 18, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized
Tags: Annual Leadership Conference, BYU, BYU management Society, ethical, leadership, Marriott School, moral, National Advisory Council, world
President Gordon B. Hinckley has stated that the greatest challenge that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faces now is training of leadership. The BYU Management Society is taking on that challenge head on with its vision of “growing moral and ethical leaders around the world.” The Management Society held its Annual Leadership Conference in Provo, Utah on October 4-5, 2007 to train leaders worldwide on that vision. 82 BYU Management Society leaders from 12 countries participated in the Conference.
Sitting in the Emerald Lodge at Aspen Grove, just above the Sundance Resort, with a view of the Wasatch mountainside bursting with colors from the fall foliage, Management Society members attended a Thursday luncheon. At the luncheon, attendees heard a keynote address by Alan J. Folkman, Chair of the Marriott School National Advisory Council and former CIO of Columbia Management Company. Brother Folkman spoke of the importance of “Vision” in becoming a good leader. He once witnessed a trainer put an eagle on a perch in a banquet room, walk to the other end of the room and call for the eagle. The eagle took flight and flew directly to the trainer, barely over the heads of the people, illustrating perfect vision. It is the eagle’s vision, which is eight times as powerful as a human’s, that makes the eagle a master hunter.
As a fighter pilot in World War II, Chuck Yeager became a member of an elite group of pilots who achieved an “ace-in-a-day” (shooting down 5 planes in one day), received the Congressional Medal of Honor and later was the first person to break the sound barrier. At the 60th Anniversary of the Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base, at age 84, General Chuck Yeager got into an F-14 jet and again broke the sound barrier. He attributed his success as a fighter pilot to his God-given talent of vision.
Emphasizing the importance of having a big vision, Brother Folkman quoted President Spencer W. Kimball as saying, “[t]he poorest man is not the one who doesn’t have a cent, but the one who doesn’t have a dream.” President Kimball also said, “[m]ake no small plans for in them there is no magic to stir the hearts of man.” He suggested 5 ways leaders of the BYU Management Society can enhance their vision, as follows:
1. Become a better listener.
2. Increase your power of observation.
3. Associate with and learn from people who have vision and have had successes.
4. Read good books, magazines, and keep up with current affairs—local and national; and
5. Be a student of history.
The dinner program on Thursday evening included a presentation of the new DVD on the namesake of the Marriott School’s newest building, N. Eldon Tanner, known as “Mr. Integrity.” The keynote speaker was Bob Gay, National Advisory Council member, former Managing Director of Bain Capital, former Mission President of the Ghana, Accra Mission and Co-founder of Unitus a micro-finance lender, who spoke on “Growing Moral and Ethical Leadership.” Brother Gay shared experiences from his own business career, including an incident where a contract was written in such a way that it gave his company the legal right to an additional $25 million above that which had been negotiated. When it was discovered that the drafters of the written agreement had sought to gain an advantage for his company not specifically negotiated and not in accordance with the intent of the parties, he instructed a refund of the $25 million. He referred to the moral crisis observed by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his famous Harvard Convocation Address, where he said that “[w]e have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.”
Workshops at the Conference included discussions on how to focus chapter events on the vision of the Society and how to coordinate events with related groups such as the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, BYU Alumni Association and Cougar Club. Discussions in other sessions addressed the benefits Society members can receive from working closely with LDS Employment, developing well organized boards, expanding and improving member networks, attracting quality speakers, realizing the added value of the BYU Management Society website, marketing to new members and using “Industry Specific Councils.”
Two new developments in which the Society is involved are the new LDS “LinkedIn Group” and a BYU developed state-of-the-art online job matching program. The “LinkedIn Group” is found at http://lds.org/emp/network, where individuals already on the popular LinkedIn network can add their network to the LDS Connected Network. The job matching program allows applicants to fill out an extensive questionnaire which employers use to match with job requirements for open positions within their company. Although the assessment takes one hour to complete, the program has been filling an average of more than 200 jobs per week since its inception. The job matching service is not limited to BYU alumni and is located at http://alumni.byu.edu/placement/.
On Friday, a joint luncheon between the BYU Alumni Association and the BYU Management Society was held at the Assembly Hall in the beautiful new Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni & Visitors Center. The luncheon included an International Employment Panel Discussion on job opportunities in the international sector. In discussing international news, a report was given on the first-ever Regional Conference of the BYU Management Society in Buenos Aires, Argentina on June 2, 2007. Five members from each of the three chapters in the region, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, met with leadership from the International Steering Committee to exchange ideas, network, discuss career development and make plans for better communication between the three chapters. This Regional Conference was so well-received that Management Society leaders announced plans for an Asia Regional Conference next spring.
In the closing session of the Conference, it was observed that there are three dramatic forces in the world today that create a compelling demand for the vision of the BYU Management Society. First, there is an undisputed worldwide ethical crisis in business. Second, business leaders put a premium on those who have the tools to operate in a global economy. Third, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and BYU alumni have a built-in international network of people with high ethical standards. The Church of Jesus Christ is growing at a phenomenal rate worldwide and has more members who live outside the United States than in it and more members who speak a language other than English. Nearly 80 percent of Marriott School students are bilingual, more than 20 percent speak a third language, and most have lived abroad for at least one year. Therefore, more than any other business organization in the world, the BYU Management Society is uniquely qualified to assist in “growing moral and ethical leadership around the world.”
There was a general excitement as the conference closed and participants considered what they had learned and how to apply the training back in their local chapters. The Conference will reconvene on the Thursday and Friday before LDS General Conference in October 2008. (For information regarding the BYU Management Society or joining a chapter near you, go to the BYU Management Society website at https://marriottschool.byu.edu/mgtsoc/.)
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Nice job Bill. I really like the first couple of paragraphs — very catchy! Thanks for making the effort to do this.