How has Columbia dealt with Enron and all the other ethical scandals?
When I was in Washington and all of this started to happen, none of the business schools were talking about it much. It would have been a great pulpit for the business schools to stand up and say, “This is not what business is about.” Now, we teach courses on the trade-offs between individuals, business, and society. Usually the boss doesn’t come in and say, “Will you lie, cheat, and steal for me?” It’s usually more subtle. We try to illustrate the slippery slope. We had Chuck Prince [CEO of Citigroup] come in, and he and I held a 90-minute panel. He told how the scandals had taken a toll on Citigroup, the difficulty of changing a whole culture that had gone one way for a while. He was very frank and candid. I think it’s a lot better for the students to hear about this from professionals who have dealt with it than to have designated ethics classes. You have a 15-year-old son. What advice do you give him as he starts to think about what to study and what career to choose? I try not to
