Harvard's New President

Hey guys, it's Tom Guarriello. Good morning. Yesterday, Harvard University kind of leaked an announcement that they were about to name their new president. Now, you know, most people don't care about what's going on at Harvard University. You know, it's Harvard. It's like you know, this elite place, you know, in Cambridge, Mass. And it's all these, you know, but I think that things that happen at Harvard are interesting. They're interesting to me anyway. I have no connection with Harvard, no affiliation with Harvard, never went to Harvard. Worked at Harvard for a while as a consultant, actually for quite a long while as a consultant during the '90s and the early 2000s. And, um, excuse me. And, you know, 2 years ago, Larry Summers became president of Harvard. Larry Summers used to be on the staff, the cabinet of— gee, I think it was George Bush 41, right? You know, I don't even know. But, you know, Larry Summers was a sort of a big shot in the political world and then came over to Harvard to become president of Harvard, and his presidency was a debacle. It was a debacle because it seems like from all the reports that, you know, you get in the media that Larry Summers was interpersonally tone-deaf. Now, what does that mean, interpersonally tone-deaf? Well, it means he was a schnook. By the way, just as a— there's another way of talking about interpersonally tone deaf. Hang on a minute, I'm going to go get this new book that I just got. Here's a book by a guy who's a professor at Stanford Business School. And hang on a second, wait a minute, I've got to see this. And his name is Bob Sutton. Bob Sutton just came out with his new book. Can you read the title? I'm sure you can. It's The No Asshole Rule, and the subtitle is Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. And can you see the delete key there on the COVID That's a great cover right there. Anyway, Bob Sutton— this article is based on a Harvard Business Review article. Ironic, ironic. Based on a Harvard Business Review article that he wrote, and he's got a great blog, and I'll put links over here for you guys if you care about that. Anyway, it seems like Larry Summers violated the rules. Seems like Larry Summers had some interpersonal difficulties. He was a little imperious according to reports. He didn't seem to play well with others. He was— and then he made made some extremely, let's call them provocative comments about women and women's genetic capability for being scientists. Now that's probably an unfair characterization of his remarks. I wrote several blogs about this when this first happened because it was a pretty big kind of a cause célèbre, you know, among New York Times reading kind of people, you know, people who care about like what's happening in the, in the discourse, you know, in, in places like Harvard and that radiate out from places like Harvard. Anyway, Harvard yesterday announces that their new president will be— here's the headline— Harvard— wait a minute, I can't see it again, I minimized the thing, hang on. Here we go. There it is. After 371 years, Harvard plans to name first female president. 371 years. And her name is Drew Gilpin Faust. And, um, again, I wrote a brief blog about this yesterday because this is an interesting thing to me. Here's what's most interesting in the article and in the pieces that have come out since yesterday. The thing that people talk about is that Dr. Faust is someone who is able to get along well with other people. Now, a lot of people are going to think that that's a kind of a, I don't know, mushy-headed way to think about selecting the president of Harvard. Shouldn't the president of Harvard— you know, you know what I mean. This is kind of a Bambi, let me actually say it, touchy-feely way of going about selecting someone for a leader just because she gets along well with other people? Well, fact of the matter is that getting along with other people and by virtue of getting along with other people influencing what other people think and convincing other people to come over to alternative ways of thinking— remember the argument, the videos that I made and that others made about argument, "Does argument ever change your mind?" a few months ago. Here's a person who seems to have that skill of being able to influence other people without being argumentative by being an engaging leader. Now, concurrently with this announcement, there's also a, um, uh, excuse me, a miniseries being run on the Public Broadcasting System here in America about the Supreme Court. And this miniseries, um, uh, traces the history of the Supreme Court by virtue of relationships between justices, in particular Chief Justices, and others. So it's kind of a contrast between the people who are able to really influence other people and who may not as be as bright from a legal scholarship standpoint and contrasting those with people who are extraordinary legal scholars but who are unable to influence others and in fact actually alienate other people. I would really suggest if you have an interest in the— not just the history of the Supreme Court, because the— I've only seen the first 2 hours of this 4-hour miniseries, but I also have the book that the miniseries is based upon, and it's very interesting because you know, in addition to kind of showing the incredible development of the Supreme Court as the third part of the American governmental system, third part in addition to the executive and the legislative branches, the judiciary in the— particularly embodied in the Supreme Court, great history of that development, but also a terrific history of the way leaders in the Supreme Court have been able to be those people who are most tremendously influencing. And one of the people who's put out as a, a strong contrast to this sort of influencing approach is current Justice Antonin Scalia, who is widely, I guess, recognized as the preeminent legal scholar on the court, but also the one person on the court who seems to be unable to establish relationships not based on adversarial and, you know, some might— sometimes downright nasty kinds of ways of dealing with one another. So I think that the, the selection of Dr. Faust as the new president of Harvard, this acknowledgement of a more, let's call it, engaging style of leadership, is relevant to the political issues that we are looking at here in the United States. Finding a candidate who seems like she or he will be able to engage others instead of the kind of just downright— there's no other way I can think of to put it— but downright nasty way of approaching collaborative leadership that the current administration has embodied since its first day in office is a terrific— to me, a terrific contrast. And I'm— I wonder what it's going to mean for the candidates as we move into the '08 political season. So thanks for watching, as always. And I'll put links up there for you guys who care about pursuing these ideas further. So take care, have a good weekend, and see you all soon. Bye-bye.