Chicago商学院院长谈BW排名第一

ChiBus: First of all, Congratulations! We know how generous you are about sharing credit (for the ranking) with everyone here, but you and your team deserves most of the accolades for this ranking.

Dean Snyder: No, credit should be spread widely, including with people who have come before us. For example, this week I met an alumnus from the class of 2002 - my first class. It was a really tough year, but they were strong in the face of adversity. There was no whining and they just decided that they were going to support each other. Since then, each year we have been able to get greater support from the community - from the students, the young alumni, the Deans and Career Services. We've built on that ever since.

CB: We should've probably researched this, but was this the first time that the Chicago GSB has been ranked No 1 in any of the rankings?

DS: Yes. We have never been ranked number one in the Financial Times, U.S. News or BusinessWeek rankings before. When you go from number 3 to number 2 that is good, but when you go from number 2 to number 1, it's a whole new thing; much greater magnitude and much bigger impact.

CB: How do you, personally, feel about this ranking?

DS: I feel great. I think it is well deserved recognition. I think it's great in terms of the opportunity sets it opens up for our students and alumni. I think it is great for the world, because Chicago has more to say on management education and it now has a better opportunity to say it, and continue to make more constructive and positive contributions in this field.

CB: Do you see this ranking then as an accomplishment, or an acknowledgment?

DS: Well, we want to be the best business school on all dimensions and want to be recognized as such. I think this ranking is the most important piece of media recognition. While there is no one ranking today as important as BusinessWeek was back in 1990s, we have learned that rankings all together are more important now than they ever were before. So it gives all of us - you, me and alumni, a chance to be in the spotlight and talk about Chicago. It also the opportunity to have us connect with people, and push the Chicago approach to management education with an aim of getting people interested in Chicago and of expanding opportunities for all of you.

CB: What specific initiatives do you think led to the ranking? What changes at GSB made this happen?

DS: A week before the rankings came out the BusinessWeek editor asked me that same question. I have a hard time talking about it. I think it is a big community wide effort. We have the best talent and value system here. My job has been just trying to focus the school on few basic things like strengthening the understanding of Chicago values, dialing-up on academics, and focusing on important corporate relationships. But more specifically, I think there are four important factors that have helped us achieve this ranking. First, the HPC is huge plus for us. Everyone loves the facility and feels great about being here. The second factor is our team. Stacey is great. So are Julie and Rose and many other people, who aren't as visible. Third is this balance of stretch and support that have going at the school now. We are asking more of students but we are there to support them too.

That has built a culture where people understand that if you put more into your GSB experience then you take a lot out of it too. When I came here, the students needed to be supported and challenged. We have now got the process started. The students know that this school is behind them and that the faculty cares about them. Lastly, there has been more divergence amongst schools in last ten years and I think a few schools got off track. We have protected the quality of the school. It does not mean we're perfect but our bedrock issue of integrity and quality has always been protected.

CB: We aren't going to get you to name those schools that got off-track are we?

DS: Well, I'll say that the ones that pushed the 'student as customers' stuff; those are the ones that got off-track. That approach simply does not work.

CB: Does anything about the rankings concern you? In terms of expectations, fallout, etc. Do you see any downside to these rankings?

DS: There are two things that worry us, but we've preempted both. We don't want to get obsessive about the rankings and want to focus on the job at hand instead. For that our strategy is to always say, "This is a great recognition but let's talk about the school." We are not doing a lot of finger-wagging around here.

Also, we have to remain close to our core Chicago values and the type of students we admit. We expect to get a lot more interest from applicants this year. We will have to clearly communicate our values and tell them what the experience and expectations here are like.

CB: Now that we have it, what's the plan to capitalize on these rankings?

DS: As I said before, we will use this opportunity to talk about our people and our values. I won't tell you that this stuff (rankings) is not important. We are not focused on any one ranking but on the general pattern and we think repetition and reputation go together. So we will push for repeating the ranking. We will talk to the students and amongst ourselves to make sure we chalk out the most important issues and gaps and work on them- the Polsky Center, the IT infrastructure, the branding of this school, etc. We want to keep the momentum going. This is the time to push even harder! We still have a lot of upside.

CB: We are now rated 3rd on recruiter choice. We were voted the hands down favorite on recruiter rankings in 2004. What happened?

DS: Ah, I like that! Looking for the dents already. We plan to tackle the issue head on. We will talk to BusinessWeek and get feedback to understand what our development areas are and improve upon them. Analyzing the reasons for the ranking is something we've always done, and will do here as well once the dust settles down a bit.

CB: So we know that the Deans of the M7 business schools meet regularly. Will you have bragging rights at the next meeting?

DS: Well, we do talk about the rankings. I talked to Deepak Jain (Dean of the Kellogg School of Management). He and I are good friends. We have taken the view that having the two best business schools here in Chicago should be the headline. I will tell you though, without breaking any confidences, that I got the impression from my first M7 meeting back in 2001 that the group felt that I had the toughest job among the group. It does feel great to have Chicago GSB this position. I definitely won't brag about it, but it does give me a chance to express how I feel about the school.

CB: So, we have to know. Did you know about the No. 1 ranking before it was announced?

DS: No. But we had an inkling. We were number 2 for the last two surveys. We got great reviews about the building and then BusinessWeek comes along and takes a gazillion pictures. But I didn't know. At the time of the announcement, I was in Miami (attending a meeting of our Americas Cabinet of our Global Alumni Board) and I was actually in the fitness center of the Biltmore Hotel when I got the news the news.

It turns out BW sends out an email preview of what it will publish in the print and the online versions before the official edition releases. So Allan received that email 45 minutes before the rankings countdown and called to tell me about it.

CB: Everyone in this room right now agrees that the GSB is the best business school in the world. When do you think most of the world will agree with us?

DS: Probably never. Harvard and Stanford have such a huge brand name capital advantage over us. Our objective is to focus on a smaller set of people; people in the know, people who influence careers; people that will create opportunities for you. If you go back in time people put Chicago, Harvard, and Stanford at top 3. And lot of people just focused on Harvard and Chicago.

I think of it in a segmented way. What do Chief Marketing Officers think of us? And the CFOs, and the Private Equity people? We are already very well known amongst those people, but it is still uneven across functions and uneven across the globe and that's that we will work on.

CB: Thanks for your time. As always, it was a pleasure to talk to you.

[此贴子已经被作者于2006-10-29 11:24:40编辑过]