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Heard and Overheard
Highlights of remarks on campus at the McCombs
School from the 2003-2004 academic year
In the Classroom
Professor John Doggett on unwavering
cost structure:
“They can’t do
anything to change their cost
structure? This is the McCombs School
of Bidness! Not the LBJ School of You
Can’t Do Nothing About It.”
Scott Zentack MBA ’05 on the Charles
Schwab case:
“What we need to ask
right now is, ‘What would Dell do?’”
Professor Sanford Leeds on the
changing school:
“When I went to
school here, we had half the stuff
going on that you guys do. For
example, we didn’t have to spend time
preparing for interviews, because
nobody came here to talk to us. When
you guys see someone in a suit and
tie, you ask, ‘Hey, who are you
interviewing with?’ We would ask,
‘Who died?’”
Professor Michael Granof on an
accounting concept:
“Does that make
any sense?”
Byron Racki MBA ’05:
“It doesn’t make
a whole lot of common sense, but it
does make accounting sense.”
Assistant Dean Christopher Meakin on
his upcoming midterm:
“Do not think
of it as a test, rather as a
celebration of knowledge.”
Visiting Speakers
Wall Street Journal editor Ron Alsop on corporate reputation: “In good times, a good reputation is like a tailwind and in bad times it can be a life preserver.”
Austin Ice Bats President Jeff Buch on getting ahead: “For every person that gets an internship, there are 50 that would do it. Once you’re in, it’s very easy to get ahead of the other people. Go to work early and leave one minute late and you’re doing better than 90 percent of the people.”
Austin Wranglers Director of Marketing and Sponsorships Kent Koen on the sports business: “You have to understand your corporate partners’ business. If Pennzoil is our sponsor, our job is to get our fans to ask for Pennzoil the next time they get oil, so we need to understand the oil and gas industry. You’ve always heard to be a ‘student of the sport.’ Now you have to be a ‘student of the industry.’”
Nokia GM of Entertainment and Media in North and South America Nada Usina on expanding the cell phone market: “I wish we were totally at saturation. In some of the more underdeveloped markets, in Latin America, for example, the penetration rate among youth in this market is still somewhere, depending on what study you believe, between 50 and 60 percent. Whereas if you walk around in Scandinavia, you see eight-year-olds with a mobile phone. There’s a lot of opportunity for growth here, just within the handsets themselves.”
Oreck Vacuums Founder and CEO David Oreck on marketing: “If we want to compete [in the global economy], if we want to have jobs, we’d better wake up to just how crucial marketing is.”
Dell CFO Jim Schneider on accounting ethics: “If I put out a target, there’s incredible pressure to fudge the numbers and make up for it next quarter. None of this stuff is ever worth it. As you go through your business career always keep that in mind.”
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General Motors CIO Ralph Szygenda on the future of information technology: “I believe we are at the end of the IT recession. Get ready, the IT job market is coming back up.”
Deloitte CEO Jim Quigley on ethics: “We’ve worked hard to create a culture that’s based on ethics and integrity. We have resigned from more clients than we’ve obtained. We have fewer public clients today than we had a year ago because we’re not willing to associate with some of these companies that don’t meet our standards.”
Attorney Robert S. Bennett on communication problems in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley: “I already see in working with boards almost the adversarial relationship between management and boards.”
Michael Dell on the role of corporate
boards: "[W]e encourage very active
communication among our board members
and our management team. So there is
no filter. It’s not like if you want
to talk to someone you’ve got to go
through the CEO. If you read the
charter of any company, the board is
actually responsible for managing the
company. That’s the way it works.
Most people don’t realize that. The
management team is just put there on
behalf of the
board, but the board is really
responsible for running the company."
SBC Communications Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre on the telecom industry: “Companies like mine, SBC, are strapped with rules that were created for a telecom industry that looks nothing like today’s super-competitive world. I think we’re probably through the worst of all this. I’m fundamentally optimistic about the telecom industry, and SBC’s role in it. I think we’ve taken the right steps.”
7-Eleven President and CEO Jim Keyes on corporate social responsibility: “Social consciousness and shareholder value are not mutually exclusive. Tell yourself, ‘It’s okay to make money, but can I still do it and help society?’”
Author of “Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron” Robert Bryce on the scandals: “The Internet bubble, the go-go times, produced this weird strain of greed that we haven’t seen before.”
Dell President and CEO Kevin Rollins on improving the manufacturing process: “We ask our managers, ‘It only takes five hours to put together a computer. Why can’t we have it out in one day?’ And they say, ‘Well if I’m going to do that, I’ve got to change everything.’ Exactly. Change everything.”
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Coors Chief Strategy Officer Lynn
Utter on the beer industry:
“Typically, beer is an industry
that’s oblivious to the economy.
People drink beer whether times are
good or bad.”
In the Newspapers
McCombs Professor Michael Granof on
the priorities of universities:
Kansas City Star 1/14/04: “Why don’t
we opt to compete for Nobel Prize
scientists the way we do for football
coaches? There are a million reasons
not to do anything, but it is
incumbent upon us as faculty to say,
‘There have to be changes.’”
Granof on applying Sarbanes-Oxley to
collegiate athletics:
New York Times
04/05/04: “[U]niversity presidents
should have to certify that athletic
programs are in compliance with all
applicable rules. If university
presidents knew their jobs were on
the line, they might be expected to
institute the same types of reforms
that corporate executives did when
faced with the Sarbanes-Oxley law.”
Southwest Airlines Chairman and Founder Herb Kelleher on employee devotion, during an interview on the UT campus before a live audience: BusinessWeek 12/24/03: “A guy calls our Dallas reservation center from St. Louis, and he tells the reservation agent that TWA has canceled its flight out of DFW to St. Louis on which his 85-yearold mother was supposed to fly, and that he’s very concerned about her coming over to Love Field after having to make an intermediate connection in Tulsa. So the reservation agent says, ‘I’m going to be off in five minutes. I’ll pick her up at DFW, drive her to Love Field, and fly with her to St. Louis to make sure that she gets there okay.’ That’s the kind of devotion I’m talking about.”
Professor Prabhudev Konana on
American perceptions of India:
Economic Times of India 03/09/04:
“The negative image of India—a land
of filth, child labour and
snake charmers—is often blown out of
proportion. [This] is a fact finding
mission for many of the students, who
in the recent past are being fed a
daily dose of how India is snatching
the jobs of the Americans, and the
threat its low paid employees pose.”
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
