Farewell Commencement Address
Berkeley-Columbia MBA Program
Feb. 11, 2007
by Seth B. Rosen
I. Thanks
II. Eliminating Gender Bias for Professional Women in the U.S.
III. The “Anchoring bias” and “Man smart, woman smarter”
Opening
I’d like to begin by congratulating my fellow classmates on this wonderful day. You know, this auditorium has a special meaning for me. This coming August, it will be 20 years since I went to my first class at Cal as an undergraduate in this very auditorium. Later that same year, it was in this very room where the great guitarist Carlos Santana played free of charge on Cinco de Mayo. So it is a real honor for me now to be on this stage today and bid a fond farewell.
I. Thanks
But first things first. And first, I’d like to begin with some thanks.
We have an amazing class with a deep bench of capable leaders. This program was 19 months and I can say without a doubt that, even for the most experienced students among us, the first three semesters in particular were very, very difficult to manage. The folks in this program were, for the most part, balancing a full-time job, a family and school. Everywhere you look, someone was moving houses, getting married and having babies. Some huge percentage, including me, changed jobs during the program.
And through this, several distinguished people went “above and beyond”. Their contributions to the program were nothing short of amazing. I’d like to go through some of this now.
We had 4 elected class representatives: Nick Triantos, Prashant Padmanabhan, Doug Gordan and Steve Hartman. These guys were in the line of fire for any frustrated classmate who had a beef. Prashant and Steve did a great job getting us on base, and Doug and Nick brought us home.
Now, in addition to these four individuals, I am not sure if everyone is fully aware of the large numbers of unofficial leaders who stepped up to the plate, shouldered extra responsibilities, and hit it out of the park in terms of the impact their contributions made.
One great example is our Speaker Series. Christine Leung, Yanush Cherkis, and Virginia Rath spearheaded this effort and brought in several amazing speakers. They got critical help with panels, speakers and visits from Chris Howard, John Reichsteiner, Keith Brisack, and Brad Cameron. The unofficial award for bringing in the Best Speaker goes to Rose Duignan who arranged for her former boss, George Lucas. (It was a particularly special event for me because I am such a huge Star Wars fan.)
Virginia, Yanush and JoAnne Fitzwater all helped get gifts for different folks who were getting married or having babies or being promoted. And on our trips to New York to attend classes at Columbia, Virginia, Suzy Lahey, and Swati Gokhale were critical to organizing dinners with professors and among groups of students. On the topic of nice dinners, we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to John Tallichet who has hit some key homeruns, including a great dinner last night. Also, Christine organized a fun student dinner in Napa, and thanks to Rose for some great Dinner Source catered events.
A few weeks ago, when the program ended in December, we had a fantastic party and it really reflected a tremendous amount of work by a large group of people. Many of the same names of these generous leaders keep coming up: JoAnne, Yanush, Christine, Virginia, Doug, Nick, Steve, Swati, Suzy, and John, plus Braden Robison and Gayleen Dent.
Please join me in thanking each and every one of these great leaders as well as others I may have inadvertently left off the list. (applause)
Our class also benefited from a great group of dedicated Haas and Columbia staff who worked well with us to continue to improve this program. Specifically, I wanted to thank Ethan Hanabury, Troy Eggers, Kimberly Scarborough, and Nicole Margolit from the staff at Columbia and Yen Tran, Jennifer Brandon, Paul Lee, and – last but by no means least – the program’s capable and unflappable Executive Director, Robert Gleeson. (applause)
Many (but not all) of us benefited from our employers helping with time off, reduced expectations, and a few even got their bills paid. I know I owe a huge thanks to Lawrence Berkeley Lab and to my managers Viviana and Cheryl who supported me throughout this program. So, to our employers and our managers, we say thank you as well.
But most of all, our class benefited from our families. Without your sacrifices, we could not have made it through this program. I know that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my mom and to my wife Molly and my two children Caleb and Ellie who essentially sacrificed their husband and father at the altar of academia every morning and night for 19 months.
On behalf of all my fellow classmates, I want to thank you, our friends and family, who have sacrificed so that we could be here today. (applause)
II. Eliminating Gender Bias for Professional Women in the U.S.
Now when I was considering what topic was worthy of talking about today, I went through a long list. Its become a joke amongst my classmates that I am somehow “the women’s rights guy” but it is an issue that I feel is one of the most important issues facing our country today.
I got this reputation because I would ask visiting CEOs how they thought we could better incorporate professional women into the upper echelons of business,
without forcing a woman to choose between being a good mother and being a successful professional.
I saw this news piece recently:
“The flood of women into the job market fueled economic growth for decades. The recent dip in women’s participation has started to limit the country’s potential for further growth, according to a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisors. The Council says [not me!] that when droves of women leave the workforce, it bleeds American businesses of some of their most highly educated workers, since women now account for 56% of the students enrolled in colleges and graduate schools.” (from The Week, Jan. 24, 2007)
Now, this is a really important point. Women’s rights have increased dramatically, and their participation in our economy has increased, but our business norms and practices have not kept up. Instead, we have a business world that effectively treats child birth almost like a disease, and it essentially ignores the demands of child rearing altogether.
When I worked at Siebel Systems, the only reason I was entitled to my 1 week of paternity leave was because I negotiated it into my offer when I was hired. I was afforded essentially no accommodation for helping to raise my family. And that is why I left.
Typical stock option vesting practices are another good example. For a couple where both work at the same company and both receive the same stock options, if that couple together decides to have a child, the women’s stock options will stop vesting during her maternity leave but the man’s options will not. As if the women “elected” to have the baby and the man did not?
These disparities are easy to explain. They arise because our economic system, our business culture and norms, were all developed by men at a time when women were completely locked out of the system.
Today’s reality is that many women are being forced to choose between being a good mother and being a successful professional, and many of these are choosing to be good mothers.
The challenge for us is not to convince them otherwise. Rather, our challenge is to change the rules of the game so that this untenable choice need never be made.
Why do I care so much about this issue? One key reason is because I am patriotic and because I believe that our nation’s greatest days lie before us.
I believe that the long-term success of our great nation depends less on the power of our military to project force, and more on the power of our collective intellects to be free to innovate. Over the long-term, I believe that the United States will prevail over other nations who stifle the economic opportunities of women or who openly repress their freedom, whether in the name of religion or tradition.
If businesses in the United States can find a way to treat child birth and child rearing as a natural piece of our economic system, rather than some inconvenient event that must be suffered through, then I believe that this will have a dramatic and positive effect on our nation’s productivity, our standard of living and our long-term competitiveness in the world.
While every family is and should always be free to make their individual choices as to what is right for them, for those families who have two capable parents both of whom wish to succeed as both parents and professionals, our society continues to suffer from a marked bias that places the interests of men above those of women.
It is so important to deal with this issue now. In addition to the global business competitiveness of the U.S., we have so many huge problems facing our society today. Global warming. Iraq. The Middle East. Healthcare. So many problems and I don’t know the right answers. But what I do know is that, the more of us, men and women, who work to innovate and to figure out the answers, the more likely it is that we will find them.
Here in the United States, we are well situated to take steps and make changes to ensure that the “genius of women” is capitalized upon every bit as much as the “genius of men.”
My friends, it is you here today who have both the opportunity, and the authority, to help our nation realize this dream. It is each of us who can work in our own companies, communities and families, who can work actively, incrementally, and methodically to change the rules of the game and to create a truly level playing field for both women and men.
For the sake of our nation and for our families, I ask you to join me in this effort to help rid our business world of gender bias and to find ways in your own personal and professional lives to take new steps and adopt new attitudes so that our daughters do not have to face the same untenable choice that our wives and mothers were forced to make.
III. The Anchoring Bias and “Man Smart, Woman Smarter”
Now, that’s a very serious and lofty mission which will take many steps and many years. So I thought we could start with an action that we could all take here together today.
Our dear Professor Jenny Chatman of Haas taught us quite a bit about the idea of unconscious bias and how bias is actually hardwired into our brain. Take the so-called “anchoring” bias. The anchoring bias is the peculiar fact that an individual tends to get locked into an initial position and then, once anchored there, fails to adjust his or her position even as new information is presented.
So, applying these teachings to what I was just talking about…if we believe that men and women should be equal and if we acknowledge that we have had thousands of years of men essentially being considered “smarter” than women, with more opportunities than women, then the “anchoring bias” teaches us that we naturally, subconsciously, are “anchored” to the idea that “men are smarter,” even if we consciously accept that men and women are intellectual equals. To unearth and defeat our bias, this research teaches us is that we must over-adjust.
Now, at this point, I would like to ask the women in my class to join me here on stage here if they are so inclined. It would be my honor and I hope at least a few will accept to join me in leading us all in a little bias-elimination session… …Berkeley style.
To overcome the anchor that “men are smarter,” its not good enough to proclaim that men and women are “equal.” To achieve equality, we must adopt a position, if only to unrest our own individual bias, that “women are smarter.”
That’s right, the “women are smarter.”
Now join me in saying it three times: “That’s right, the women are smarter” and then the fourth time we say “The women are smarter, that’s right.”
Join me and the wonderful graduating women of the Berkeley-Columbia MBA class, and put your hands together and join us in a highly unconventional exercise…
{start rhythm clapping}
Now everyone keep going with the clapping and join in when I get to the chorus…
***
“Let us put men and women together, and see which one is smarter,
Some say men but I say no, women run the men like a puppet show,
[bridge]
It ain’t me, it’s the people who say, men are leading the women astray
And I say, it’s the women today, smarter than the men in every way
[chorus]
That’s right the women are smarter,
That’s right the women are smarter,
That’s right the women are smarter,
The women are smarter, that’s right.
Ever since the world began, women been imitating the ways of men
But listen cause I’ve got a plan, give it up, just don’t try to understand.
[back to bridge & chorus]
****
Now I do not mean to say that men are inferior to women; the point is that
we need to all be treated fairly while taking into account our biological differences,
so that we can all truly benefit from having “all the brains in the game.”
Thanks very much. Congratulations to all my classmates and best of luck!
to actually having revenue responsibility. And I actually used some specific learnings from both Abrahamson and Jenny Chatman to make all this happen - I have to admit, the Congruence Model actually made it to the whiteboard today. Anyway, enough about me - look forward to seeing all of you in Feb!