As we head into the 2015 football season, and as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has upheld Tom Brady’s 4 game suspension for his role in Deflategate, I thought it might be interesting to go back and revisit January of this year. In late January news broke that the New England Patriots and Tom Brady had been improperly deflating game balls ostensibly to give themselves an unfair advantage. (Full disclosure-I am a raging Denver Broncos fan). But something equally mischievous was unfolding just down the street, something that would be curiously significant for football fans. The Harvard Business Review’s January issue was hitting the newsstands, and it’s cover story was not only shocking, but also revealing of the New England Patriots over all strategy:
“The Problem With Authenticity: When its OK to fake it till you make it,” by Herminia Ibarra was an incredible insight into America’s most reviled business school. Despite it’s continued top ranking, Harvard Business School has a dirty little secret: it produces ruthless elitists who know no shame when it comes to winning. That they would acknowledge this, even if overtly, is a display of arrogance that is nearly incomprehensible, until you realize that this is, after all, Harvard we are talking about.
In an article that advocates for leaders to embrace a sanitized and selected version of potential truths, we learn that Harvard Business School advocates the following:
-It’s okay not to be true to yourself
-‘Do as I say not as I do’ is acceptable leadership
-Values can be a hindrance
-Your work doesn’t need to stand on its own merits
Keep in mind that if this is the sanitized version of what they teach, as the article endorses, then the reality is that deceit it is a key component of their program. And when you take in to account that nearly every rotten apple in the financial crisis of 2007-2008 was a Harvard Business alum, you start to see that deceit is a hallmark of the Harvard MBA.
Which brings us back to the New England Patriots. Patriots owner Robert Kraft (Columbia, Harvard -6) is a graduate of Harvard Business School, and got his undergraduate degree at Ivy League rival Columbia. If you add this to the fact that the Patriots have been involved in at least two high-profile cheating scandals, the picture that emerges is one where dishonesty is both a top down management directive and an acceptable winning method.
And winning is something Ivy Leaguers do very, very well. It seems the only place the Ivy League loses is in collegiate athletics. For everything else, they are ruthlessly dominant. And they don’t just get mad they get even. And then some. Which is why I think Roger Goodell is toast. Roger Goodell did not attend an Ivy League School. Tom Brady’s lawyer attended Columbia Law. Jeff Pash, the NFL’s Executive Vice President and Counsel and #2 man attended Harvard. This is starting to look like a classic Ivy League squeeze play.
Jeff Pash, in his role as NFL Counsel, is definitely getting splattered with some of Roger Goodell’s mud. But a typical Ivy League quid pro quo would be for Kraft to force Goodell out and advocate for Pash’s promotion in exchange for Pash agreeing to turn a blind eye to the Patriots’ winning at all costs strategy. In any case, the Goodell era is over.
CHASING ARISTOCRACY 