YOU MEAN HIS EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE INFLUENCED HIM?

How's USA's first MBA president doing? (Del Jones, 4/27/03, USA TODAY)

Will the first MBA president alter the world's course differently than seven generals, 27 lawyers, a peanut farmer and an actor before him?

It's too early to answer that question, but like the retired generals on TV, management pundits and CEOs are weighing in with reviews of President Bush's management of the war with Iraq.

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, usually quick with a joke, begins an interview about Bush by saying that he wants to be serious. What separates those who supported the war and those who opposed it may seem to be philosophical, Adams says. But it's more than that and comes down to the way they are trained to analyze data and make decisions.

Those who supported Bush, including many in the business community, are more likely to be trained in risk analysis and can weigh the cost of American lives in a war against, say, a 10% chance that Saddam Hussein would one day have used weapons of mass destruction.

Those more likely to oppose the MBA president, including many Hollywood figures and other artists, don't see why a single life was worth risking for something that had but a 1-in-10 chance of happening. "The artists would be right 90% of the time," says Adams, who adds that he is not a Bush supporter and disagrees with most of his positions. "But if you have a portfolio of decisions, Bush's way is right in the long run."

Yet, most of the world's population was against the war, which leads New York marketing executive and Inc. magazine columnist Adam Hanft to wonder whether the first MBA president will be remembered ironically for jeopardizing the nation's brand ? Brand USA.

Bush, who received his master's in business administration at Harvard in 1975, has decided there are more important things than the economy, something that would have been unexpected from the first MBA president, Hanft says.

It's all too rare to see someone analyze President Bush from the perspective of his business training. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2003 7:24 AM