Abstract
I was delighted to find, in my pigeonhole, wedged between bits of cardboard, a copy of Michel Anteby’s most recent dispatch. I knew it’d been in the making and had looked forward to his first-hand account of what being on Harvard’s faculty is really like. What offends? What is prized? What matters? What doesn’t? How good are the students really, and how rewarding to teach? How collegial a place is it? Does one really have to wear a suit to the office?
Of course, to capitalize on the self in scholarship is much less controversial today than five or so decades ago. It was roundabout then that George Devereux documented the methodological consequences of his anxieties for his data collection and analysis, and that Valetta Malinowski decided to publish her husband’s field diaries. Bronislaw was unavailable for consultation (he was dead by that time), and her decision led many in the anthropological community to accuse her (and him) of having let down the discipline.
While Anteby insists that his book is not intended as an auto-ethnography, Manufacturing Morals does exhibit several ‘me-search’ features: the author problematizes that which is problematic in his own working life, he writes from a first-person point of view, and much of his material is drawn from his observations on, and personal experiences of, life as a junior faculty member at Harvard Business School. He opens up about the anxieties that come with the job, yet is careful never to be caught with his trousers down. He is a methodical researcher, a thoughtful scholar, and careful writer – traits that are reflected in this latest communiqué.
Anteby’s book does as it says: it examines the values of silence in a particular business school setting. It picks up a thread left loose by the sociologist Robin Leidner, namely whether morals (defined as what is deemed acceptable in a given community) might be transferred by means of routines, yet left the answer burning. It’s a good question: to what extent can morals be worked into routines and signs such that they, rather than written rules, ensure normative control by shaping the way faculty perceive, think, feel and, ultimately, act, but without having to say anything at all? The silence Anteby has in mind, of course, is of a particular kind. He refers to it as a ‘vocal silence’, or a silence rich in cues that provide collective guidance on all relevant matters moral. Vocal silence, like silence, allows for ambiguity but ring-fences it. It does so by means of signs, some subtle, others less so, that provide pretty good indicators to those new to the fold as to what is acceptable and what isn’t, how one is expected to dress, teach, and talk, and to conduct oneself as a card-carrying member of one of the most valuable B-school brands. Anteby refers to these signs as ‘collective aspirations’, a benign label perhaps for what others might see as covert, even sinister, attempts at control. But because they leave some scope for individual expression, however restricted, vocal silence generates a tension – between institutional and individual preferences – and it is the management of this tension that Anteby is after.
Given the prominence of signs in this ethnography, they deserve to be richly described, and it is here that Anteby really delivers the goods. His chapters offer meticulous and nicely crafted descriptions of the school and its immediate surroundings. He tells of small disturbances on the lawn – never there for long, courtesy of estate management – that are noticeable precisely because they deviate from the clinical perfection that one gets accustomed to, and how this sets expectations for one’s own conduct within the school.
Most faculty and staff members quickly come to expect neatness, not only outdoors but in their offices. Visual disturbances, such as dirty windows or worn carpets, rarely appear, and when they do faculty assistants promptly contact a custodian or a supervisor to resolve the issue. Missteps tend not to be repeated. (p. 28)
He writes about the socialization of junior faculty, about the extraordinary support in place to make sure faculty suffer no fools, nor distractions, about the mid-tenure review process, about teaching preps and academic purity, and about how quickly those who fail to make tenure are dispatched and the premises they once occupied disinfected as if failure were contagious. His recounting of how, upon his arrival, he took a call from a tailor with a long tradition of preparing Harvard faculty for the classroom, is a gem: The clothier offered to help me find a limited number of color and fabric matches to ‘facilitate’ my life … After some trial and error, faculty members often end up wearing similar clothes, thus ensuring a certain visual uniformity in the class delivery (for men, a light shirt, a gray or blue jacket, and a bright tie are typical). (pp. 56–7)
Such descriptions easily make his point: the highly manicured order and aesthetic that is HBS shape the expectations of those inhabiting it. (This is true of students as well as faculty, as Delves Broughton’s autobiographical What They Teach You at Harvard Business School makes abundantly clear.) What he omits, except for the briefest of reflections on his own recruitment, are details of the selection process involved in hiring new faculty. Presumably, given what we now know about Harvard, cultural fit is highly desirable, and it may well be that those recruited into the fold are considered predisposed to picking up on the sorts of silent cues the school offers an abundance of.
A chapter-long discussion on academic purity, as defined by Harvard Business School, is insightful. The school places a significant premium on producing research that is of relevance, so much so that tenure may be refused if one’s scholarship fails to impact on the practice of management. That being the case, there is surprisingly little guidance provided on what counts as relevant. When Anteby inquired from a senior colleague what relevance really means, he was told that ‘if relevance were to be defined, it would lose its plasticity. Not defining it is what makes relevance relevant’. It is a good example of Anteby’s evolving thesis, namely that vocal silence, in preserving at least some individual freedoms in the way explicit rules might not, may be the only means by which to preserve morals.
In the same way that enduring organizations might nurture dissonance rather than squash it, organizations with strong normative goals might promote vocal silence (and opportunities for contained dissent) rather than openly expressing normative views (and opportunities for repeated proselytizing). Vocal silence might provide the flexibility that past scholars have called for to produce moral conduct. (p. 126)
Singled out for special treatment is the school’s signature case teaching method. Junior faculty are given teaching plans to accompany the case studies, with the suggestion that while they don’t have to follow the plans, ‘the norm is to try and adhere (at least once) to the plan’. They are also extraordinarily detailed and prescriptive, as a fragment makes clear: ‘Show the video from 1 minute 00 seconds to 4 minutes 06 seconds,’ one plan instructed. ‘When the protagonist’s nickname is heard, pause and ask the class, “Does he deserve that name?”’ The plans specify to the minute the series of questions and probes that work best in a given situation. ‘Pull down the center front board to discuss the action plan,’ advised another plan. ‘Hide calculations on the right with the top right-board.’ (p. 54)
As Anteby explains, the school provides plenty of guidance on how to teach but very little on what to teach, with particular reference to what moral stance to promote or discourage. ‘Preaching – of specific conclusions or any moral viewpoint – is seen as an ineffective mode of instruction’ (p. 69). When he did run foul of HBS’s (apparent) moral ambivalence, the lesson was a painful one. As he wrote in an essay for the Stanford Social Innovation Review: I learned this firsthand as a rookie professor in one of the oldest business schools in the country, the Harvard Business School; on one occasion, I did not remain silent. When teaching a case that centered on a production line in a manufacturing plant, I once asked my students what the line manager’s worst fear might be. ‘A union,’ one student retorted. By that, he meant a strike led by the union that would stop the line. I had not yet learned that the school expected silence of me in such circumstances. Instead, I stepped in and reminded my students of the pros of unions, making my bias fairly evident. The discussion proved harder to restart. That day, I also learned a lesson: For a school faculty member, stating one’s normative position was apparently unhelpful. Ethics come in many flavors, and the more the better.
This relativistic approach is not without risk, as Anteby goes on to acknowledge: An educational model built on a silent approach to morality – allowing ‘all flavors’ to coexist – seems to uphold the notions of freedom dear to so many of us, but also ends up de-politicizing the issues of greatest importance to the greatest number. When there is copious evidence that some corporate behaviors are egregiously immoral and millions of people are now facing radically reduced living conditions because of the actions of a select few, silence can no longer be the answer. Silence becomes an excuse not to notice and not to act.
It is at this point that I ran into a couple of snags. Vocal silence implies the absence of explicit rules on conduct yet an environment rich in cues – things like signs, rituals, routines, presentation – that contain a wealth of information on expected behavior, thus allowing HBS to exercise normative control over its faculty, staff, and students. And yet the silence Anteby has in mind above seems to be absolute, insofar as there are no cues whatsoever to help navigate difficult ethical terrain. Either that, or every available cue points at an ‘everything goes’ relativism, demanding literal silence on the part of faculty. (After all, moral relativism can be as intolerant a position as moral absolutism.) The end result, it seems, is the same either way. The professor has been systematically cleansed from his duty to profess, and one is left wondering whether abstinence might not promote moral impotence.
In some ways this observation also leads me to my main concern with this book, namely the absence of a more reflective, critical voice. The school gets let off lightly, even as it has often been the subject of fierce criticism in the past. It has been widely criticized in the media for not producing more conscientious graduates, given that its graduates were never far removed from some of the biggest corporate scandals over the past two decades. It has been similarly criticized for developing poor leaders, and for promoting a teaching method that leaves graduates ill-prepared to meet the human challenges of running a business.
It is perhaps not surprising, given its distinct identity, that the socialization processes at HBS are powerful, even if occasionally subtle. After all, they are there to ensure compliance with the HBS way of doing things, and so to rein in their flock. Yet one might reasonably expect such processes to give cause for reflection, and even criticism. Anteby’s description of routinization through vocal silence is vivid and rich, and is beautifully crafted. But it is also void of any significant criticism. And herein lies perhaps an irony, namely that the author is silent on precisely those features that the institution’s vocal silence is there to perfect and replicate.
Why so? Anteby is admiringly candid in explaining the process of compiling his research. He talks of his efforts to deliberately involve colleagues in the production of the book, of presenting its core ideas on several occasions during the writing process, of consulting senior colleagues at the school throughout the process, and discovering that some took exception to the idea of it. Is his relatively uncritical exposé then perhaps proof of how effective Harvard’s socialization processes really are, in promoting silence by means of, well, silence? Did he bow to administrative pressures to tone down any criticisms, particularly seeing that his strongest statement yet on the ethical implications of silence appeared in a Stanford magazine? Or could it be that he self-censored in order to protect his colleagues, or possibly himself? After all, we know he wrote the book while still untenured.
Despite these niggles, the book is nicely put together and makes for a worthwhile read. It easily succeeds in arguing that normative control at Harvard is most salient, and most powerful, precisely in what isn’t spoken or written about. And yet in some ways one cannot help but suspect this may be true of this book too.