Richard Haass says that businesses have much to learn from government as they compete in an increasingly complex global landscape.
Andrew Erdmann, Roger C. Kline, and Lenny T. Mendonca
February 2008
Government, many executives are quick to assert, would benefit if it were run more like a business. But can business learn anything from the way government manages a wide variety of stakeholders in a globalizing world? A great deal, thinks Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Today, as global companies joust on the international playing field, Haass sees increasing similarities between the management challenges facing business and government.
Business now constantly finds itself addressing new social and political demands. Social activists and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are taking a place, alongside governments, as de facto regulators of business. The savviest executives, says Haass, are those who understand the nuances of government and how to balance the concerns of broad, highly varied political and social constituencies.
RICHARD HAASS
Vital statistics
Born July 28, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York
Married, with 2 children
Education
Graduated in 1973 with BA in Middle Eastern Studies from Oberlin College, Ohio
Graduated in 1975 with MA and in 1982 with D.Phil. in international relations from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar
Career highlights
Council on Foreign Relations (2003–present)
* President
US Department of State (2001–03)
* Director of policy planning with personal rank of ambassador
National Security Council (1989–93)
* Senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs; special assistant to the president
Fast facts
Won Presidential Citizens Medal (1991) for helping to develop and articulate US policy during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm
Received the Distinguished Honor Award (2003) from the US Department of State for efforts to promote peace, reconciliation, and a new path for people in Northern Ireland
Wrote or edited ten books on US foreign policy, including The Opportunity: America’s Moment to Alter History’s Course; author of The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to Be Effective in Any Unruly Organization
Member of board of directors of Fortress Investment (2007–present)
A veteran foreign-policy expert, Haass, 56, is no stranger to the business world—he wrote a book on management, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to Be Effective in Any Unruly Organization.1 After teaching management at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, he served as special assistant to President George H. W. Bush and as senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council. Haass also worked at the Department of Defense during the Carter administration and at the State Department during the presidencies of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He is currently writing a book about the Gulf and Iraq wars.
At the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, the preeminent gathering place for the US foreign-policy elite, Haass has been building a brand around the mantra that ideas matter. Through the council’s think tank and the journal Foreign Affairs, he aims to position the group as the leading integrator of thinking about US foreign policy and international relations. To discuss some of the global issues and ideas Haass considers “ripe,” he recently met in the council’s New York headquarters with Drew Erdmann, a consultant in McKinsey’s Chicago office; Roger Kline, a director in New York; and Lenny Mendonca, a director in San Francisco.
