Trust- The following comment was published in the September 2009 Harvard Business Review:

The cover of the Harvard Business Review is titled, “Rebuilding Trust”, and is chock full of articles about what executives have to do to learn and earn trust. While it is a novel concept to promote trust as something executives should focus on- it is not a skill set that can be taught in an MBA or any executive education program. By the time someone is interviewed for an executive position, either they are trustworthy or they are not.Maybe the weeding/ qualification process should be first about character and last about credentials. Maybe they should have to play a round of golf to see if they count every stroke, play every lie, and maintain composure as they hit a poor shot. Executive education programs, coaching programs, and anything else trying to “fix” the “trust problem” are already too late. Trust is who someone is, not what they have learned at business school.