As a follow up to my previous series of posts on leadership and the soft skills of business (Leadership and the Himilayas — Part I, Leadership — Part II, Leadership Part III, Leadership - Part IV, Primping A Resume With ‘Soft’ Skills) …

Check out the most recent WSJ article, How Stanford is Grooming Next Business Leaders, to learn what top MBA programs are doing to push this issue forward. Impressive stuff, and all a part of its modest $45,921 in tuition/price tag alone, PER YEAR.

But shoot, at that price, everybody coming out of Stanford’s MBA program better be the CEO of a Fortune 500 firm or a US President within 10 years of their graduation, or they need to ask for their money back.

While it will never win me a popularity contest at Cal Poly with a variety of stakeholders, oh, my goodness, the things I could do for you and the program if Cal Poly and the CSU system “belled the cat” and charged, and folks paid, half the going MBA market rate of $40K to generate significant revenue to in turn bury right back into the program …

My 5 year old daughter calls me on my inconsistencies every time.  Kids don’t miss a thing …

Same is true in business.

The Silk Road International blog recently made a good post containing an excellent tip for doing business in China …

[I]f you expect your suppliers to follow their contracts and respect your IP then you’d better do the same. If you bust your supplier’s butt over IP violations and then have the factory driver take you to the local knock-off golf or DVD shop, what message are you giving to the factory? Yea, what you do personally does influence how you are seen by your Chinese supplier ….

As a number of my Chinese friends say to me over dinner and maotai, “why do American’s who come here seem to think their own rules apply to us and not to them?”

I still don’t have a good answer. I instead offer a toast on some lame topic of “friendship and goodwill between us” to try and change the subject ….