Ethics should be priority, Ford chairman advises

As December graduation nears for about 1,500 students, they would be wise to heed the advice of Nick Scheele, chairman and chief operating officer at Ford Motor, Inc.\nScheele, the keynote speaker at the Nov. 22 dedication of the new Kelley Graduate and Executive building, said college graduates are expected to do more than ever before in the business world.\n"Getting a job is not easy. Today, people out of college are getting more responsibility, and due to flattened organization, people have the ability to have more of an impact early on," he said. "We put people where they can sink or swim. This is not a rest home or a country club. People will get responsibility."\nScheele was born in Essex, England and was CEO of Ford Europe before moving into his current position. Though now at the top of Ford, Scheele seeks to help those coming out of college and wanting to climb the ladder of success in the business world. He is on the advisory board of several colleges and universities and has been involved in a number of key initiatives to raise the profile of training and education. He also believes teaching ethics should be central to any business school's curriculum.\n"This is important to every single person in this country because ultimately each and every person will at some stage in their life, be it as a pension, be it as a college fund, be it whatever, they will need to rely on the integrity of financial markets," Scheele said. "That is why ethics is so critical."\nDan Dalton, the dean of the business school, is very grateful for Scheele's message and speech at the dedication ceremony.\n"The timing of his message could not have been better. I have received many compliments about his speech and it was very well received by all within the business school," Dalton said. "It's one thing to have a member of faculty to adress ethics to our students, but to have a person of his stature and experience adress it; is very, very important."\nIn all he addressed, there was nothing Scheele emphasized more than ethics.\nHigh ethical standards need to be brought into curriculum, he said. Companies cannot have greed, Scheele pointed out as he referred to the recent trend in corporate wrongdoings as an example of infectious greed in the business world.\n"The public has lost trust in the business world," Scheele said. "Our company, however, has no tolerance for failure. It's either black or it's white. It's up or it's down," he said. "To have the public lose faith is really a dagger blow to business and if not put behind us, the value of American business to the economy could deteriorate."\nScheele also expressed several opinions on how business needs to be run. He thinks that government does not need to interfere in business and people need to self regulate. He said that universities need to be teaching courage, creativity, and leadership in its business programs. He also said that schools need to seek out and teach new business models. \nFord's college sponsorship program helps 31 schools, including IU. Ford hires and promotes IU graduates and the company currently employs 125 IU graduates, Scheele said.\n"He has been a very good friend to us for many years," Dalton said. "He has helped create internships and permanent job opportunities for our students and has been a factor in the very generous giving in money for scholarships and fellowships by Ford."\nOnce hired at Ford the opportunities are limitless, Scheele said.\n"We are so broad-based. People can join Ford and essentially work in any field they want. We are also an international, global company," he said. "We are headquartered in Michigan, but operate across the globe."\nFord looks for many things in a new employee, including leadership, ethics, and business skills, Scheele said. But he specifically mentioned he wants people who are passionate about business and that the most important skill one can have is communication.