What do today’s top MBA recruits have in common?  They’re nice.

If asked to name the most sought after skills of the nation’s most elite business school graduates perhaps you wouldn’t put “Nice ”at the top of the list. But guess what? It seems that the “Nice” movement has begun to permeate even the hard core, ivy–covered lecture halls of such hallowed MBA grounds as Harvard, Dartmouth and the University of Michigan. Corporate recruiters from the tippy–top of the Fortune 500 are now saying, “Send us your nicest students.” Goodness, have times changed.

I often refer to myself as a “Recovering MBA.” When I got my degree back in the 1980’s we were taught to be analytical, rational and methodical.  We were told “numbers are your friends” and not to let our emotions cloud the facts presented by research. Management strategy and techniques were based on the military–inspired “command and control” model. At best, “people skills” were reserved for the relatively less prestigious career paths like Sales or the softer, stereotypically female disciplines like Corporate Communications and Human Resources.

But an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal, a bastion of the business establishment if ever there was one, turns those old conventions upside–down. In a survey sponsored by the publication, corporate recruiters were asked what attributes are most important to them when they consider a candidate. And guess what? The top three answers are not how to read a spreadsheet. They are about knowing and feeling how to get along with others. 

“Communication and Interpersonal Skills” – 89%
“Ability to work well within a team” – 86.9%
“Personal Ethics and Integrity” – 86.2% won out over “Strategic Thinking” – 67.1%
“Likelihood of Recruiting ‘stars’,” – 64.9%
and even the value of “Prior work experience” – 35.7%.

And since that’s what recruiters are looking for in a candidate, you can bet your bottom–line dollar that every B-school in the country is now going to put classes with titles like “Teamwork 101” at the top of the curriculum.

It gives an MBA like me a very belated, warm and fuzzy sense of gratification to know that the intuitive sense Linda and I have always had about what really helps you rise to the top is not only being formally recognized but will become the standard of what constitutes excellence in business education. Even more important as today’s graduates move up the corporate ladder, these “nice ”skills will be the qualities that define the leaders of tomorrow. 

Perhaps MBA should no longer stand for Master of Business Administration but Master of BETTER ATTITUDE instead.