The Strenuous Life - A Call for Authentic Living
JONATHAN LEE KELLY, Contributing Writer
Issue date: 4/7/08 Section: Features
Real impact means taking risks (calculated or not) and Real risk involves the Real prospect of Failure as much as it does Sucess. Somehow this is not conspicuously acceptable here and it has seemed to me a dangerous and almost subversive subject to suggest that we should have real impact in shaping the world. Should it not be the opposite, that we prize the opportunity to take risks at HBS, an environment with a safety net, and re-enter the world with the mettle to grapple with the issues of the day?
President Roosevelt said that, "We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill." To be fair meeting challenges well or ill says nothing of success or failure, only that we bring proper preparation and mettle to the battle, but consider this month's lead story in Conde Nast's Portfolio Magazine that opens by talking about the "Daring Experiment" at HBS to teach women in the MBA program. The article talks about the initial aspirations and makes note of the progress made toward the goal of fostering more opportunity for women in executive roles in corporate life. Imagine if the faculty at the Harvard Business School had decided to play it safe and ran only a "modestly daring" experiment, where the prospect of real impact was significantly less. When real opportunity comes and presents itself then anything less than our complete preparation for it and resolute commitment leaves us with a losing position.
Let me bring this to a close. President Roosevelt suggested that material progress in a society is important, but that no nation in the world could be "truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone." More than the fruits of successfully managed business enterprises a society required citizens who also understood the role of hard work and toil in preparation of "competence" to wrestle with the great challenges of the day "for themselves and those dependent on them." If President Roosevelt is right then how many of us at the Harvard Business School can avoid the strenuous life, and if we who occupy these halls feel that it is beyond us then to whom should such responsibility fall?
"A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world." - Theodore Roosevelt" - The Strenuous Life April 10th, 1899.
President Roosevelt said that, "We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill." To be fair meeting challenges well or ill says nothing of success or failure, only that we bring proper preparation and mettle to the battle, but consider this month's lead story in Conde Nast's Portfolio Magazine that opens by talking about the "Daring Experiment" at HBS to teach women in the MBA program. The article talks about the initial aspirations and makes note of the progress made toward the goal of fostering more opportunity for women in executive roles in corporate life. Imagine if the faculty at the Harvard Business School had decided to play it safe and ran only a "modestly daring" experiment, where the prospect of real impact was significantly less. When real opportunity comes and presents itself then anything less than our complete preparation for it and resolute commitment leaves us with a losing position.
Let me bring this to a close. President Roosevelt suggested that material progress in a society is important, but that no nation in the world could be "truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone." More than the fruits of successfully managed business enterprises a society required citizens who also understood the role of hard work and toil in preparation of "competence" to wrestle with the great challenges of the day "for themselves and those dependent on them." If President Roosevelt is right then how many of us at the Harvard Business School can avoid the strenuous life, and if we who occupy these halls feel that it is beyond us then to whom should such responsibility fall?
"A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world." - Theodore Roosevelt" - The Strenuous Life April 10th, 1899.
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