Saving The World At Business School (Part 2) - A Conversation with Andy Hoffman

Howard Burton

• Publisher: Ideas Roadshow
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781771701280
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Développement durable

This book is based on an in-dept follow-up conversation between Howard Burton and Andy Hoffman, Holcim Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and School of Environment and Sustainability. They discuss Andy Hoffman's research and scholarly insights which are extremely relevant to today's society. Andy Hoffman is passionately committed to encouraging fellow academics to play a much stronger role in communicating knowledge, facts and information to the regular public and politicians which has culminated into his two new books 'The Engaged Scholar' and 'Management As A Calling'.This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Exceptional Times, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Reprise - 7 years onII. Truth Decay - Facts under fire?III. The Value of Wisdom - Beyond knowledgeIV. Investigating Rewards - Intrinsic vs. extrinsicV. Concrete Opportunities - And concrete scepticismVI. Management as a Calling - Focusing on the studentsVII. Opinionated Ignorance - Hardly what the Founding Fathers had in mindVIII. Qualified Optimism - Hopeful signsIX. Spreading the Word - Creating new platforms through technologyX. Getting Personal - Slings, arrows and the learning experienceXI. Shattered Leadership? - Desperately trying to pick up the piecesAbout Ideas Roadshow Conversations: This book is part of a series of 100 Ideas Roadshow Conversations. Presented in an accessible, conversational format, Ideas Roadshow books not only explore frontline academic research featuring world-leading researchers but also reveal the inspirations and personal journeys behind the research.

The Conversation

I. Reprise

7 years on

HB: I thought I’d begin with an anecdote that I received from my former video editor after our first conversation seven years ago. He said to me, “I really liked the one with Hoffman, because there were all these sparks flying, there was lots of tension between the two of you.”

And I remember having two bemused reactions to this. The first one was, That’s not what we’re all about—Ideas Roadshow isn’t supposed to be some deliberately controversial political talk show. And the second was, What on earth is he talking about? That wasn’t how I remembered our conversation going at all. I just remember having a good time talking with you.

AH: I’m the same way. I don’t remember anything combative, but I love the banter back and forth. That’s the way I teach classes too.

HB: Well, you see, you’re a very reasonable guy. I guess I should start from the beginning by saying that, as it happens, I broadly concur with a lot of your core messages. And I think the phrase “as it happens” is worth focusing on, because—and this alludes to some of the things that you’ve written about—I think it’s extremely important to be engaged in an open and candid dialogue with people, both those you agree with and those you don’t.

So, the fact that there are many areas of overlap where we share common views is nice, but certainly not necessary or essential. And there are, of course, areas where we diverge, certainly in particulars, such as the fact that I think you have a tendency to err on the side of idealism, however admirable that might be. Personally, I have a little bit more of a sceptical attitude. But once again, respectfully highlighting the differences in how we view things makes up an essential part of what it is that Ideas Roadshow is all about, as you’ve even mentioned yourself in some of your work.

Another point that I think is worth highlighting straight off, almost as a preemptive strike, in case I get accused by someone else of being combative again—

AH: I don’t think you’re combative, by the way.

HB: No, no, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about other people, like my former video editor. I mean, it’s already been clearly established that you’re a right-thinking, reasonable person.

But what I wanted to say is that the issues that we’re talking about—business and societal change and climate change—these are issues that many people are quite understandably very passionate about. They are arguably existential issues for humanity. In other words, if you’re not going to have strong, passionate feelings about this sort of thing, you could well make the argument that you don’t have a pulse.

AH: I would add to this that a real problem we have now is that we’ve lost the ability to have discussions with people that are respectful and divergent. Somewhere along the line, we’ve developed this idea as a society that for me to be right, you have to be wrong. And that’s simply not the case.

HB: Absolutely. And I know that you’ve written extensively about this, as I expect we’ll get to this in more detail shortly. But I suppose that for my part I just want to emphasize that it’s not just that we’re living in an age when the medium of exchange of ideas and listening to other people with different views is overlooked and underappreciated, it’s that I believe that doing so is particularly important in this moment in human history.

In other words, while I would always agree that respectfully treating the views of others is both polite and pedagogically important in our quest for knowledge—you mention encouraging banter in your classrooms and so forth—but it’s even more than that, I think: when the stakes are as high as they are now with some of the issues that we’re facing. In short, I would argue that proceeding in this way is nothing less than essential.

AH: Yes, I would agree.

HB: I think it’s also worth explicitly highlighting that this is the only time we’ve done a follow-up Ideas Roadshow conversation, and I will naturally be periodically referencing that in terms of investigating questions such as: What has changed in the meantime? Have things worked out the way that you had imagined they would when we first spoke? What has worked out well? What has not worked out well? How have your views evolved over time, compared to the way that they were seven years ago or perhaps earlier still?

But in keeping with my earlier comments, it’s perhaps worth emphasizing why I’ve decided to break Ideas Roadshow convention by having this follow-up conversation with you. Unlike one of our standard conversations on the subtleties of Renaissance history or dark matter, say, the research and scholarly issues that you concern yourself with are both particularly relevant to society at large and particularly time sensitive.

In other words, despite the fact that I’m always going on about how Ideas Roadshow is not journalism—and it isn’t—there are nonetheless times when our mission does overlap with core aspects of the mandate of journalism, such as the importance of generating widespread understanding of pressing issues of direct relevance to all of us—and this is clearly one of these times.

So that’s why I feel that this topic justifies a follow-up conversation, and I’m very grateful to you for your willingness to participate and give even more of your time to our project. So, thank you very much for that.

AH: It’s my pleasure, Howard.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Do you agree with Andy when he says that, “We’ve lost the ability to have discussions with people that are respectful and divergent”? If so, why do you think this happened?
2. What do you think Howard means by stressing that “Ideas Roadshow isn’t journalism”? What does it mean to be “journalism” these days and to what extent, if any, has that changed in the past few decades?

II. Truth Decay

Facts under fire?

HB: So while I’m merrily breaking convention, I’ll do something else I never do which is to explicitly date this conversation by mentioning that we’re having it in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic—in December of 2020—which is why, of course, we’re doing it remotely.

Now I know that you have two books coming out in 2021, both of which you’ve graciously given me a peek at, so I’m naturally keen to talk explicitly about both of those. The first one I thought we’d talk about is called The Engaged Scholar.

Here’s what I expected, based upon our previous conversation, The Engaged Scholar to be about. I expected it to be all about how academics have to go out into the social sphere, into the “real world” as it were, and play an increasingly large role in convincing people about the reality of vital threats like climate change and what can be done about it.

Well, there was some of that, of course, but that was not really the main thrust of what I read. In particular, many of the issues that leapt out at me were broader ones about the role of a university in contemporary society and the role of a public intellectual. Is that right? Is that wrong? What were your motivations in writing this book?

AH: Well, it’s interesting. I agree with you everything you just said: I think that’s what the book is about, and I see the two issues you mentioned as the same. The book is trying to make the case for a widespread recognition of a different role for the academic in society, one that is very engaged in a public and political discourse; and it’s about the rewards of the academy standing in the way of that.

It’s mostly a call to young scholars, to be honest with you, to define for themselves why they became professors in the first place. I’m willing to bet that, for 99% of them, it’s because they wanted to have a positive impact on the world, not because they wanted to have a high citation count and a high h-index and other standard academic metrics.

I would also add that this is a book that I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a long time. But since we last spoke seven years ago, a lot has changed to make this book even more relevant and more important.

I hang the book, at the beginning, on a report from the RAND Corporation—which, interesting enough, is basically a defense department think tank. They came out with a report called Truth Decay, which had four conclusions.

One, we are debating facts.

Two, we blur facts and opinion to an alarming rate—it’s important for all of us to recognize, when ...