INTERVIEW WITH THE DEAN
Finding purpose & making a difference Addressing societal problems such as this lies at the centre of business education’s appeal for the former consultant, as he describes: “What excites me about business education is that we are educating people to solve the issues that need to be solved in society, or to put it another way, to seize the opportunities to make the world a better place. And there are a lot of opportunities to do good and to solve problems that make a difference for real people, whether that’s in relation to climate change, hunger, income inequality or improving the education of younger people. Business has a role to play in whatever it is that you want to highlight as an important societal issue.” This brings the concept of purpose squarely into the equation. After all, for years we’ve heard that business school students are seeking something more than achieving seniority and the accompanying salary levels alone. However, for Beardsley, the concept of purpose is more about determining your own individual values and motivations than any particular career path you might embark on. “I don’t think purpose is mutually exclusive with any industry. It’s also about understanding yourself and what gives you meaning in your own life. The other thing to remember is that a career lasts a long time and you may have multiple careers within your lifetime,” he says, noting that the chances of any business school student doing the same type of job 15 years on from graduation is low, regardless of which industry they join after completing their programme of study. The conversation’s ensuing tilt towards meaning and the journey of discovery that accompanies many business school experiences raises an important point for the Darden dean. “A lot of people feel they need to have a clear roadmap of what they’re going to do for the rest of their life before they go to business school. However, I think this is unknowable, so a good approach is to build a set of skills that will allow you to adapt to an ever-changing environment. “Not knowing what you want to do is a really good reason to go to business school because it allows you to go through a process of self-reflection and find out more about how you think and what you might want to do. You might find that you’d like to work in an environment that has a lot of global interaction, for example, or one with an emphasis on team interaction, or one that has a certain mission. The more you’re in touch with understanding what some
of those things are, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to find something that resonates with you. “That’s why we have infused ethics and responsible leadership into the curriculum, to enable people to ask themselves life’s big questions. There’s no single source of absolute truth in this world, so we try and get people to take different points of view into account and understand that a lot of answers are quite nuanced, rather than being black and white. That’s a good simulation for what graduates will face in the real world when they’re put into positions of responsibility.” Reflecting on his own sense of purpose, Beardsley is convinced that determining what matters to you enables you to get the most out of yourself. “I place a great value on lifelong learning and being in an environment where I can help other people achieve their full potential. I found that environment at McKinsey when I was leading its learning and leadership development programmes and I find it at business school, where you can help learners become better versions of themselves. But if I hadn’t thought about what gives me meaning, I wouldn’t have that purpose.”
Scott Beardsley is dean of the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where he is also a professor in its Strategy, Ethics & Entrepreneurship academic area. Before joining Darden in 2015, Beardsley was a senior partner and elected global board member at McKinsey & Co. During his 26 years with the firm, 24 of those based in Belgium, he held some of its most senior roles, including leading all professionals’ global talent learning and leadership development. Beardsley holds a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BSc in electrical engineering from Tufts University. He is currently pursuing research towards a master’s degree in practical ethics at the University of Oxford
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Business Impact • ISSUE 2 • 2024
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