subject: Harvard Business School On Meaningful Work [print this page] Do you find your work meaningful? The Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin for December 2007 on pages 34-35, had an article on How Business Schools Lost their Way. HBS associate professor Rakesh Khurana has written a book that points out problems including, business schools on average are not providing some way for them (students) to link the values they have to the work they are going to be doing. And as a consequence, many students have adopted a view of the world in which they believe they cannot live their values through their work.
By denying students the opportunity to see the possibility of living their life as a profession, seeing meaning in their work, seeing their work as a calling.
What do you think? Can MBA graduates find meaning or are they destined to be just hired hands for corporations? Whether you are an MBA or not, I wonder if you see your work as a calling?
How do we find meaning in our work? Of course, there are many ways. My own twin degrees, a MBA from HBS and a M.Div. from Yale represent part of my efforts to integrate achievement with meaning, success with significance.
I have for decades assisted leaders and professionals to find meaning in their work. In my approach, your first step in finding meaning is to look deeply inside yourself to gain clarity on what you really value. Then develop strategies to make your values more honored in your work. I assist clients to take these steps in my individual Executive Coaching and in some modules of my Group Executive Coaching described on my web site.
Copyright 2009, by William R. Murray, President of Eagle Alliance Executive Coaching, LLC. Reprint rights granted to all venues so long as this article and by-line are printed intact with all links made live.
