By: Marianna Richardson
In Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming, she describes her plan for life as evolving and moving forward without a specific aim or achievement in mind. Life’s quest is a passage to a better self through a never-ending journey of discovery. Thus, life becomes unscripted with an uncertain, but hopeful future.
In contrast, Michael Larsen’s book, Liar’s Poker, describes his work on Wall Street in the 1980’s as a stock trader as being unscripted. He dealt with people who were motivated only by their annual bonuses, employers who did not foster loyalty, and employees who did not always look out for the best interests of their clients while moving from job to job. Uncontrolled greed and looking out for yourself was epitomized by the phrase, “If you want loyalty, hire a cocker spaniel.”
Unscripted seems to connotate at least three different meanings:
- A lack of artifice as described by the words – natural, uncontrived, and casual
- An unplanned arrangement as described by the words – chaos, unarranged, uncontrolled
- An unexpected thought as described by the words – impromptu, spontaneous.
Life is often natural, uncontrolled, and spontaneous. Understanding how to handle our unscripted lives will enable us to move forward positively. The articles in this issue explore how we can find hope in chaos and unexpected moments.
A Lack of Artifice
The uncontrived, natural striving of goodness has been incapsulated in the Ballard Center’s mantra of “Doing Good. Better.” Housed in the Marriott School of Business, the Ballard Center focuses on social impact. Because of the center, BYU is recognized as a Changemaker Campus by Ashoka University and it is the largest university social impact program in the world. The center is named after Elder Melvin J. Ballard, an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who led the creation of the Social Security Program (now called the Welfare Program) for the Church. The Ballard Center provides students with a variety of ways to learn about and become involved with social impact through its classes and programs. It is the best resource for students seeking to make a meaningful social impact while on campus and in their future careers, families, and communities.
Continuing with uncontrived goodness, virtuous organizations establish a vision, mission, and value that seek to elevate society, and then mobilize their core competencies to strategically achieve social good. These organizations recognize that business is more than what pays you or gets you stuff; it is a force to create the world you want to live in. A group of BYU students and faculty, organized as a think tank plus consultancy, has come together to thoughtfully re-envision how to shape the norms of business in socially beneficial ways.
An Unplanned Arrangement
Nathan Lake explores the fact that success can be a totally unplanned arrangement. Measuring success is not about mathematically defining your goals (though some goals can be measured that way), but rather determining if the goals you set are truly meaningful to you and if you are making adequate progress to accomplish them. It would be very hard to numerically determine if what you are doing is something interesting and fulfilling. Instead, try measuring your goals by paying attention to how you feel when you go to work. Do you dread going or are you excited? Measuring success is a totally personal matter, and sometimes unplanned and spontaneous.
Denise Han describes the great success that companies like HireVue, SkillSurvey, and Fama have had in improving the recruitment process through artificial intelligence. However, a word of caution; as AI becomes the norm in today’s business world, HR departments and recruiters must recognize, and work to minimize, the unplanned challenges that these tools will inevitably bring.
Similarly, Porter Bagley reviews the exponential growth in computing speed, power, and memory; this new power allows us to process and store more much data than a few decades ago. But more importantly, data science can solve impactful problems. With the sudden rise in popularity of data science, some may believe it is just a fad that will die out in a couple of years. However, the influence data science has in a myriad of different applications is far too large for us to ever rationalize abandoning data science.
Even some tax preparers were caught off guard by the rise in computing power, big data, and powerful apps to help people do their own taxes. The rise of software has forced professionals to find a differentiation factor, otherwise they will find themselves losing to the machine.
An Unexpected Thought
“Inspiring learning” has become the mantra for professors and administrators at Brigham Young University. In a speech to faculty and staff at the beginning of the 2016 academic year, President Kevin J. Worthen made a plea for faculty to start incorporating deeper and more experiential learning into their programs, pointing out that students cannot learn all they need to know by simply memorizing facts and discussing principles. This initiative seeks to transform the BYU educational experience by providing students with life-changing learning opportunities beyond the walls of a classroom.
An unexpected thought in the Marriott School of Business turned into Marriott Student Review and Measuring Success Right, in order to promote experiential learning through a peer-reviewed journal and a podcast run by business students for young professionals. There is a palpable creative energy in the room as the editorial board organizes a Marriott Student Review issue or a Measuring Success Right podcast. Board members are engaged and excited to work together, with everyone becoming a part of the team. The unscripted nature of the experience brings a vibrant enthusiasm into the room as we prepare these issues for you, our reader.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Marriott Student Review and may all your unscripted experiences be happy ones.
Enjoy reading!
Marianna Richardson
