In Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, a talented chemist is unfairly forced out of her research institute and suddenly finds herself hosting a cooking show. What happens next is remarkable—and fun. You’ll have to read the novel to truly appreciate how things unfold.
For now, I want to call attention to the way the novel’s protagonist understands and describes what she is doing. For Elizabeth Zott, cooking is not “just cooking.” A recipe defines a chemical reaction. A kitchen is a laboratory. The person preparing dinner is not performing a domestic duty, but rather the “cook” is hypothesizing, experimenting, and creating.
The ingredients are still the same, as is the stove. But by redefining what happens in the kitchen, Elizabeth changes what people see as possible and, ultimately, ignites a movement.
Since “business education” is to me as “chemistry” is to Elizabeth, as I was reading the book, I couldn’t help but think about how we describe the work we do.
Consider teaching. When we describe teaching as “disseminating knowledge,” we focus on content and classrooms. But what happens if we describe teaching as “creating the conditions for learning” or, as I like to say, “curating experiences”? The questions begin to change. We become more interested in the environment, what and when students discover new ideas, and how they apply concepts. It also changes the way we think about professors and what they do and are good at—and the partners they need to be successful.
The same is true of research. If we describe research as “producing journal articles,” we organize our efforts (and systems) around “the literature,” the papers and journals, and citations that connect them. But if we describe it as “advancing understanding and enabling better decisions,” we begin to ask what problems are we addressing? Who should be involved in discovering the answers? How will the things we learn make a difference?
Of course, this point is not new to anyone studying business and management. Leaders need to be purposeful when describing the mission, vision, and strategy of their business. And they need to be inspirational in discussing the work that their people do. Different ways of describing their businesses create different priorities, produce different partnerships, and require different measures of success. And that matters to investors as much as employees and customers.
Early in my experience with GBSN, we decided not to change the mission immediately. Instead, we began describing ourselves as a “purpose-driven network organization” as opposed to what we really were at the time, a small “project-driven development organization.” It was a short, unofficial description we used in conversations with deans and, of course, it did not make us different organization overnight.
But the words changed the way we saw ourselves and the way others saw GBSN, and eventually transformed everything that we do. A new mission followed, more than five years later, as we learned from members (instead of trying to convince funders) what we needed to do to impact development and as we gained experience with programs that enabled members to do those things. After all, a purpose-driven network is about connecting the resources, capabilities, and aspirations of its members to achieve the mission.
Similarly, when the pandemic disrupted our flagship conference, we decided to invent GBSN Beyond. A conference is just an event, but we wanted a platform for moving the needle on our mission. An annual meeting brings members together, but we wanted something that builds connections across sectors and disciplines, “beyond” the familiar boundaries of business education. Changing the name didn’t immediately accomplish these things, but it gave us a new way of thinking about why we convene.
More recently, we have reframed GBSN’s work around three streams: real-world learning, shared discovery, and purpose-led collaboration. Each set of activities continues to focus on our mission to “strengthen the contributions of management education to the development needs of society.” Relative to the way we previously talked about our work in terms of engaging students and faculty, the new language tells us more about how we achieve the mission and what makes us different.
Real-World Learning – GBSN delivers experiential learning programs in which students extend their education beyond the classroom, develop valuable professional skills, and build their international network. This shifts our attention from simply participation to experience, application, and impact.
Shared Discovery – GBSN creates opportunities for faculty, leaders, and other stakeholders to exchange information, address shared challenges, and build new knowledge leveraging the network’s collective expertise. This challenges the assumption that knowledge flows in one direction and highlights that we learn better and faster when we work together, across institutions, disciplines, and geographies.
Purpose-Led Collaboration – GBSN supports collaborations that leverage the complementary strengths of multiple institutions to meet identified needs in management education and development. This reminds us that bringing schools together is not an end in itself. What matters is why—what we can accomplish together that we could not accomplish alone.
This new framework not only offers a better description of our current activities, it also challenges GBSN to improve its work bringing business schools together in service to society. Of course, words alone don’t produce change. Organizations are full of language that never finds its way (and often shouldn’t find its way) into decisions or daily practice. Think of greenwashing and much of the word play coming from the current executive branch in the US. The true test is whether a new definition changes the questions we ask, the choices we make, and the results we pursue in a positive way.
That’s why Lessons in Chemistry resonates so much with me. Elizabeth Zott isn’t performing when she uses the language of chemistry to describe cooking. She’s real. She believes it. She invites people to see themselves, their capabilities, and their possibilities differently—and few things are more important than that in the world of business education. Imagine all the good we can do, guided by thoughtful choices in the way we talk about teaching and studying the purpose of business.
This piece accompanies a previous post, “To Change the World, Let’s Change the Way We See It.”