On Friday, May 28th, Aalto Social Impact was proud to present an interactive lecture with Mr. Howard Gardner, world-renowned Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. The highly anticipated event marked the end of the first semester of Aalto Social Impact’s activities and finale of the first run of the How to Change the World course of Aalto University. Students from the course presented results of two of the projects completed on the semester-long course.
The lecture hall at Aalto University’s School of Economics was packed for the event (capacity: 250 chairs). Every seat was taken and those arriving right before the start of the lecture looked for space at the sides of the hall or sat on the stairs. You could tell that this was an event that had raised great interest in a wide community!
Great success in the student projects of the How to Change the World Course
Before Mr. Gardner took the stage, students from the Low-Carbon Lifestyles and Empathy projects presented their work. The Low-Carbon Lifestyles project had aimed at finding out how low-carbon lifestyles could be created through empowering the development of products and services that would help people lead low-carbon lives. The team of students had organized a one day long innovation camp, during which five teams of six people worked on ideas that had been gathered through a survey. Among these ideas were a public carbon database that enables sustainable consumption and a !DO! bicycle concept for a cycling-friendly Helsinki. Both of these concepts are being developed further with think tank Demos Helsinki, which was the project’s sponsor.
The students in the Empathy project had created a new way to bring empathy into action in the society. They had taken school children and their teachers as their target group and had worked with Taidekaari (in English “Art Arc”) from Tampere to find contacts in schools. The students had organized two pilot “playshops” with 4th grade students and showed an inspiring video clip from one of them to illustrate how they had taken their ideas into action. The playshops had focused on working with the children to teach them how empathy can be observed, experienced and acted on in the community. To continue the process of observing, experiencing and acting on empathy after the playshop, the children had been left with a glass jar filled with 145 buttons that represent acts of empathy. The idea was that the students would keep observing acts of empathy among their classmates, and each time one would spot another student present great positive social skills and empathy, he or she would put a button in the jar.
The Empathy project team has already received great feedback from teachers and parents, and noted in their presentation that there really seems to be demand for this kind of action that teaches kids to show empathy in their social surroundings. The project team succeeded in creating a base for understanding what empathy is and making it more approachable and concrete. The concept has been created and now waits for more enthusiastic people to take it up in their community and make a little step toward social change!
Professor Gardner: Mind the impact of your actions
Little steps toward social change was also one of the first things professor Howard Garner spoke about as he took the stage after the student presentations. Professor Gardner noted that the phrase “Change the world” has different meanings in the US, where it is regarded as something grandiose, as opposed to Finland, where it is thought of more modestly, with many small steps leading to big change. Although scaling up is currently the hot topic in the fields of social entrepreneurship and social innovation, Gardner spoke about the importance of taking incremental steps towards social change and how quality is in many cases more desirable than quantity.
Professor Gardner also raised the question of whether changing the world even is a good thing. He reminded us that individuals such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao indeed had a lot of impact and changed the world – but as in these cases, change wasn’t all that positive. Being careful of the outcome of your actions should always be prioritized. This remark closely resembles what Martin Sandelin from Nokia spoke about in his speech at the kick-off of ASI: one should be aware of the possibility of unintended consequences of his actions.
Professor Gardner: The Good Work project and the 3+2 Es
Professor Gardner’s interest in how intelligence and leadership are used in good work gave the spark to start the Good Work project. Together with Bill Damon and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor Gardner created the 3 Es framework of good work. In their framework, a high level of work (Excellence); liking and engaging to the work (Engagement) and Ethichs, equal Good Work.
Lately, they have added to more Es to the framework. Equity, as in fairness at the workplace and equality in pay between different hierarchical levels of the organization, has been an additional E to the equation. Empathy is another possible additional E, although the importance of empathy is not seen as consistent across different occupations. For example, in helping professions such as nursing, empathy is a necessity, where as in journalism or law professions empathy might interfere with objectivity, and therefore affect the quality of work.
Professor Gardner: Social entrepreneurship and the difficulty of wearing many hats
After professor Gardner had spoken about his work, an intense Q&A session followed. As the audience was filled with professional or aspiring social entrepreneurs and “do gooders”, it was in place to discuss about the life of a social entrepreneur and other similar professions where the passion for doing good poses difficulties for other aspects of life.
Professor Gardner reminded us that one should figure out whether he or she is willing to fully commit to doing good, as it might end up taking away from time with doing good for the ones closest to you. The difficulty of being a social entrepreneur and having a family life was discussed. In case one chooses to fully commit to and become engaged with changing the world, he or she must also remember the responsibility of actually being sure the impact of the work is indeed good.
Professor Gardner: Doing good – Learn from mistakes, believe in yourself and let obstacles inspire you
To the audience member’s question of how to deal when all the good work you do doesn’t seem to have an impact, professor Gardner replied that do gooders should think of it as fun trying to diminish the obstacles and be stimulated to try harder when facing them. The personality trait the Ashoka fund looks for when choosing the Ashoka fellows is one that doesn’t get depressed when obstacles come in the way, but has belief in themself to keep going.
Professor Gardner: Managers in organizations have to show a consistent example of good work at the workplace
To the question of how to make good work happen in the workplace, professor Gardner mentioned the importance of the highest management showing a consistent example of doing good. In a similar way to how children don’t agree with their parents, but pay attention to how they act, leaders should act on doing good everyday to inspire workers to follow. They should also aim for as flat an organization structure as possible. To sustain good work without being burned out, professor Gardner reminded us that one should find work that is meaningful to them, so that one can fully engage to it and therefore enjoy it even through tough times.
Professor Gardner: Future visions – The way of doing work in 20-30 years from now should involve face-to-face work, not too much remote work
Finally, to the question of how professor Gardner envisions the way of doing work in 20-30 years from now, he mentioned the recent trend towards telecommuting and remote work in Finland. Gardner said that what people really need is at least some face-to-face work and human contact. Research has shown that even the Internet-age youth doesn’t find the Internet as important as human contact and meeting friends face-to-face.
Surely, many of us can relate to that! Aalto Social Impact wants to extend its most sincere thanks to Mr. Gardner for this inspiring, highly interactive lecture.
Aalto Social Impact would like to thank everyone in the ASI community for the past spring and making Aalto Social Impact happen! The current team behind Aalto Social Impact wants to welcome everyone to contribute to ASI and the cause we all share a passion about: after all, enabling social change in the community is a social act of a community of people. Over the summer, we’re taking the small steps toward a grandiose autumn, and we’re warmly welcoming all of you to give some of your time, talent, passion and creative minds to enable Aalto Social Impact to switch a completely new gear in the autumn! Thank you, and stay tuned for some feedback surveys and some serious (but meaningful and fun) brainstorming over the summer!
Video from the event.
