30 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Higher Education?

In today’s  MCS post, Scott, a HBS alum,  reacts to a recently posted opinion piece by Clayton Christensen in the Washington Post (cited below).

The Washington Post recently posted an opinion piece by Clayton Christensen with the provocative title: “If Harvard Business School were a religion, it could be Mormonism.” Some Mormon commentators were quick to highlight reasons why they wished that our church was less like Harvard Business School (“HBS”).   As a Mormon and an alumnus of HBS, I read the article and found myself wishing the opposite: that certain HBS values were more represented in Mormonism than they currently are.

Two quick disclaimers.   One, I cast no aspersions on Clayton Christensen as a man.   He has led me both as a professor and as an ecclesiastical leader.   I have had the pleasure and privilege of working with several of his children in church and professional endeavors.   I truly believe him to be worthy of the significant amount of admiration that he has received as a scholar and family man.   Two, I appreciate and sympathize with the real concerns that individuals within the church have with the corporatization of our church.     Although Brother Christensen believes that a comparison to the LDS church is a compliment to Harvard Business School, many Mormons likely feel that the West Point of Capitalism is a poor model of emulation for the church.   Therefore my criticisms of Clayton’s piece are not intended as criticisms on the man, and my promotion of HBS values as worthy of emulation does not mean that I believe that the church should become more corporate in form, structure or administration–if such a course of action were indeed possible.

I agree with Brother Christensen that the HBS learning model is powerful. Men and women from an incredibly diverse set of personal and professional backgrounds are brought together in a classroom to discuss a case. They discuss not only their analysis of the facts at hand, but they bring in observations from their personal and professional pasts. This is similar to wards where personal experiences may be encouraged during Sunday School, Priesthood, or Relief Society classes. Students at HBS are divided into “sections” that are assigned, not self selected, not too unlike LDS wards (of course, there is selection that occurs through the admission process which limits diversity… again not too unlike LDS wards). You sit with your entire section for a year, and so as relationships develop and progress so does the discussion.

This is where the similarities end. The differences, in my opinion, make all the difference.

At HBS, dissent is encouraged and if necessary, provoked. In nearly every class you will hear a professor respond to a comment by saying “does anyone disagree with that?” I can count on one hand the number of times I was in an LDS class where I was asked if I disagreed with what someone said. More to the point, the modern LDS church has taken the “spirit of contention” verse to mean “don’t disagree with anyone publicly”. This creates an unhealthy atmosphere and leads to passive aggressiveness and group think around unhealthy cultural norms (think skinny jeans and modesty police).

There is no hierarchical arbiter of truth at HBS.  Clayton Christensen is deeply respected at the school, but students regularly push back on what he has to say.  In fact, I have heard him say on more than one occasion that his best ideas have come from being challenged by students. The general membership does not engage in such a dialogue with leadership. The feedback loop does not exist. If you push back against a teacher at HBS, students will come to you with defense, or come at you with criticism based solely on their perceptions of the merits of your argument. Push back against the words of a brother whose importance warrants use of his middle initial and the response is immediate and vicious.

HBS students are taught to make decisions contextually. They are taught that all decision making models are imperfect, and that different models should be applied to decisions in different contexts.  While the Black Scholes model may be helpful in deciding the price of certain financial instruments, a manager would not use it to decide whether to build a new division or buy a competitor.   Often a case will involve sequential decision making – how to deal with the consequences of an earlier decision through corrective action.  Mormons are explicitly taught to avoid contextual decision making: “There are two patterns for making decisions: the first I will call decisions based upon circumstance; the second, decisions based upon eternal truth… The guiding principle in the pattern of decisions based upon circumstance is to make choices according to the outcome desired rather than upon what is right or wrong…Satan encourages choices to be made in this manner”^[1] (Elder Richard G. Scott). This worldview encourages binary thinking, eschews complexity, and demonizes dissenting opinions.  This model for decision making in the church is static – follow the prophet, unless the prophet hasn’t given explicit instruction, in which case you pray and wait for thoughts and feelings to pass through your synapses. This is the Holy Ghost, ie God telling you what to do. Do it.  By taking a single model and applying universally to divergent circumstances and multitudinous decision paths we ignore more dynamic models that help us to gather additional information and evaluate it in a rigorous method.   Furthermore, by ascribing our intuitions to God we are then precluded from serious re-evaluation- can we really question God?  If it works it was a blessing, if it doesn’t, it was a trial, and we double down on the original bad decision. HBS students are encouraged to seek new information on a problem and to change their approach and opinions based on the new information. “Now that you know x,y, or z, has your belief changed?” At school I would be encouraged to consider ways to answer that question in the affirmative; at church, the question itself is verboten.

Harvard Business School has its issues, as does any organization.   But I believe that its values of openness, tentativeness, intellectual honesty, democratic knowledge, and informed dissent are indeed worthy of praise and emulation.   As our church progresses in embracing these values, I hope that Mormonism will become more worthy of Brother Christensen’s compliment.