Pondering a precious life
Few would disagree that Harvard Business School (HBS) students are driven to succeed. But what, exactly, drives them? When Tony Deifell, M.B.A. ’02, asked that simple question nearly a decade ago, his inquiry produced surprisingly deep insights into the hopes, dreams, and motivations of his graduating class — and created a tradition, the HBS Portrait Project, that’s still going strong at the School. Now in its 10th year, the Portrait Project solicits written responses from graduating M.B.A.s to the question once posed by poet Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” A selection of 34 of those short essays, accompanied by black-and-white portraits that Deifell shoots of each student, will be unveiled Tuesday (May 24) from 3 to 5 p.m. in a public reception at HBS’s Spangler Center. “It seems like a relatively simple question, but it’s quite daunting to answer,” said...