Reading stories can unlock our ability to make true transformative change in the world as managers.
A section mate asked an interesting question in FIN1: “Why do we model valuation only a few years into the future and approximate its terminal value? What about everything that comes after that?”
The answer that we discount the future away from any consideration today may seem axiomatic to those of us all of us born and bred under market capitalism. But if you really consider the philosophical implications of the discount rate, it’s quite dystopian. It tells us to be selfish and impulsive, to value our immediate gains over the expected consequences of our actions in the future. Our ancestors’ generations discounted enough that they left us with a climate crisis, crumbling institutions, and unprecedented socioeconomic disparities.
In FIN1, we rarely questioned – or even discussed – these implications of the discount rate. But what if we had?
In Kim Stanley Robinson’s science-fiction masterpiece Ministry for the Future, an economist working for the eponymous UN agency tasked with advocating for future generations presents an interesting proposal: “[The] idea is to shape the discount rate like a bell curve, with the present always at the top of the bell. So from that position, the discount rate is nearly nothing for the next seven generations, then it shifts higher at a steepening rate. Although they’re also modeling the reverse of that, in which you have a high discount rate, but only for a few generations, after which it goes to zero.” Your Aldrich self has likely sprung into action, and you’re already thinking of a million reasons why that “doesn’t work.” But take a breath. Let it sink in. What are some other ways we could reimagine the discount rate to incentivize creating value for the future rather than only prioritizing the present?
The case method teaches us to be critical managers. It helps us discern how to use a limited set of information to make the best possible decision. It teaches us to consider the opposing perspectives of our peers and bolster our arguments through discussion. At the same time, it gives us a very defined aperture of the realm of possibility and often makes other people appear only instrumental to the goals of the protagonist. More than once, a “wild idea” was laughed at by the class last semester, dismissed as ludicrous and not backed up by case facts. We easily caricatured the “side characters” whose internal monologues the case didn’t relay to us. Fair enough. But why are we so insistent on always being cautious and evidence-driven? Especially when we restrict “evidence” to 20 pages of case notes. What would it mean to create space for the radical ideas that have no basis in case facts? To consider not the narrow perspective of the individual but the collective vision of the whole. We studied IDEO’s best-in-class brainstorming process in TOM, but we often fail to apply one of its most important tenets across the rest of our curriculum: “brilliant ideas often seem ridiculous.”
How, then, do we overcome the boundaries we are assigned in cases and reframe and reimagine the assumed confines of possibility while also operating within the pragmatic limits of what it means to run a 90 person classroom?
We propose turning to fiction.
Where cases give us boundaries to navigate within, fiction encourages us to reframe and reimagine those confines. They teach us empathy for experiences we may never have. They inspire us to examine ideas from perspectives we might never have considered. Stories don’t let us get away with mere theorizing and painting with superficial brushes. Stories not only make us think – they make us feel.
We will go as far as to propose an example syllabus. Six books for an RC fall semester that at once complement and contradict our classroom learning:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: When we discussed Englishnization at Rakuten without considering the historical context that led English to be the “language of global business,” we missed strong reasons for employee resistance that go beyond reductive inferences of laziness. From the perspective of an Igbo clan leader, Achebe details the arrival of the first Christian missionaries in Nigeria. The book explores themes of colonization and religion as seen by communities in the middle of change, and helps us understand that all “progress” is subjective.
Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson: As noted previously, Robinson’s book upends concepts we often take as unshakeable truths in a business education. He presents a chronology of events that could unfold in the future to respond to the climate crisis – and his take is at once cautiously optimistic and uniquely creative. What if we reimagined the discount rate? What if there was a carbon coin? The ideas in Robinson’s book are a fascinating springboard for reimagining how the fundamentals of FIN1 could be used to build a better future.
The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola (Au Bonheur des Dames in French): We often discussed legendary companies like Walmart and IKEA in STRAT, lauding their profit-maximizing strategic decisions and only loosely touching on the darker realities of how they achieved what they did. Zola presents an incisive commentary on the expansion of capitalism in the 19th century, setting his story in a Parisian department store. The Ladies’ Paradise describes ideas at the forefront of marketing innovation at the time in a positive light (who would’ve thought a description of inventory turnover can be… beautiful?) but doesn’t shy away from discussions of worker exploitation and decimation of a small business economy for the eponymous department store to achieve its success.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: Last semester’s MKT case on Colin Kaepernick came with a detailed handout on African-American inequality that few people read. In good fiction, the context is not optional, it is deeply embedded in every sentence. In Homegoing, Gyasi follows the lineage of two Asante sisters as they are separated by slavery and colonisation. It paints a picture across time and space, vividly connecting colonial commercial enterprises, abolitionists, and anti-colonial movements across seven generations. It forces us to reckon with the realities of racism when we’d rather look away.
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata: In the famed TOM-LEAD crossover episode, we discussed Teruo Yabe’s remarkable turnaround of the work culture at Tessei. Several interpretations of the case facts expressed shock at the oppressive cleaning manual exhibit and mechanistic expectations, but we didn’t dive much deeper into the complicated relationship workers in a capitalist society often have with the labor they perform. Sayaka Murata offers a view into that experience (also coincidentally set in Japan, like the Tessei case). Her protagonist, Keiko, is at once subsumed by the corporate machine while finding meaning in the work she does as a convenience store worker. The book helps one to build empathy and understanding of what it means to be a “worker,” especially given that statistically, few of us will ever have significant service or manual labor job experience.
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: We spend a lot of time in class considering interpersonal dynamics and organisational hierarchies. Yet we rarely fully inhabit the perspectives of those surrounding our protagonists. In this book, Ishiguro traces the life of a butler in service to his morally questionable wealthy employers. We learn about the sacrifices made by people we, as HBS-branded inductees to the wealthy class, may view as only instrumental to us. It asks us to consider others in their fullness, and not solely in relation to ourselves.
In the business of our MBA schedules, reading fiction may begin to seem like a luxurious, and even a useless, pursuit. But integrating fiction into our curriculum can make us better managers. In fiction we can inhabit others’ interiority and think beyond the shackles of pragmatism.
The case method helps us build excellent managerial skills. It teaches us every “how” we’ll ever need. But stories can give us the “why.” If we seek to go beyond incremental – and often inconsequential – change in the world, we need to unlock the superpower that is the imagination. Perhaps the key is hidden within the pages of a novel.
Pooja Joshi (MBA’ 26) is from North Carolina. Prior to HBS, she worked in healthcare strategy and management consulting. She studied public health at UNC Chapel Hill and plans to work in healthcare in emerging markets. In her free time, she enjoys writing fiction.
Surbhi Bharadwaj (MBA’ 26) hails from Delhi, India. Prior to HBS she worked in international development and management consulting. She studied statistics and economics at Yale and aspires to work in digital infrastructure and climate adaptation.
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