Goddard Chapel hosted Dr. Harry Hutson as the first speaker of its Forum on Religion and Money.
Hutson's lecture was entitled "Putting Hope to Work: Five Principles to Activate Your Organization's Most Powerful Resource," which is also the title of the book he co-authored in 2006 with cultural anthropologist Barbara Perry. The discussion focused on the nature of hope and how it can apply in a professional setting.
The lecture was attended only by the University Chaplain David O'Leary and two of his interns.
Hutson began his talk by relating four vignettes to highlight the importance of hope in different business situations ranging from networking meetings to cultural immersion.
In the course of writing the book, Hutson and Perry determined that there are three main facts about hope, which Hutson discussed in his talk.
Their first conclusion about hope was that it was inherently human. "Hope is perfectly human; it's an ancient as humanity. The phrase 'when you hope against hope' speaks to the complexity and humanness of the word," he said.
Their book's title is derived from the second discovery, which is that hope is deeply principled. Hope is not about winning the lottery, according to Hutson. "It's about something real of moral and ethical value," he said.
Perry and Hutson divided hope into five principles: possibility, agency, worth, openness and connection. Each of these principles was further subdivided into two different categories. For example, the subcategories of agency are "engagement" and "adequacy." Engagement is very important to Hutson because according to him, "if employees are engaged, then customers buy more and are happy."
In a given situation or task, too much or too little of any of these subcategories could lead to a decrease in the amount of hope.
"[We] don't want extremism; that's the enemy of hope. What we want in hope is to have the golden mean and not an excess or deficiency," he said.
According to Perry and Hutson, hope is practical and important to success, something Hutson illustrated by discussing the stock market.
The value of all the tangible assets of a company, like machinery, patents and building space make up what is called its "book value." According to Hutson, however, a company's stock price is determined more by intangibilities such as good leadership, teamwork and ideas, than its book value. He groups all of these "intangibilities" under one word: "hope."
"There are a number of hard headed CEOs who said, 'We don't have time for hope, we need to get things done,' but when we asked how they got things done, they described something similar to our five principles," he said.
At the same time, he said that other companies are more open and receptive to hope's importance.
"The CEO of Best Buy ... gives speeches about how hope is the most important part of Best Buy," he said.
Hutson, who works as a business advisor and executive coach, was the first of three speakers visiting for the Forum on Money and Religion.
O'Leary is hopeful about getting a larger turnout for the other two talks, noting the possibility that this one experienced lower numbers because TuftsLife.com was down for an extended period preceding the event. He was not concerned, however, with the scant turnout.
"I see myself as just planting seeds, so I don't get discouraged," he said, adding that the extensive personal interaction the audience had with Hutson was an excellent feature of the event.
