Ultimate Questions
The accumulated wisdom of a beloved business professor’s signature course
Who are we, and who am I? Why are we here, and why am I here? What is the good life, and what is my good life? How should I get along with others?
For years, business ethics professor Andrew Wicks pursued these lines of inquiry in his perennially popular course “Ultimate Questions and Creating Value for Stakeholders.” In this book, he presents the core ideas of the course to a general audience. Touching on a variety of possible answers—from philosophers, scientists, and more—without advocating for any single position, the book reminds readers that these questions are present in our lives every day and all the time. When we consider them consciously, we can identify our existing answers and craft new ones as we grow and change. They are at the core of what it means to live a fully realized life. And as the world becomes increasingly polarized, ultimate questions emerge as a critical lens through which to relate across difference. With gentle guidance, this book encourages the kind of difficult, vulnerable conversations that help us learn about and interact with each other more authentically—and offers tips on how to do so in a way that feels more like everyday dialogue among peers than hostile confrontations among rivals.
While this book is about finding individual answers to these questions, it is also about business and business leadership. Business is a fundamentally human activity, in which people work together to make themselves and each other better off. When business leaders and students ask these probing questions, it leads to more understanding, more collaboration, and better business outcomes. The book is deeply tied to stakeholder theory, which posits that a business succeeds when it serves a wide range of people in its value chain: customers, suppliers, employees, financiers, community members, and more. Considering these questions with members of all these groups enables business leaders to better understand how to serve their stakeholders and find new ways to generate prosperity—not just for investors or owners, but for all involved in the value-creation process of a company.
At once conceptual and down-to-earth, Ultimate Questions inspires reflection and offers tools to better understand ourselves and others, to build the kinds of connection and reciprocity needed to lead in business and to live with authenticity and purpose.
Ultimate Questions is a gentle introduction and call to reflection on some of life’s deepest questions, written in an engaging and open-minded way. It invites students to the examined life without forcing answers upon them. It is a unique synthesis of philosophy, psychology, management theory, and more. This book would serve both as an excellent introduction to ethics in business and a medium for reflection among more senior practitioners or students.- Jason Brennan, Georgetown University, coauthor of Business Ethics for Better Behavior
Ultimate questions are the most important to ask and answer in crafting lives of meaning and purpose, but there are few resources available for faculty, students, or anyone else seeking to do so. Andy Wicks’ book fills this void, and in so doing makes an invaluable and enduring contribution. It also transforms stakeholder theory into a truly relational framework for individuals and organizations. This book fills an important hole in the formation of truly ethical and reflective managers and leaders, and its irenic spirit will stay with readers long afterwards.- Harry Van Buren III, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, coeditor of A Research Agenda for Business and Human Rights
Honed through extensive classroom experience, this book is highly effective in inviting business students to explore ultimate questions, offering multiple insights from philosophy and the social sciences in very accessible ways. It opens students' eyes to the ways they are already personally involved with the questions, while showing how these answers also have implications for the 'we' of a firm and the wider society.- David Cloutier, University of Notre Dame, author of The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age
This book is both novel and important. It demonstrates how the humanities can be both personally and organizationally valuable. Wicks’ idea of asking ultimate questions helps us to create meaning in our lives and in our organizations. Every student of business needs to read this book. Andy Wicks’ unique voice speaks to our hearts and minds at once.- R. Edward Freeman, University of Virginia Darden School of Business, author of Defeating Dengue: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Problem Solving
- ForbesIn a world focused on video, engagement and “likes,” it’s good to pause and ask some deep questions. Who are we and who am I? Why are we here and why am I here? These are some of the questions posed in Ultimate Questions by Darden Professor Andrew Wicks. But there’s poignant added context. Wicks wrote this book as he encountered his own mortality, by facing a neurodegenerative disease that he has been living with for almost a decade. In this lens, Wicks shares the deep questions you can ask yourself to inquire into your own psyche. He also offers case studies from his students about how they addressed these questions so you can see examples of very different approaches. And finally he offers some reflection exercises you can use to guide your own inquiry, including “reflected best self” and “the why exercise” to help you mine for core values. As Wicks says: “We can use these ultimate questions to make sure we are awake and aware, so that we can more fully embrace the odyssey of our journey through life.” That’s the opportunity he calls you into in this book.
Andrew C. Wicks is the Ruffin Professor of Business Administration and the Richard M. Waitzer Bicentennial Professor of Ethics at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Alexander S. Bleiberg is a graduate student at the Institute for Clinical Social Work. John K. Nolan is a graduate student at the University of Aberdeen.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Who Are We and Who Am I?
Chapter 2: Why Are We Here and Why Am I Here?
Chapter 3: What Is the Good Life, and What Is My Good Life?
Chapter 4: How Should I Get Along with Others?
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Guide to Having Hard Conversations
Appendix 2: Resources
Notes
