"What is Good Work?" & "Achieving Good Work in Turbulent Times"

In these timely and enlightening lectures, Howard Gardner will discuss the GoodWork Project. This decade long large-scale effort seeks to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify “good work” – labor that is excellent in technical quality, personally engaging, and carried out in an ethical manner. The project has yielded a disturbing picture of the difficulties involved in achieving good work at the start of the 21st century. Gardner will describe initiatives to nurture good work in young people while helping professionals achieve good work in the current professional milieu.

The author of more than twenty books and several hundred articles, Howard Gardner is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences—a critique of the notion that there exists but one human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. Over a decade ago, in collaboration with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon, Gardner embarked on a study of “good work.” The GoodWork Project includes studies of outstanding leaders in several professions—among them journalism, law, science, medicine, theater, and philanthropy—as well as examination of exemplary institutions and organizations.

PRESS COVERAGE: Professor from Harvard to lecture on values | Deseret News