Giving an A

Most people recognize that the main function of grades is to compare one student against another, not to provide any real indication of a student's performance or progress. What would happen, though, if we embraced Michelangelo's famous assertion that inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within?

If we applied this visionary concept, it would be pointless to compare one student to another. Instead, all the energy would be focused on chipping away at the stone, getting rid of whatever is in the way of a person's developing skills, mastery, and self-expression.

In this chapter, Rosamund and Ben Zander encourage the practice of "giving an A"--of moving away from a place of measuring how a person stacks up against external standards and towards a place of respect that gives that person room to imagine new possibilities and realize themselves. They recount stories that reveal how an "A" radiates possibility through a family, a workplace, and a community, bringing joy and expression and a flowering of talent and productivity.

This chapter was originally published as Chapter 3 of "The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life."