I’m ed. Nice to meet you.
Edward D. Hess is Professor Emeritus of Business Administration, Batten Fellow and Batten Executive-in-Residence Emeritus at the Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, and the author of Hyper-Learning: How to Adapt to the Speed of Change,” which was published by Berrett-Koehler in August 2020. Professor Hess spent twenty years in the business world as a Senior Executive and has spent the last 18 years in academia. He is the author of 13 books and over 140 articles and 60 Darden Case studies. His work has appeared in over 400 global media outlets including Fortune magazine, European Business Review, HBR, SHRM, Fast Company, WIRED, Forbes, INC., Huffington Post, Washington Post, Business Week, the Financial Times, CNBC Squawk Box, Fox Business News with Maria Bartiroma, Big Think, WSJ Radio, Bloomberg Radio with Kathleen Hayes, Dow Jones Radio, MSNBC Radio, Business Insider, and Wharton Radio. His recent books and research has focused on “Human Excellence in the Digital Age: A New Way of Being; A New Way of Working; Humanizing the Workplace; and Hyper-Learning”. See more in Ed’s complete CV.
Welcome
Thank you for your interest in my work. Please allow me to give you some background about my journey to Hyper-Learning. From an early age, I have had to continuously adapt and learn how to venture into the “new and different” and figure out how to learn. Many of those opportunities were given to me by “Others” – mentors, teachers and coaches. My journey was punctuated mid-life by a huge “wake-up” call which I will share with you that required me to pursue a new way of being and a new way of working.
My story is a story of a person who took non-traditional paths. Paths that were not planned but came about because “others” gave me opportunities that turned out to be transforming. My work life that has been characterized by moving back and forth between the business world and the science of psychology and ultimately combining them over the last 18 years in academia.
If I have developed an expertise at all, it is the ability to go into the unknown and figure things out and to have the courage to try. I was trained professionally to be a lawyer but I have had four very different careers. I was able to make those transitions because I was able to adapt and learn, unlearn and relearn – which is Hyper-Learning.
So, please allow me to share some highlights of my journey with you. I believe it will help you understand that the content of this book is just not sharing with you scientific research. It is that and more – me sharing how I know the science can work. If you’re interested, the following parts are stories about my journey.