Lviv Business School of UCU

It blended in the overall university's philosophy very organically, in the philosophy according to which knowledge, its quality and level, are important, but a moral backbone, worldview, and certain values are equally important. And the intuition of the few first businessmen who approached us in the first year of the School's operation in order to study paid off. Abilities, skills, knowledge are not some kind of a unique point of differentiation because many people can speak adequately or teach business subjects. We understand that behind every business, there is a certain dream, a willingness to sacrifice something for its sake. Business is, after all, a relationship with people. The "products" of business (what we usually call them) are in fact the elements of the space of human relations, and your success as a businessman and the success of your product largely depend on your personal motivation and your desire to serve others. Business has its depth, and it is not just a one-dimensional slide along the financial axis. If the business is one of the ways of the implementation of human creativity and the human vocation for serving others, then we inevitably find ourselves in a context created by the topic of human dignity. The key elements of the school's atmosphere include respect for others and understanding of the fact that the most important and the deepest things happen to a person when their heart is touched. Such a "pedagogy of the heart" is a significant challenge. It would be much easier to make an "educational conveyor line". You can try to shape the brand as you desire, but if it is not backed up by the values which the brand declares, nothing will work out in the long run. The basis of the LvBS brand is primarily graduates of masters programs and various other School programs. Their attitude and signification are the most important things, and they become the main channel of influence and promotion of the school's brand. Perhaps it is not the fastest channel, but it is a very reliable one, and it is through it that the LvBS communicates its ethos and values. Thanks to the business school, many businessmen came to the UCU for the first time and asked themselves what modern education is, what a university in the century is, and what contribution we can make here and now in Ukraine for the global context. Thanks to the business school, we, as a university, have become one of the stakeholders in the dimension of business education, business communications, and business environment. Many topics and discourses that the Lviv Business School managed to launch and cultivate over the past ten years proved to be very conspicuous and engaging for many people in Ukraine and abroad. You can try to shape the brand as you desire, but if it is not backed up by the values which the brand declares, nothing will work out in the long run. The basis of the LvBS brand is primarily graduates of masters programs and various other School programs. With regard to plans, today's mission of the LvBS is as follows: Ukraine on the business map of the world. What will this mission look like in the long run, say, in 5-10 years, in your opinion? One of our important tasks, which is often emphasized by metropolitan Borys, the president of UCU, is to rethink the ideas and vocations of the university in the century. This is a mega-ambitious task. Even on the scale of Lviv, with a barely one percent of all Lviv students, UCU remains a small university, and, after all, we do not set ourselves an objective to have, say, 10% or 15% of all Lviv students on our campus. We get our public capital not from our numbers, but from the scale of our thinking and the courage of decent attitude and faith. Therefore, the business school should ask itself, what do business education and business mean in the century? I think that a business school can be one of the global centers where this thinking is put in practice together with international experts, businessmen, public leaders, politicians, and the young generation, to which we pass the responsibility for the century. I would also like to remind that ethics and technology will be one of the important topics. I am convinced that the Lviv Business School of UCU will be more and more focused on ethics in the coming years. Speaking globally, I think that the main challenge facing people in the world, in which robots that receive citizenship already appear, the number of which (with or without citizenship) will be increasing, will be to preserve and deepen the authenticity of human existence. We must find a way to dive deeper and deeper into the sources of our humanity. We have two scenarios: on the one hand, we can try to compete with robots that are our own creations, and try to become almost the same as they are, by channeling our humanity into the paradigm of artificial intelligence. But I think that this option is definitely a losing one: we will never become better robots than the machines we have created. This is at least because of the fact that what determines our way of life is the relationship and being-in-relation to others, as opposed to connectivity and data transfer, which determine the format of interaction in case of our "digital friends". Instead, I suggest another scenario which will involve people becoming even more Human, using all that potential of humanity given to them by God. LvBS is in fact an authentic place where sincere and independent people speak openly and knowledgeably about important and global things. And LvBS would also have to be mentioned here. What is the specifics of "becoming a person" in the century? Where are the sources of humanity that we have not yet discovered or have not learned how to use? What do these questions mean, in particular, when it comes to business and leadership in the business of the new era? One of the American intellectuals, Thomas Friedman, analyzing the evolution of the labor market, accurately noted that its developmental dynamics is described by three H (Hands, Head, Heart). Our labor market originally consisted of professions which primarily required the ability to work by hand, then the work requiring "head" and "intelligence" came to the fore, and now we are entering the phase of the "heart", which becomes the point of gravity around which the labor market of the XXI century is formed. Therefore, people must also descend to the depths of their humanity. A "Heart" becomes a point of differentiation of a person in the context of the technologized and "artificially intellectualized" world they have created, and which they must nevertheless master, taking responsibility for it. If we want to be in the forefront of the processes where the future is created, the Lviv Business School of UCU must be engaged together with its experience, resources, attitude and potential, its energy, and humanity of relationships. Then the business - and not only the one from Ukraine - will want to join and become the School's partner. Because LvBS is, in fact, an authentic place where sincere and independent people speak openly and knowledgeable about important and global things. There is no need to pursue trends, let's work in such a way that trends are born in the Lviv Business School of UCU. Prepared by Olena Yankovska. Photo by Bogdan Yemets