Breaking Through Gridlock: The Power of Conversation in a Polarized World

Jason Jay

Senior Lecturer and Director of the Sustainability Initiative

MIT Sloan School of Management

Jason Jay is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of the Sustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan.

He teaches courses on leadership, strategy, and innovation for sustainable business. Jason engages students and alumni in hands-on projects with leading companies and organizations. These efforts help build a community of innovators for sustainability that includes MIT students and alumni, faculty and researchers, with partners in business, government, NGOs, and hybrid organizations.

Jason's own research focuses on how people navigate the tensions inherent in the quest for sustainability, as they simultaneously pursue their own self-interest and the flourishing of human and other life. This investigation includes deep case studies of cross-sectoral collaboration and hybrid organizations that combine social and business goals. It also includes action research efforts that help people cultivate authentic, effective conversations about sustainability and escape common pitfalls of excessive moral and intellectual certainty. Energy efficiency has proven a useful context to explore these questions; Jay has conducted an ethnographic study of the Cambridge Energy Alliance, and serves as a research partner and facilitator for the EDF Climate Corps program and its network of companies.

Alongside these efforts, Jason is an active leader of sustainability efforts across MIT. Through the MIT Sustainable Societies Research Group, he brings together scholars from across the Institute to examine the invention, implementation, and transformation required for a sustainable society. He has helped improve the energy and environmental footprint of the MIT campus by founding the MIT Generator and the 'Greening MIT' community engagement campaign, and serves as founding member of the Campus Energy ÔÇ£Walk the TalkÔÇØ Task Force.

Jason Jay's new book, Breaking through Gridlock, (co-authored with Gabriel Grant) has been hailed as "...essential. It challenges us - as advocated, as citizens, as humans - to identify our own motivations and assumptions to create common ground with those we oppose or avoid. It asks us to abandon certainty and righteousness to allow for new and different paths toward our goals. And it give us the tools and inspiration to do so." (Gwen Ruta, Senior Vice President, Climate and Energy, Environmental Defense Fund.)

Jay holds an AB in psychology and a Master's in education from Harvard University, and a PhD in Organization Studies from the MIT Sloan School of Management.