So if you want to know what the story is with the mystery of successful business investment in education, IBM’s Stan Litow is your man. As a product of the New York City public schools, an education activist, a former deputy chancellor of New York’s school system and IBM’s vice president for corporate citizenship and corporate affairs and president of the IBM International Foundation – the point man in its efforts to improve education – Litow has lived this saga on both sides.

From his unique perspective, Litow recognizes that at a time when business may be more concerned than ever with the condition of education in the United States, it will take an uncommon approach to effectively address problems with an institution like no other. This approach must marshal the resources and expertise of every sector of society.

A crushing economic crisis is threatening business and society while every aspect of both is becoming integrated on a global scale. Simultaneously, American students are losing ground academically, posing a threat to the competitiveness of their nation and its businesses. The question is not whether business should be involved in bringing about change in American education, but how. Unfortunately, past experiences of many companies with education efforts are marked by frustration and failure.

Litow acknowledges that education “is a very difficult enterprise,” and while there have been successes with model programs and some great schools, they don’t come to scale. Why?

“Because there are a variety of entrenched, difficult, thorny issues, structural problems that inhibit them,” says Litow. Ideas such as introducing unconventional people into school management and teaching are put out there but they don’t really take off because of barriers in the system. “It’s not going to happen at scale,” Litow says, “unless somebody understands why it hasn’t happened before.”

Litow points to the “structural impediments” of a 20^th century institution operating in the 21^st century. The consolidation that has brought 20 to 30 percent in cost savings to the private sector in the past 15 years hasn’t arrived in an institution where 16,000 school districts spend $55 billion on operations and management alone. “It’s an outmoded institution,” remarks Litow. “Why is a school run in the exact same way that it was run in 1925?”

But Litow stresses that business can’t merely charge to the rescue with solutions. There’s more required to create significant, lasting change. “You can’t change something you don’t understand.”

Litow notes that when you look at business management consultants, the best are those who understand the organization they are being asked to change. “You don’t bring in consultants who’ve never worked in that industry before and expect success.” It’s no different with K-12 education, which is “complex, difficult, expensive and high stakes.” To succeed you must devote time and effort to learn how it operates, looking at every issue from the length of the school day to teacher seniority and how those teachers are educated.

And Litow explains that it’s not about finding and knowing “best practices,” which can be dismissed as irrelevant because they came from somewhere “different.” It’s about understanding why reform efforts designed to improve schools failed or did not come to scale. Was it because of costs, labor issues, politics, management or governance? Don’t expect it to be that easy.

“It’s not one of these issues,” Litow says, “There are no silver bullets.”

On the bright side, Litow sees a platform for change today perhaps like none before. The economic downturn and increased competition and performance in places such as China and India are powerful incentives alone. But they are coupled with incredible opportunity and energy provided by a new White House administration that is making education important, doubling expenditure on K-12 education and creating a $5 billion innovation fund.

Litow emphasizes, however, that business must see its role is not about “writing checks.” The key to success, Litow says, is “really figuring out who has to be together to figure out what didn’t work, and who has to come together to figure out what would, in a way that would inform not just the business community but inform the public about what we could do to improve education.”

This means bringing together academics, politicians, unions, higher education, nonprofits and business. Business needs to be represented, Litow reminds, because long after individual politicians are gone, business will be around with its resources, ideas, expertise, political capital and leadership.

This collaborative approach – the kind envisioned by the Boston College Center as an Uncommon Table – requires an environment that is safe and inviting for all. Litow explains that since business always weighs what could go wrong, “if you want them involved in something as messy and as difficult as K-12, you have to provide a safer way to be involved and increase the likelihood of success.”

On the other hand, he comments, you don’t want business to come in “throwing hand grenades.” Litow describes as “empty rhetoric” the notion of “just wipe it all out.” Educators, too, must feel invited, respected and engaged in a collaborative effort.

Litow hopes that an Uncommon Table can bring a greater level of understanding and promote more partnership across all sectors, leading to broader consensus around what needs to happen and helping to create community. He sees emerging leadership on education as the real purpose of the discussions and “the one single, most important thing that’s needed. Without it, systemic strategies to improve teaching and learning will simply not reach scale.”

Collaboration and leadership alone won’t address the problems of education and there is no one-and-done solution to be delivered, Litow cautions. “You can’t invent something like it’s the Ten Commandments and that it will exist forever.” Things will get better, he says, but the key is to stick with it and do the hard work required to continually assess, improve and monitor.

While the road ahead may be long and winding, Litow has no doubt about the starting point: “I don’t know how you get to the hard work unless you get the right people around the table to at least begin.”