the flexible adaptable workforce: challenges, brain work, and opportunities andy penaluna professor...

THE FLEXIBLE ADAPTABLE WORKFORCE: CHALLENGES, BRAIN WORK, AND OPPORTUNITIES

Andy Penaluna

Professor of Creative Entrepreneurship

#execonf

Einstein famously stated that developing the right questions is considerably harder than answering them!

Opening thought

Some ‘news’ context

A combination of too many students, grade inflation and a stalled economy have created a toxic combination for any new graduate seeking paid graduate jobs…

Plenty of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are “crying out” for skills and struggle to recruit graduates because they are less well-known…

Some ‘news’ context

Personality questionnaires and group exercises at selection centres are also used to assess how well-rounded a candidate is, giving applicants the chance to show off “softer” skills beyond academic achievements, such as team-working, communication and presenting skills.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9375897/Graduate-jobs-Do-graduates-need-a-first-class-degree-to-get-a-good-job.html

Research and research-led thinking

Thinking lenses

The implications of curricular intervention

Policies and guidance

Employability in an enterprise context

What is education about?

So if we started again, with a school of employability and enterprise, what would that look like?

Liberal? Self Reasoned? Rounded?

Or limited to a singular career focus?Hughes, T., (1885)"What is a Liberal Education?," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. X, January/October. Philadelphia: Hardy and Mahoney

http://archive.org/stream/americancatholi04unkngoog#page/n36/mode/2up



A Framework to underpin our thinking

• Sector specific•Unemployable

• adaptable• Sector flexible

Good Value

High Value

Limited Value

No Value

Replaceable?

Do the maths?

Employability Enterprise and Entrepreneurship minusInnovation and Creativity = ?

Simple academic achievement?

(Is business a more complex environment?)

Now more than ever we need innovation, new solutions, creative approaches and new ways of operating. We are in uncharted territory and need people in all sectors and at all ages who can “think out of the box” to identify and pursue opportunities in new and paradigm-changing ways.

The context

The bigger picture?

We are in a three act drama - 150 years so far in the industrial age.

1 – Industrial, needs physically strong and dependable people

2 – Information, knowledge is power and he or she who ‘knows’ more will get on

3 – Conceptual, knowledge is available easily – how can we make sense of it?Pink, D. (2008), A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. London: Marshall Cavendish.

Is an Avalanche coming?

“Michael and his wife were trying to recall the names of the three Karamazov brothers. Needless to say, within minutes they had resorted to Google – much easier than getting the book itself from the next-door room. What was striking for Michael, though, was the immediate access not just to the names, but also to a series of considered, thoughtful academic commentaries on the book.”

Barber, M., Donnelly, K. & Rizvi, S. (2013) AN AVALANCHE IS COMING: Higher education and the revolution ahead. London: Institute for Public Policy Research p16

Investment

Ideas assessment gate

Development gate

Test gate

Launch

Innovation gates (based on Toyota)

Capture and profit

IdeaIdea

IdeaIdea

Idea

Idea

Idea

Idea

Idea

Cost Pyramid

Investment in ideas =cheap

Is a Creativity Avalanche coming too?

Research indicates a significant drop in creative thinking scores in US schools. According to Kim there is a creativity crisis. Using the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), and a sample of 272,599 pupils (kindergarten to fourth grade), Kim evidences ‘Decreased Creative Thinking in the Past 20 Years’, noting that ‘the decline is steady and persistent’.

Kim, K. H. (2011), ‘The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Score on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking’ Creativity Research Journal, 23 (4), 285-295.

Is a Creativity Avalanche coming too?

Why do we assess our students?

Getting clear on a few things – if it is in the curriculum…

What do we assess and how?

What’s missing?

Who is this?

Innovation Recognition?

How did you know??

It depends on somatic markers and the limens in your synapses

… or how ‘pre prepared’ you were for discovery

What is that knowledge worth to the company?

Innovation Value?

In the UK alone…

£60,000,000

Bisociation

…can be a puzzle, until you ‘get it’!

KILLS BUGS FAST

Image Courtesy of Google Campus

Logical

ClearManageableSequentially valid

(Reductionist - to make sense of complexity)

UnclearComplex

(until patterns emerge and links are made)

Thinking about thinking…

National Enterprise Context?

Enterprise education requires educators to have the ability to develop their student’s creativity, innovation, problem solving and business acumen in addition to developing attributes like the capacity to cope with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk. While many of these are felt to be generic employability skills and attributes; enterprise education applies and develops these in situations and contexts that can lead to the students developing their individual entrepreneurial capabilities.

Enterprise Educators UK manifesto for the new government of the UK

Key observations?

Gerald Zaltman, a professor at Harvard Business School, is also a Fellow of the University’s Interdisciplinary Mind, Brain, Behaviour Initiative… artificial categorizations between disciplines “do not reflect how people actually live their lives”…“the most promising knowledge frontiers typically exist at the boundaries between fields rather than at the fields’ respective cores” (Zaltman, 2003, xii).

Enterprise - key observations?

(In Europe in 2011) “an estimated 150,000 companies with 600,000 jobs may be lost each year.”

'Business Dynamics: Start-ups, Business Transfers and Bankruptcy' (2011) http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/business-environment/files/business_dynamics_final_report_en.pdf


Narrow definitions of employability as skills… relate to the ‘gap’ between employers expectations and what they perceive as ‘receiving’ from the performance of graduates beginning work. Although the skills identified in these ‘gaps’ lists have tended to remain relatively constant in recent years, this is not a useful measure around which to define curriculum intervention.

Pegg, A., Waldock, J., Hendy-Isaac, S., Lawton, R. (2012) Pedagogy for Employability. York: Higher Education Academy


“In the current economic crisis, new and young enterprises represent a key ingredient in creating a job-rich recovery in Europe.”

‘Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe’ (2012)COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEANPARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONSENTREPRENEURSHIP 2020 ACTION PLAN


2.2. …and new frontiers: higher education for entrepreneurshipThe role of higher education in entrepreneurship goes far beyond the delivery of knowledge toparticipating in ecosystems, partnerships and industrial alliances.

‘Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe’ (2012)COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEANPARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONSENTREPRENEURSHIP 2020 ACTION PLAN

I add a further caution in the context of development of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in our universities. UK universities have the highest international reputation for quality... Assessment approaches in universities focus upon known schedules and requirements, published in a student handbook. That is an underpinning foundation of our quality system. Yet in an enterprise skills context, this is not a realistic environment…

Wilson said…

Enterprise skills require responsiveness to unexpected pressures and tasks; they require reaction to changing circumstances and disruptive interventions. These attributes are contrary to the established framework of assessment processes. Enterprise skills do not presently lend themselves to formal assessment methods. University Business Review – Sir Tim Wilson pp50-51

We cannot use logical ‘implication’ types of assessment for ‘innovation’ in the curriculum – we need two I’s

Assessment types?

Innovation – for example multiple solution generation, breadth of solution generation, challenging norms, flexible response development etc.

Implementation – for example business and marketing strategies, finance generation, sustainability, ethics and legal considerations etc.

Convergent thinking or Divergent thinking?

Consider the concept of ‘glorious failures’… “a form of assessment where the learning is rewarded if the process is correct, even if the outcome is lacking”

Penaluna, A and K Penaluna (2009) ‘Assessing creativity: drawing from the experience of the UK’s creative design educators’, Education + Training, 51 (8/9) 718-732.

Assessment types?

Brain functionality / cortex’sKey point – Developing synapse potential through learning

Left Cortex Right Cortex

Micro molecular structure images courtesy of Mark Jung Beeman and John Kounios, Mid Western and Drexel Universities

Detail of Pyramid neuron from the amygdala / hippocampus

= ‘Aha’

© Penaluna & Penaluna 2009 / 2010

Multiple ideas and flexible thought enables contextual decision making

Evolved model for QAA / UN(Incorporating divergent production)

Thoughtful and conscious Subconscious

‘Are You Ready’ at Heatheringthorpe Primary?

If only I knew then what I know now?

Are the Enterprise and Employability agendas merging I wonder?

If most employment opportunities are in SME’s, what skills are required?

Technical skills and subject

expertise

Business

acumen

and

strategy

Enterprising mind

With personal motivation there is energy, with energy there is resilience,

with resilience, success is likely...

Creativity, innovation and opportunity

recognition are key intrinsic motivational

drivers, they are central to the

enterprising mindset

© A Penaluna, 2012

Entrepreneurship education in higher education makes a difference. It has impact on intention, competence and employability and generally benefits society and the economy. The (EU) report underlines the importance of developing effective educational capacity across all disciplines.

European Commission (2012) Effects and Impact of Entrepreneurship Programmes in Higher Education, Directorate-general for Enterprise and Industry/European Commission. Brussels

What’s the evidence?

Key researcher / educator thinking

“Ability to challenge assumptions, recognise patterns, see in new ways, make connections, take risks and seize upon chance”

Vidal, R.V.V. (2004), ‘Creativity for operational researchers, informatics andmathematical modelling’, Technical University of Denmark.

Awareness, Mind and Capability = Effectiveness

Application (where?)

Enterprising Angels © A Penaluna, 2010

Intrapreneur The ‘cornerstone employee’

Portfolio career

‘multip

le jobs =

multiple

opportunitie

s’

Enterprising mind

EntrepreneurThe ‘business developer and

enhancer’

Social entrepreneur‘The society

developer and enhancer’

Overall aim - learning to learn; they use harvested knowledge to societal and economic advantage

The QAA (and Vitae) guidance is not specific to any particular degree programme or subject specialism, but is instead intended to help academics, educators and practitioners who are seeking to embed enterprise and entrepreneurship across the curriculum


(Students) “will need to be self-motivated, active agents prepared to take responsibility for their own learning and skill development. They will need to understand how to create value to receive value and act as the entrepreneur of their own career…”



“…people need to have ‘an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so that even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. ”



“The other implication for entrepreneurs is the need to reflect on education research and best practices that are already apparent and identified. They don’t have to ground their thinking in traditionalism – in fact the most innovative solutions might come from defying conventions altogether.”


Summary of findings

Predictable / Orthodox teaching and learning habits are ineffective in preparing university graduates for our post-millennial society, where supply and demand is neither linear nor stable, where new combinations of ‘creative’ skills and abilities are increasingly in demand.

McWilliam, E. (2008), ‘Unlearning how to teach’, Innovations in Education andTeaching International, 45 (3), 263–9.

Overall conclusion

“Leadership that understands these imperatives is critical to successful innovation”

Patterson, F. and M. Kerrin (2009), Innovation for the Recovery: EnhancingInnovative Working Practices, London: CMI/National Endowment for Science,Technology and the Arts.

With reference to:

2011 Reunion of my very first students

The Flexible Adaptable Workforce: Challenges, Brain Work, and Opportunities

the flexible adaptable workforce: challenges, brain work, and opportunities andy penaluna professor...

Documents

execonf slide

mahoney slide

thought slide

enterprise context slide

well known slide

new graduate

thinking thinking

new solutions