THE FLEXIBLE ADAPTABLE WORKFORCE:
CHALLENGES, BRAIN WORK, AND
OPPORTUNITIES
Andy Penaluna
Professor of Creative Entrepreneurship
#execonf
Opening thought
Einstein famously stated that developing
the right questions is considerably harder
than answering them!
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 wellknown…
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/Graduatejobs-Do-graduates-need-a-first-class-degree-to-get-a-good-job.html
Thinking lenses
Research and research-led thinking
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
A Framework to underpin our thinking
• Sector
flexible
• adaptable
Good
Value
High
Value
No
Value
Limited
Value
Replaceable?
•Unemployable
• Sector specific
Do the maths?
Employability Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship minus
Innovation and Creativity = ?
Simple academic
achievement?
(Is business a more complex
environment?)
The context
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 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
Innovation gates (based on Toyota)
Idea
Investment
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Investment in
ideas =cheap
Idea
Ideas assessment
gate
Idea
Idea
Development
gate
Test gate
Idea
Launch
Capture and profit
Cost
Pyramid
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?
Getting clear on a few things – if it is in
the curriculum…
Why do we assess our students?
What do we assess and how?
What’s missing?
Innovation Recognition?
Who is this?
How did you know??
It depends on somatic markers and the limens in
your synapses
… or how ‘pre prepared’ you were for discovery
Innovation Value?
What is that knowledge
worth to the company?
In the UK alone…
£60,000,000
Bisociation
…can be a puzzle, until you ‘get it’!
KILLS BUGS FAST
Thinking about thinking…
Logical
Unclear
Complex
(until patterns emerge
and links are made)
Clear
Manageable
Sequentially valid
(Reductionist - to make
sense of complexity)
Image Courtesy of Google Campus
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/businessenvironment/files/business_dynamics_final_report_en.pdf
Enterprise - key observations?
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
Enterprise - key observations?
“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 EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND
SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
ENTREPRENEURSHIP 2020 ACTION PLAN
Enterprise - key observations?
2.2. …and new frontiers: higher
education for entrepreneurship
The role of higher education in
entrepreneurship goes far beyond the
delivery of knowledge to
participating in ecosystems, partnerships
and industrial alliances.
‘Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe’ (2012)
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND
SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
ENTREPRENEURSHIP 2020 ACTION PLAN
Wilson said…
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…
Assessment types?
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
Convergent thinking or Divergent thinking?
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.
Assessment types?
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.
Brain functionality / cortex’s
Key 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
Evolved model for QAA / UN
Thoughtful and
conscious Subconscious
(Incorporating divergent production)
= ‘Aha’
Multiple ideas and flexible thought
enables contextual decision making
© Penaluna & Penaluna 2009 / 2010
‘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?
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
What’s the evidence?
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
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 and
mathematical modelling’, Technical University of Denmark.
Awareness, Mind and Capability = Effectiveness
Application (where?)
Enterprising
mind
Entrepreneur
The ‘business
developer and
enhancer’
Social
entrepreneur
‘The society
developer and
enhancer’
Enterprising Angels © A Penaluna, 2010
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
Is an Avalanche coming?
(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…”
Barber, M., Donnelly, K. & Rizvi, S. (2013) AN AVALANCHE IS COMING:
Higher education and the revolution ahead. London: Institute for Public Policy
Research p65
Is an Avalanche coming?
“…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. ”
Barber, M., Donnelly, K. & Rizvi, S. (2013) AN AVALANCHE IS COMING:
Higher education and the revolution ahead. London: Institute for Public Policy
Research p65
Is an Avalanche coming?
“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.”
Barber, M., Donnelly, K. & Rizvi, S. (2013) AN AVALANCHE IS COMING:
Higher education and the revolution ahead. London: Institute for Public Policy
Research p65
Summary of findings
Predictable / Orthodox teaching and learning habits are
ineffective in preparing university graduates for our postmillennial 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 and
Teaching 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: Enhancing
Innovative 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