Tag Archives: education

Closing the Opportunity Divide … one person at a time

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Francilia Jones, my Year Up mentee

Francilia Jones, my Year Up mentee

Watching your child succeed at something important in life tends brings that choked up feeling – pride swells your chest and you blink away a tear or two. Well, Francilia Jones is not my child, but I’ve mentored Francilia over the past year, and I felt all those same emotions as I watched her give her graduation speech at this year’s Year Up graduation ceremony.

Year Up is an organization that empowers urban, low-income young adults to go from poverty to professional careers in a single year. As a mentor at Year Up in Boston, every year I’m amazed at the transformation of these young adults. They come to the program with talent and motivation – but, unfortunately, lack skills, experience, and opportunities. However, with the help of Year Up, these young people can gain six months of professional training in IT, Finance, or Customer Service, a six month corporate internship with a respected company, and up to 24 college credits – all in the course of one year.

The program’s success rate is impressive; 85% of Year Up graduates are employed or attending college full-time within four months of completing the program. Those employed earn an average starting salary of $16 per hour – $32,000 per year for salaried employees.

In Francilia’s case, her family was supportive and she was accepted into her dream school, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. However, a family illness and other misfortune meant that she could not afford to attend the school. She tried working to save money to do it on her own – and one day, Year Up’s Director of Student Services for Boston, Rob Fladger, entered the branch of the bank where she was working and told her she looked miserable. He told her about Year Up and she even attended an information session.

However, Francilia still wanted to do this on her own and tried attending college for one semester while working 70 hours per week. Needless to say, that didn’t work out. She still had Rob’s card and gave him a call. By joining the Year Up program, Francilia completed an internship at Harvard University and gained a passion for technology. She now hopes to attend community college and then gain her bachelor’s degree in computer science. She is also looking to work part-time to fulfill her goals. In the entrepreneurship program I help to lead at MIT we call it “escape velocity” and Francilia is on her way, but finding a job still is not easy.

In her graduation speech Francilia states, “I always knew that I could be more than by current situation. I always knew I could be better than my struggles.”  I couldn’t agree more.

I believe this really summarizes the Year Up program, and how it helps bright, motivated young people overcome their current situations. Year Up calls this the “Opportunity Divide” – millions of young adults in the U.S. have talent and motivation, but lack opportunity. They estimate that 6 million bright young people are without access to opportunities to connect to the economic mainstream. Meanwhile, over the next decade, American companies will face a shortage of over 14 million qualified workers. Year Up’s mission is to close the Opportunity Divide.

I wanted to share this experience because being a mentor is one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve done. It puts your personal issues into check, and you just feel good helping to guide someone who is so motivated to succeed. Year Up is always looking for more mentors, so I encourage others to share their time and talents and learn what it takes to become a mentor for Year Up – they have locations in many cities throughout the U.S.

Plus, I’d also like to put a shout out to my network – Francilia is looking for her next job opportunity, preferably in the technology space. Any interest in hiring a hard-working “go-getter”? Please let me know and I will make the connection.

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Are you a Disciplined Entrepreneur?

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Picture1_croppedAs some of my loyal blog readers know, I’ve recently started a new position as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.

I’m thrilled to have joined this incredible program at MIT, and have met some wonderful people, including the Center’s Managing Director Bill Aulet. Bill is also the author of a book called “Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup.” I’ve enjoyed reading it and thought I would share some of the highlights.

In my mind, “disciplined” and “entrepreneur” – are two words that are seemingly in juxtaposition. Most of us think of entrepreneurs as brilliant people with lots of ideas flying around in their heads and innate entrepreneurial talent. We think that they get lucky – or, are at the right place at the right time – when they actually launch a business based on one of these ideas.

In his book, Bill asserts that entrepreneurship can be taught, and that intelligent, hardworking people can become successful entrepreneurs by following a systematic, disciplined approach to starting a new company.

The book is structured around six themes, and the 24 steps mentioned in the title each fall into one of these themes:

  • Who is your customer?
  • What can you do for your customer?
  • How does your customer acquire your product?
  • How do you make money off your product?
  • How do you design and build your product?
  • How do you scale your business?

Bill points out that while following the sequential steps, entrepreneurs will undoubtedly learn new information that will take you back to revise what you’ve done in previous steps. The graphic showing the steps is a wonderful curvy path with “go back” arrows reminiscent of the game Candy Land. This shows me that that wacky, yet brilliant entrepreneur is in there somewhere! Yet, I love that the steps give structure to the process of launching your own business.

I also really embrace the idea Bill sets forth in his book that “ideas mean nothing without execution.” If there was one nugget of advice that I would share with entrepreneurs, this would be it.

As an entrepreneur myself, I value the examples in every chapter, drawn from projects that Bill has worked on with MIT students. Bill uses these real-life examples to guides those with ideas, new technologies, or passion into channeling that energy into a viable business.

At MIT, I am currently taking 14 student-founder teams through the disciplined entrepreneur process in a program called Global Founders Skills Accelerator (GFSA) … I will let you know how it goes!

Does our Education System Benefit from Data-driven Decision Making?

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THE Journal cover story on

THE Journal cover story on “The Power of Small Data”

Big data is everywhere. You may not expect it to impact how decisions are made in a kindergarten classroom, but big data and analytics are becoming more deeply engrained in the education system – even at the youngest grade levels

A recent article in THE Journal on “The Power of Small Data” asserts that in order to deliver personalized education, districts have to gather and share students’ statistics. The article goes on to explain how the strategic use of data can boost teaching and learning.

The author was kind enough to reach out to me to provide some context for this article. My dissertation for my doctorate in work-based learning at the University of Pennsylvania focused on “Analytics by Degree: The Dilemmas of Big Data Analytics in Lasting University/Corporate Partnerships.” I was able to share my insights in higher education, and also discuss how big data has a major impact on school systems at every level.

Here are some excerpts from the article, along with some of my additional thoughts and research on the topic:

I am seeing a renaissance in data collection in the education field, supported by new tools and technologies. “Recent technologies like big data, the Internet of Things, mobile apps and improved storage have made it possible to acquire, combine, store, analyze, interpret and report findings during any phase of data management.”

“The data repositories residing in disconnected, fragmented departments with little sharing have now been transformed into centralized, interrelated data systems to enable fast and efficient retrieval of interrelated data for quick and informed decision-making.”

However, leadership, based solely on data, will not be successful. Educational systems need to involve key players in the community, particularly the educators themselves, to listen and ascertain what is needed most.

As the article points out, analytics can have many positive uses in the school system, including:

  • Instant Feedback for Students and Parents
  • Formative Assessments that Help Students Grow
  • Using Data to Connect people

However, sadly sometimes educators are spending so much time gathering data (and posting it) that there is little time for instruction. We need to think of how technology, data collection and the onus on high test scores impacts our next generation.

“Data is not the problem. The problem is getting the data to the right people so it can be used…. Data only tells part of the story, and a lot of it is basic so it doesn’t provide the insights that teachers and schools need to pinpoint teaching and learning problems and identify the best ways to solve them.”

We need to ensure that the educators are involved in determining what is needed in terms of useful data, and that a balance is achieved between gathering and analyzing data and effectively teaching our students.

I encourage you to read the full article to learn more.

Colleges and T-Shaped Training: Build it and They Will Learn?

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Though the idea of T-shaped management is gaining traction on American campuses, there are some important roadblocks along the way. Some of those roadblocks are ivy covered. In some ways, the relationship between colleges and major tech corporations is beginning to look a bit like ju jitsu. Ju jitsu, roughly translated, means that when you get pushed, pull, and when you get pulled, push.

fieldofdreamscorn-400In principle, most business colleges clearly want better partnerships with major corporations. Most colleges accept the importance of using business analytics, T-shaping their students, and embrace change when it comes to education, at least in concept. In reality, however, change seems to move at a glacial pace in the halls of higher learning.

In 2011, the president of New York University observed that monumental change in America was something “people love to talk about,” while also referring to universities as islands of stability in that sea of change: “(W)e should not lose sight of the fact that, of the 80 institutions that existed 500 years ago and still do, 75 are universities.”

And while NYU’s president praised university longevity, he also said that academia continued to do some things badly, in the same old way, over and over again. Specifically, he noted universities still hadn’t come to grips with T-shaping their learning: “One thing the proprietary institutions do that is not a good thing is delivering an ‘I-shaped’ education (depth in one area) as opposed to a ‘T-shaped’ education (broad learning, with depth in one area).”

Academic resistance to T-shaped training often seems to be over matters of control, and fears about giving it up. It is true that the enormous potential influence of corporate technology giants, who are donating massive sums of money and expecting nothing less than drastic changes in what universities teach, cannot be overlooked.

The “Gates Effect”

While Bill and Melinda Gates are not the only major influence on university reforms, they are big enough to have a gravitational effect. In the context of their almost $500 million in donations to universities, this is to be expected. In a July, 2013 article, The Chronicle of Higher Education (which has also received Gates Foundation support) noted that the bulk of these donations (over $300 million) have come in since 2008. That’s a lot of money. And a lot of influence.

One example of how the Gates Effect is transforming the future of college education is seen in a sprawling ConAgra plant in Troy, Ohio. Employees there are participating in an Gates-funded program that awards college credits — not for conventional course work — but for mastering “core competencies.”

Working through the University of Southern New Hampshire and taking online course work, students are assessed in such areas as “logic, reasoning, and analysis,” which help the student solve real-world business problems.

Everyone seems to like the potential of this approach: except for entrenched college executives.

“Build it and they will learn”

In the movie Field of Dreams, the apparently crazy idea of turning a cornfield into a baseball field is justified based on the mantra, “Build it, and they will come.” The threat to American competitiveness, in terms of highly desirable T-shaped employee skills, is that there is a whole lot of T-building going on — elsewhere in the world. Until recently, Poland’s national education system was widely perceived as falling apart, regarded as suitable only for low-trained, low-tech, and low-paying jobs. This view changed with the successful adoption of innovative T-shaped education strategies there.

Interestingly enough, critics of the Gates approach have claimed the Gates Foundation is approaching the “problem” as something that “engineering” can measure (through technical algorithms) and fix . Yet the Gates Foundation seems to be hewing very closely to the Polish model of making T-shaped students. We know through example that it works. Confusing the necessity for a better, T-shaped core curriculum with the need to accurately measure that curriculum is confusing cause and effect.

The lesson for America from Poland is the benefit of every college developing a core curriculum that leverages that specific institution’s unique offerings in such a way to develop T-shaped skills. The shift from a traditional, “I” shaped curriculum to a T-shaped one is very much in evidence in what the Gates Foundation has done with the Southern University of New Hampshire. Whether crossing that “I” to get a “T” will happen in the next decade or not may rest on the influence of a new era of outside-the-box, dotcom entrepreneurs. Will it be enough for the U.S. to compete globally? Or will it be too little, too late? We shall see.

10 Ways T-Shaped Training Is Affecting American Industry Right Now

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The year 2020 is now just six years away. Perhaps because it’s such a nice, round number, predictions for 2020 are building steam. What will businesses look like then?

letter-t-monogram-hi

The view from 2014 suggests that the workforce will be more T-shaped than ever. T-shaped employees, as you may recall, have a specific area of deep knowledge (the vertical line of the T) along with a broader understanding of a range of areas, as well as “soft skills” like emotional intelligence (the horizontal line) that they can connect to their specialty.

Support for this point of view comes from a Palo Alto think tank, Institute for the Future (IFTF). Their research seems to place the lion’s share of responsibility for the T-shaped trend on the aging American workforce: “As extended life spans promote multiple careers and exposure to more industries and disciplines, it will be particularly important for workers to develop this T-shaped quality.” The report coincides with related developments that are underway right now — from the transformation of traditional learning methods to challenges to the traditional top-down leadership style — that are paving the way toward a T-shaped future. With that in mind, here are ten ways T-shaped training is affecting American industry right now.

1. Professional education is being revolutionized, but without specific leadership

Not every revolution has an acknowledged leader. Still, it is something of an irony that T-shaped skills, which are sure to be a critical force for management in coming years, seems to be developing randomly and organically, without any clearly ascertainable paradigm or process. Bill Gates was met with the derision of academics when he proposed to overhaul the methods used to teach analytics and big data skills. The reflexive, almost defensive response from traditional universities was that Gates was being too much the “engineer.” As The Chronicle of Higher Education noted, “Academic researchers who have spent years studying higher education see their expertise bypassed as Gates moves aggressively to develop strategies for reform.” The tug-of-war between corporations and academia isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. Students may be keener to listen to Bill Gates than inhabitants of the ivory tower. As a result, learning’s center of gravity may end up slipping way from academia and toward industry.

2. Increased globalization is creating the need to lead across cultures.

Jeff Barnes has been tasked with articulating GE’s notion of “global leadership.” As part of his approach, Barnes has come to describe and emphasize the importance of globalization. Barnes sums up the new age of management and training simply: “There are no boundaries any more.”  As a result, a broader level of knowledge (“boundary-spanning”) is more critical than ever.

3. CEOs are predicting and planning for “whitewater” conditions

GE’s Jeffery Immelt argues that management capabilities for this century will require an “ability to handle ambiguity.”  T-shaped skills fulfill this demand. The bad news for American businesses is the very low number of workers who seem to have this ability. One frequently cited study suggests a meager eight percent of all managers are currently operating in a T-shaped manner. What’s notable about the low rate of T-shaped management adoption is the huge competitive advantage that it gives to the businesses that actually do use T-shaped management systems. It is as if only eight percent of all baseball players on a team are allowed to use aluminum bats, with the rest still using wood against the best pitchers from around the world.

4. Specific management “skills” are being replaced by “characteristics”

In many ways, this set of changes is very much a matter of replacing the “old ways” of managing. Research by Dr. Phil Gardner of Michigan State University underscores how T-shaped traits are beginning to take root, including the integration of studies from divergent academic areas (from sociology to psychology) to help define personal ethics and character.

5. Companies are more frequently absorbing full costs of new training techniques.

“Learning” won’t mean the old-fashioned method of just telling someone how to do something. The Institute for the Future notes workers (especially younger workers) are using social networking to learn about and understand new ways of doing things. Video, digital imagery and the web are offering a visual, interactive method of teaching with few if any historic parallels (unless you count cave paintings).

Fortune magazine has highlighted the growing importance of government funding in what can only be described as “experimental” training techniques for today’s data-driven economy. Historically, the federal government has had a profound impact on the overall health of the American workforce in eras of widespread transition. Yet as employment demands continue to evolve, a growing number of companies are likely to bear the full costs of training in bad times as well as good.

Morten Hansen (now at University of California at Berkley, formerly of Harvard University Business School) and his colleague Bolko Von Oetinger found in their pioneering research in 2001 that while T-shaped managers can help companies of any size, they are “particularly crucial in large corporations where operating units have been granted considerable autonomy.” Large companies have deeper pockets for employee training than smaller ones do, and hence a disproportionate level of resources are likely to be dedicated to T-shaped training as a result.

IBM has invested extensively in the T-shaped model and will host the T-Summit 2014 in San Jose, Calif. in March. Jim Spohrer, Director of Global University Programs at IBM, explained it this way: “Projects teams at IBM often span multiple disciplines, sectors, and cultures – and so we need T-shaped graduates who can work well together to co-create solutions for a Smarter Planet.”

6. A new era of innovation in leadership development has already begun.

There is not just one rigid type of T-training, since it appears that most businesses— high tech or not—can benefit from T-shaped management. Put another way, the “T” may be of many different fonts and applied in an endless variety of ways. The coming era in management will also be defined in part by exactly “who” will be managed. The Institute for the Future notes the increasing replacement of mundane human tasks with smart machines.

7. Increased focus on ‘vertical’ instead of ‘horizontal’ development.

The traditional top-down leadership style has been challenged by many factors in recent years, and T-training is likely to further contribute to its replacement paradigm. For that matter, leadership itself is no longer viewed as a personal characteristic that you either have or don’t, but as more of as a deliberate process of “big picture” decision-making (McCauley & Van Velsor, 2004).

The Institute for the Future takes an even longer view on trying to define the shape of organizations as they grow organically, and calls these future, successful organizations “superstructures.” The ability to manage these superstructures will be beyond the ability of single managers, and will rely instead on teams of T-trained employees.

8. Transfer of greater developmental ownership to the individual.

One of the reasons this is among the most fascinating changes is the way it forces an organization to learn from “failure.” Managers in the “T” are expected to be able to explain what is happening across several areas. You can see this aspect of emphasizing development in organizations such as Google (using Rypple) and IDEO, where there are bonuses for positive development as well as for traditional performance competencies.

9. “Change” via T-shaped management is being resisted.

As with any revolutionary paradigm shift, the “T-shaped” transformation is already facing predictable sorts of resistance, and this is likely to continue. One transformational group, Implementation Management Group (IMG),  suggests that when it comes to resistance, the toll can be very high. IMG estimates that 25 percent will “jump on board” change and 50 percent will “eventually” embrace change, with support and encouragement. But a stunning 25 percent “won’t make it” and will, because of the change in culture, leave the company.

10. The decline of individual leadership is causing a rise of collective leadership.

In a 2009 IBM survey of over 2,500 CEOs, the most widely cited skill expected for a future leader was “creativity.” Creativity and T-shaped management go hand-in-hand. Big picture thinking requires a broad understanding of all of the parts that contribute to it. Envisioning “what’s possible” necessitates a good understanding of “what is.”

Conclusions: Resisting the Rear View Mirror

Hindsight may be 20/20, according to the old cliche, but experts in new management techniques have a special word of caution about hindsight. As the change cycle continues to accelerate, we are finding that what happened in the past is increasingly less likely to be instructive for the future. Still, what Bonheoffer had to say in the 1940s still seems to echo with where we find ourselves today. Bonheoffer wrote, “The ‘polymath’ had already died out by the close of the eighteenth century, and in the following century intensive education replaced extensive, so that by the end of it the specialist had evolved. The consequence is that today everyone is a mere technician, even the artist.”

As Samuel Arbesman notes in Wired, “the most exciting inventions occur at the boundaries of disciplines, among those who can bring different ideas from different fields together.” The challenge we face today, and will certainly face in 2020, is to train our workforce to think both as technicians AND as artists, combining deep practical knowledge with creative thinking to navigate the ever-changing seas of the future.

Moving the Employment Line: How State Job Centers May Fuel T-Shaped Skills

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Often, the best ideas are so good because they have more than just one application. Take T-shaped training, for example.  The concept of the T-shaped employee is helping companies to maximize the potential of their workers.  Could T-shaped training also help today’s unemployment picture? Some states seem to think so, and are taking steps to include it in their employment programs.

For some time, many of us in high tech management have seen the ways that workers have used T-shaping to flourish in the workplace, and it has helped guide our management decisions about hiring and training. Universities have a mixed record when it comes to preparing tomorrow’s workforce for the Big Data future, but “T-shaping” is increasingly viewed as an educational priority. In my view, the development of T-shaped skills may be equally important for the under and unemployed workers of today.

Despite ourmen-in-bread-line stubbornly high national unemployment rate of over 7 percent, The U.S. Bureau of Labor points to a major problem in finding workers who are skilled in analytics. Even with so many people out of work, there are some 3.7 million unfilled jobs in our economy right now that relate to the new Big Data reality.  And as Baby Boomers retire, the skills gap is likely going to get worse. After all, the average age of the “ideal” high skilled worker is now 56 years of age, according to one estimate.  T-shaped employees are clearly becoming part of  employer expectations.

An industrial employer in Milwaukee described the skills-gap problem his company is facing to a reporter, noting that computer skills were needed to run his mill’s equipment. Out of more than one thousand applications, he found only 25 that had the required computer and data skills. A year later, the employer said, he had laid off or lost 15 of those workers.

If given the chance to hone their T-shaped skills, older unemployed workers may be part of the answer.

T-shaped Skills as a Competitive Advantage for States and Regions

What, if anything, are state unemployment training programs doing to fill the the need for T-shaped workers?  It turns out that most states aren’t doing anything, but there are some exceptions. Both New York State and California have specifically adopted the use of T-shaped training (with a focus on such qualities as emotional intelligence), while several other states are more quietly embracing T-shaped training for unemployed workers.

New York and California have two very different ways of approaching T-shaped employee training. New York relies on a more traditional model, using workshops to teach large groups of potential workers at once, while California uses a unique, one-on-one mentoring approach.

Some of the key beneficiaries of T-shaped training efforts in New York, California and elsewhere have been state community college systems. As a result of a demand for high tech-trained workers, community and technical skills colleges have their highest levels of enrollments since World War II.

It is too early to tell if T-shaped training is effective for all or even most of the people and managers who rely on state employment programs for personnel. The rise in part-time employment is especially pronounced among graduates of state employment programs, and some studies suggest T-shaped training is effective in very specific settings, industries, or usually work best only for full-time work.

However, one thing is for certain: corporations are demanding skilled, T-shaped workers. And if state employment programs are unable to provide them, hirers will look elsewhere, or develop these training programs themselves.

 

The Opportunities and Challenges Facing T-Shaped Employees in Today’s Enterprises

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375-initial-letter-t-with-dragons-q90-500x495Do you have Google Envy? With Google shares soaring past $1000, you may be looking at your own company and wondering what their secret sauce is.

For one thing, Google employees really like working there.

In workplace satisfaction surveys for the last four years, Google has consistently been near the top of all high tech companies. In 2012, Google managed an enormous jump in employee satisfaction, up almost 40 percent and moving in front of Facebook employee satisfaction.

Is this because Google employees are getting rich off of their stock options? Actually, those high stock values and salaries are relatively low considerations in employee satisfaction. The Huffington Post has reported that only 9 percent of Google employees and 10 percent of Facebook workers considered salary as their top incentive.

Identifying T-Shaped Hiring Prospects

One key to Google’s high employee satisfaction is likely due to Google’s prowess at using data analysis to hire the right kind of T-shaped employees in the first place. T-shaped employees, as you may be aware, have a specific area of deep knowledge (the vertical line of the T) along with a broader understanding of a range of areas, as well as “soft skills” like emotional intelligence (the horizontal line) that they can connect to their specialty. This model enables employees to collaborate in ways that spur creativity and innovation that a more traditional “siloed” organization structure does not.

Google’s interview process is so unique (and in my opinion, successful) because it is self-consciously data-driven to precisely identify the essence of T-shaped skills. Even the Washington Post has taken note, praising the way employees from across the Google workforce are used to interview prospective teammates, even though they may never actually work with the person again.

Developing Employees Through T-Shaped Training

When T-shaped training was first proposed in 1991, it was on the basis of a psychological study suggesting it would increase job satisfaction. A more recent study mentioned last year in Psychology Today suggests that T-shaped employees are also more productive and able to “hit the ground running.”

In an increasing number of workplaces, the concept of T-structured training is becoming more widely adopted for employee development. One company places enough value on the idea to say it in their employee handbook. Valve, Inc., a Bellevue-based software company, states they “believe” in T-shaped employees, but discourage any “formalized” employee development, opting instead for a more informal, collaborative model.

Once a company decides to hire T-shaped employees, those employees often have their own creative, individualistic ideas about what their particular shapes means. Adria Saracino, for one, cautions about falling into what she says may turn out to be a “T-shaped Black hole.”

Put another way, T-shaped employees aren’t going to work very well in cookie cutter positions.

As T-shaped training becomes more a part of an employer’s expectations, employees also develop their own expectations for becoming T-shaped. One question is whether T-shaped teams are making it easier, or harder, to get work done.

In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control called overwork a virtual US epidemic, with almost a third of workers getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Unfortunately for T-shaped employees, creative collaboration does not tend to thrive in the midst of perpetual workplace stress. Not only that, what happens when some team members don’t pull their weight?

The only answer here is probably to expect more from universities, who need to train students about team responsibility and successful collaborative skills that are essential to being T-shaped. One study of college students, done by North Carolina Sate University, shows great benefits in the idea of T-shaped teams, but also suggested that if the T-shaped teams are dysfunctional or ineffective, they may even cause more harm than good.

Bill Gates was a pioneer in taking time to just think, taking what he called two “think weeks” each and every year of his tenure at Microsoft. Employees who are given some time “off the grid” to think and talk about their t-shaped role and how it fits into the larger organizational framework are more likely to be productive for the company and fulfilled as individuals.