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What are the skills that are being sought by employers?
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The ability to collaborate with a diverse group is the key skill set.
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This is verification of the importance of coaching our youth to become future leaders.
The Power of Why
Recently, I read the book, ‘The Power of Why’ by Amanda Lang, who is the co-host of The Lang & O’Leary Exchange on CBC Television and senior business correspondent for CBC News. In her book, she refers to the fact that the urge to ask questions is natural for small children. Just ask any parent who has been bombarded by questions from a toddler.
She also mentions that according to several recent studies, when children are encouraged to figure things out on their own, they learn more.
Amanda also referred to Quest University in her book. It is a private secular non-profit liberal arts and sciences university located in Squamish, B.C. Canada. The approach to academics is rooted in the liberal arts tradition emphasizing breadth and depth in its program. It offers only one degree, a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences. The university opened in September 2007 with an enrolment of 74 students and has gone on to approximately 700 today and achieving some outstanding recognition because of its unique approach in university education. It is approximately 75 km (45 miles) from Vancouver and 57 km (35 miles) from Whistler B.C.
In an article published in the University Affairs site on 12 May 2015, the then president of Quest University, Dr. David Helfand reflected on the decade he had spent at the head of Quest University. In that interview Dr. Helfand mentioned the collaboration that is being sought by Canadian employers. This statement caught my attention as it is the same type of collaboration that our youth develop in our coaching approach where they learn to work with others of different backgrounds and different ages, etc. Here is the extract from that article which can be found at:
David Helfand reflects back on a decade at the head of Quest University
Dr. Helfand: “Some things could work, and some things would be hard. One marked difference between our approach to education and the standard approach is that our approach is collaborative, not competitive. The Conference Board of Canada is doing this big study of postsecondary education. At one of their forums, they had someone from IBM, someone from the City of Calgary, someone from a pipeline company, somebody from financial services, and someone who hires for a non-profit. They were asked, what are you not getting from today’s university graduates that your organization needs? They all said the same thing: they need people who can effectively communicate in writing and speaking, but most importantly they all said we want people who can collaborate with people from different backgrounds, different ages, across departments in my company, so that we can solve problems. And we don’t get that at all. We have a model (at Quest) that is highly collaborative such that students have to do research, make presentations, solve problems, do all kinds of things working together, and the consequence is we turn out highly collaborative graduates. That costs nothing to implement except for a change of mindset, and that can be done anywhere.”
This was verification as to how important coaching our youth as such coaching will serve them well into their adulthood. It is this type of collaboration that we need to nurture when coaching a group of youth. These are the skills that they do not obtain in very many other activities.
What are your thoughts in this regard? Please share any comments.
Wishing you lots of love and laughter, as always.
Fred Jones
Victoria, BC Canada
Fred Jones