What Do You Do When Education And Being Work-Ready Is Getting Decoupled?
Edition #132
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
Why People Procrastinate and How to Overcome It.
A recent article in Scientific American covered some interesting research findings around procrastination and the psychological factors that relate to procrastination.
Here are some findings from the research:
People with a negativity bias tend to delay tasks more, especially if they tend to be poor at self-control.
“Do I want to do this now?” - This question brings to mind some positive and negative outcomes in people. The answers to this fundamental question lead to the reasons why people procrastinate.
Some people tend to give greater weight to the pros, while others give greater weight to the cons. For example, the pros could be completing the task earlier than others, having more time to do other things, etc., and the cons could be the tediousness of the task, not an immediate priority as there is still more time, etc.
Just pushing yourself to think a little bit more before acting may help you generate more positive reasons to get started.
This ensures you don’t put off to tomorrow what you might best tackle today.
Read the article here.
Raghuram Rajan On Blazing A New To India’s Development.
Raghuram Rajan is the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and a leading economist. He has just authored a new book, Breaking the Mold, and shares his perspective on the IMF Podcast.
Here are some key takeaways:
Raghuram Rajan argues that India has lost its labour cost advantage and must focus on developing its human capital.
Most countries are becoming averse to moving manufacturing out of their borders. Exporting high-skill services and leveraging low-skill capabilities for the domestic market could be an alternative model to consider.
India should recognise services as an opportunity for growth. It needs to be balanced by simultaneously growing manufacturing and services.
The government must recognise the importance of increasing the quality of human capital and upskilling appropriate talent.
Create jobs for the skills people have.
Apprenticeships are a great way to create job-worthy people. Create last-mile vocational building.
The time has come for empowered localism for India to grow.
You can also listen to this conversation on:
Apple Podcast | Libsyn | Soundcloud
TED's Secret To Great Public Speaking.
Chris Anderson of TED shares his wealth of incredible experiences hosting TED talks on what it takes to be a great public speaker. Chris shares the secrets of public speaking with some interesting anecdotes about how many speakers approached their talk and what he found as a common thread in all of them.
Here are some key takeaways:
Chris highlights the importance of teleporting an idea into your listener's minds and brains. It’s the idea that creates a vital connection with your audience.
So, what an idea? You can think of it as a pattern of information that helps you understand and navigate the world. The most important words here are ‘Pattern of Information’, which helps your audience understand your thoughts on the topic or subject.
It must be your personal view on the topic to put forth your thoughts convincingly.
Your number one task as a speaker is to build an idea in the minds of your audience. Chris shares four secrets or tips to help you do it.
You can click on the above link to watch this video.
What Do You Do When Education And Being Work-Ready Is Getting Decoupled?
Nowadays, it is common to hear companies mention that they are finding it harder and harder to find ideal candidates for the roles they are considering. There is a need-skill availability gap across various levels, and the chasm only seems to widen.
Raghuram Rajan speaks about the imperative to improve the quality of human capital. He also mentions in the same breadth that finding world-class institutions that can produce ideal skill-fit people for jobs in a country like India is also becoming a challenge. He further says India’s labour cost advantage may not work in the future.
What does all this mean?
‘Learning by doing’ is becoming more important than ‘learning by memorising’.
Producing people with paper degrees is a recipe for disaster. This is happening because teachers in educational institutions need more practical application, real-world working experience, and knowledge. This change needs to happen immediately. Finding the right balance between theory and practice must be encouraged.
People need to find mentors outside educational institutions or even the companies they work for to gain a broader perspective and prepare themselves to improve. This will also help them do better at their current jobs.
People must realise that a job in any company is less secure than in the early 1960s, 1980s, or even the 2000s. A recent study by McKinsey found that the average lifespan of companies listed in Standard & Poor’s 500 was 61 years in 1958. Today, it is less than 18 years. McKinsey believes that, in 2027, 75% of the companies currently quoted on the S&P 500 will have disappeared. Hence, educational institutions and companies must teach people how to prioritise professional expertise and skills over just work performance. The future is about finding ways to prepare people for long and purposeful careers, not just finding immediate jobs.
With such a trend where people will outlive companies, they will increasingly become “partners” of companies rather than full-time “employees”.
As the labour cost advantage breaks down, people must realise that as compensation increases, any company’s value expectations from these individuals change non-linearly. To prepare for this change, they need to constantly upskill themselves.
Bryan Caplan, a leading economist and professor at George Mason University, writes, “About 80 percent of the value of education goes to signaling, 20 percent goes to skills.” Educational institutions need to reverse this equation if they need to be relevant in the future.
Some lessons we learnt from this week’s missions:
You can stop procrastinating by focusing more on the positive rather than the negative outcomes to the question, “Do I want to do this now?”
Encouraging apprenticeship and vocation-building skills can create more work-ready professionals.
To be a great public speaker, have an idea that can create a vital connection with your audience.