Making a Difference

See also> Value statement

This degree is focussed on the future. As the Danish proverb says, “it is difficult to predict, especially the future”. The only thing that is certain about the future is that there will be change. If we just think about one factor, the uptake of technology in the digital age – it is at a pace estimated by McKinsey’s to be ten times that of the industrial revolution and at three hundred times the scale. The combinatorial effects of megatrends such as globalisation, digitisation, climate change and so on, means a very different world from the one our traditional disciplines and qualifications were created for.

There are a myriad of reports on the future of work. Below we highlight some that have been influential on the development of the degree.

The Institute for the Future (2011) described the challenge of predicting future jobs, instead focussing on future work skills:

Many studies have tried to predict specific job categories and labour requirements. Consistently over the years, however, it has been shown that such predictions are difficult and many of the past predictions have been proven wrong. Rather than focusing on future jobs, this report looks at future work skills—proficiencies and abilities required across different jobs and work settings.

1. Sense-making: ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed

2. Social intelligence: ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interaction

3. Novel and adaptive thinking: proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based

4. Cross-cultural competency: ability to operate in different cultural settings

5. Computational thinking: ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning

6. New-media literacy: ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication

7. Transdisciplinarity: literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines

8. Design mindset: ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes

9. Cognitive load management: ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques

10. Virtual collaboration: ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team.

It is not the specifics of this list that is important, nor the drivers which will change (and perhaps already have), rather what is important is the approach - the focus on a resilient and transferrable set of skills.

Future Navigator (2017) takes a different approach, describing new rules, and that “the rules of the game have already changed”. The old rules “focus on MORE – growth, speed, profit, processes, and the fear of systematic breakdowns”. The new rules “are about BETTER, about value creation, people, positive impact, and the need to break the rules”. They use a “game changer model” (Figure 1).

All of these new rules apply to the Bachelor of Leadership for Change, but in particular, the change from “employed to employability”. From a belief in a “having a job that somebody is providing” to “always doing things that always build up value in your body so that you are employable”.

• Don’t be afraid of losing your job, your job should be afraid of losing you.
• A job is something that you create, not something that you get.
• Instead of bricks and mortar organisations, future is networked multifaceted groups of professionals who are creating value in the time and space that they are in.

Because, as Future Navigator argues “none of us will have a job that is the same all through our lives”, we should think in terms of projects, in teams: “when I go to an organisation I should be thinking about what this organisation does and what I can provide in terms of valuable assistance to that organisation”. This puts the emphasis on the individual to be able to articulate their value and to have skills to navigate this portfolio career.

The Foundation for Young Australia’s (FYA) 2016 report “The New Work Mindset” considers jobs in terms of clusters of skills. Their report was driven by the prediction that newly working Australians “will make 17 changes in employers across 5 different careers”. The focus for young people, the FYA says is to be able to “navigate work over a lifetime”:

Rather than choosing an occupation with an unbroken path to seniority, a young person could think about developing a portfolio of skills that opens doors to a group or ‘cluster’ of jobs. Rather than asking a young person, what is your ‘dream job’, it may be more useful to ask what your ‘dream job cluster’ is?

FYA analysed 2.7 million job adverts and identified 7 clusters (Figure 2 and Figure 3).

Instead of constraining young people by asking them to visualise a job and pick “often narrow training options”, FYA argues that we should be encouraging them “to think about the broader direction of work type they want to perform and to build a portfolio of skills that give them a wide range of options."

FYA worked to identify the likely job prospects for each cluster. This was based on the likely future growth and “resistance to automation”. The strongest prospects are for the “informers”, “technologists” and “carers”. FYA also expects there to be additional job clusters, based on new occupations and new skills. FYA concludes with messages for different sector groups. Of particular interest here is that the “conversation about work needs to progress beyond the 1000+ occupations that comprise the economy (with) young people are equipped with the skills required to manage multiple shifts in jobs, lifelong learning and iterative skill acquisition”. The major implication for the Bachelor of Leadership for Change is that our education similarly needs a different approach.

In New Zealand, two significant reports are of note here. The first is the Future of Work Commission (2016, FoWC). While initially driven by a response to a concern of the “rise of robots”, the report aims “to ensure that we do not fall victim to ‘techno-determinism’ that sees us as merely passive recipients of this change, but rather that we adopt and adapt to ensure people have lives of fulfilment and dignity”.

The FoWC found a similar move from “jobs” to “work”. First, this is because of the desire of young people: “from talking to young people in particular, there was a desire less to talk about the jobs that they would do in the future, but rather the work that they would create”. Second, is the futility of trying to be deterministic about future jobs: “predicting whether a particular industry or job will exist or what will replace it is fruitless. What we must do is map a path that gives New Zealanders the confidence to face and lead the change”. The implication of this transition for education is profound:

We need to focus less on rigid standards and assessment processes and more on the individual interests and learning needs of each student. This includes a strong partnership between schools, businesses and the community to support every student to have a plan for their career, for careers advice and guidance to be an integral part of their educational experience and for programmes that mix school and work-based learning to be available.

The Productivity Commission’s report “New Models of Tertiary Education” (2017) begins with the observation that the tertiary system has “considerable inertia, with tertiary providers reluctant to be first movers or early adopters in shifting away from traditional models”. The Productivity Commission explores the roles of tertiary education:

Tertiary education improves the lives of students, and improves society. For students, education develops knowledge and skills that allow them to live an enriched life. It helps people to understand and navigate the world around them, as well as question and challenge the way things are. It creates access to opportunities, forges identity and culture, and frequently leads to lifelong benefits in terms of health, wealth and life satisfaction. There are public benefits too: a stronger civic society, the advancement of knowledge, the preservation of cultural heritage, and the development of a skilled workforce that can contribute to productivity and wellbeing.

They also consider challenges and opportunities, including thinking of students as co-producers and the close integration of work and learning. The report laments the inertia that results in the “delivery of more traditional education” that is not keeping pace with societal demands of tertiary education.

The report repeats the observations made above about the difficulty of predicting change: “change is inevitable, but predicting how future trends will influence tertiary education is hard”. There is then, a need for “providers to pursue different strategies, differentiate themselves, and adopt a wider range of new models”. The Productivity Commission describes the need for new models, for disruptive innovation. They highlighted Otago Polytechnic’s Capable NZ as a provider of successful innovation.