Education

Learning For The Unknown


Koldo Echebarria is Director General of Esade.

These last few months of the pandemic, I tasked myself with talking to the primary companies that recruit Esade students. I’ve already spoken with more than thirty multinationals in diverse industries, ranging from professional services, banking and insurance to manufacturing and thriving technological firms, all of which increasingly hire a larger share of our graduates. I asked them about the key competencies they’re looking for, their vision regarding the future of work and, of course, to what extent our graduates satisfy their demands. Interestingly, the firms agreed on several points worth mentioning:

The first is related to what we could call “transversal competencies”, as opposed to timeworn functional specializations, such as finance, marketing, human resources, etc. Basic technical skills are no longer the differentiating factor. Companies are looking for people with an in-depth understanding of new technologies and their impact on business: for example, predictive data management or leveraging technology to gain competitive advantage when searching for business model disruptions. These are some of the most highly demanded competencies.

Second, companies stress what we could refer to as socio-emotional competencies, albeit with some nuances. Among these and with different combinations, we find a profile that is much more flexible and capable of adapting, compared to what companies have needed thus far. This no longer refers to simple “soft” skills but, rather, much more profound attributes associated to individuals’ characters. Developing these competencies has been linked to external factors, such as families, socio-economic contexts, or the role played by universities. In the latter case, this can be seen more through implicit elements related to the universities’ institutional cultures than to their curricula as such.

In some interviews, one critical observation emerged which I feel I have to point out. Companies talk about people having difficulties to overcome situations for which they don’t have pre-prepared responses, circumstances that don’t fit with their toolboxes. This led me to recall Chris Argyris’ analysis some years back regarding the difficulty in changing brilliant people’s behavior: the combination between tremendous intellectual capacity and the self-esteem which stems from academic credentials can become an obstacle when it comes to accepting that there are things we simply don’t know or, what is more, that we are not even aware that we don’t know.

Third, jobs are no longer a description of a given series of functions and tasks. Instead, they have become platforms from which employees can add value to their organizations. These are defined by the skills of the individuals holding them and their interrelations within and outside their organizations. Many of these positions don’t necessarily imply having people reporting to them hierarchically; rather, they require coordinating teams across different areas, functions and geographies.

In my view, all this implies the need to revise some of the hypotheses on which management programs have been built. Although the pandemic is accelerating their transformation, the underlying paradigm continues to be fundamentally cognitive, divided into functional areas and designed for vertical careers in large firms. Technology and socio-emotional competencies are still not given the starring role that companies want. In my opinion, we urgently need to promote four major transformations:

1. Technology and management cannot be conceived as separate, and the former has to nurture the latter as one more area of knowledge. We need professionals for whom technology is as common and fundamental a competency as the language we use to communicate with others. That said, the focus should not be on technology per se but on the talent required to maintain a sage and dynamic conversation with that technology. This consists of developing an intelligence that knows how to interpret technology’s possibilities in terms of the organization and the business, not just using technology to compete.

2. We have to stop stacking knowledge and learning structures. Today’s problems require different specializations, and learning has to imply being able to integrate different disciplines. The way to do this isn’t by constraining reality to the different disciplines’ formal models and instruments but, rather, adapting them creatively so that they provide partial responses which can then be combined like pieces of a puzzle. Transmitting the experimental method is more important than a model based on accumulating knowledge. Faculty can thus be more valuable by inspiring a logic of scientific discovery than reproducing the basic knowledge in their areas of expertise.

3. Experience demonstrates that students can learn the most profound emotional skills. However, this doesn’t mean that these competencies can be taught: people don’t become empathetic or humble because others ask us to do so or because someone explains the importance of these traits. It’s not that easy. That notwithstanding, we are sensitive to certain sources of learning, especially between the ages of 18 and 25, and role models are very valuable when it comes to instilling habits and values. Faculty can serve as such models, something which doesn’t depend on what and how much they know but, rather, on how they teach and guide their students. Similarly, the way students interact with each other can also teach and lead them to make discoveries which shape their character. For example, classroom diversity, both cultural and socio-economic, can contribute to develop greater openness and empathy.

4. Our emotional wellbeing doesn’t depend on merit as an end in and of itself, rather, as a means to serve others. Education is still broadly seen as an individual endeavor. People develop their own competencies and independence which, in turn, provide them prestige and income. Merit is the legitimating reason behind this logic and it also serves to justify different, unequal trajectories. However, this individualistic view of education has numerous limitations. All the evidence indicates that the key to success is not found in our executives and entrepreneurs but in teams which are trained to combine and add competencies that no single individual can master. In addition, as the pandemic has shown us, we are a vulnerable species. We become more resilient by supporting each other.



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