The Power of Team

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Team and network is what got me here today. The Irish Education System put many barriers in my way and I relied on other tools.

To study Commerce in University College Dublin, takes 480 points in the Leaving Certificate – I got 312 and but still did Commerce in UCD.  I never went to lectures – bad at listening! – but worked in a team that consisted of a person who went to lectures and had nice handwriting, a person who had access to a photocopier, a person who lived near me, had endless quantities of tinned soup, was happy to study with me and liked a lift home and to college on my motorbike.  The Power of Team

To do a Masters Degree in the world acclaimed Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business takes a 2.1 Honours Bachelor Degree – I got a 2.2 but still did a Masters in the Smurfit Graduate School.  Through my network I knew a man who knew a man – a man who only had to lift the phone and make a call.  I jest not.  Only five people got into the masters that year with a 2.2 – myself and my study partner were two of them.  The Power of Network.

I completed my formative. Formal education journey with an honours degree simply because the masters programme focussed on project team work.  Hallelujah!  The Power of Team.

In 1993 there were no jobs in Ireland for graduates – I got a job.  To me, merely because I got talking to this dashing young woman who was walking by as I was waiting for the interview.  The brief interaction resulted in me being well briefed going in and being offered a job.  The Power of Network.

The formal education system’s restrictive entry standards did everything it could to prevent me from progressing in my chosen field of education.   Interesting how the two things they don’t teach in school or college are the same two things that can foil their entry standards and demonstrates how unnecessary formal classes and lectures are to learning  – All learning can be achieved through teams and networks.

If you think you can…

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When Henry Ford said ‘If you think you can, you can, if you think you can’t, you can’t – either way you are right’  little did we know that the saying would be applicable to every man, woman and child on the planet.  Our self talk is everything we become.

Some days I am almost frightened by the power of positive human attitude.   This is ever evident on the Training Delivery & Evaluation (Level 6) Programme when it comes to presenting to and facilitating group sessions.  Folk who believe that they have very little to be confident about, giving it socks and pulling the rabbit out of the hat to the surprise of all, most of all themselves and then, folk who have exceptional skills and knowledge but a self-perception that doesn’t quite match up and thus negatively impacting their performance.

Bill Cullen [Renault/The Apprentice] once told me that every morning he looks in the mirror and says ‘You’re Great, You’re Great, You’re Great….and then I go out and I’m Great’…….and he is great.  We learn during the facilitation skills module of the Training Delivery & Evaluation Programme, the power of ‘The Nod’ and saying positive words …….’ excellent’, ‘super’, ‘brilliant’, ‘great’ …… as people talk/present in order to get them to speak confidently as they access all areas of their spongy brain.   Why would it be any different when we talk positively to ourselves?  If you think you can, you can…

A band-aid or a sustainable shift in focus?

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Delighted with the news that the leaving certificate is being reviewed, as you can imagine.   I muse at what might be the result – A band aid or a sustainable shift in focus!

What would I do?  What would you do?   Would you move from the individualistic nature of school as we know it – we learn, we study and we work as individual units in the current Irish education system – to a more team based approach that would be more representative of the real world, perhaps even the actual workplace?  Would you move from ‘going alone’ to building, utilising and benefiting from a broad network of allies.  Would you move from the current promise of a pupil/teacher 25:1 ratio to a facilitative approach of teams who learn, study and work for the benefit of each other?  Would you move from subjects now being formally taught to students for over 300 years to a knowledge-based society of skills and attitudes?  Would you replace English with Communication Skills involving presentation and facilitation skills?  Would you replace the accounting syllabus with SAGE Line 50 accounts packages (or equivalent)?

It is high time we play to students’ natural strengths and stop forcing those with limited linguistic intelligence to do languages, stop forcing those with limited mathematical intelligence to do maths.

Would we boldly move from IQ to EQ?  Maybe, just maybe, the NCCA and those that govern, will be brave and recreate a leaving certificate that sets people up for success, not failure, by building on students’ interests and abilities, playing to actual intelligences rather than merely limiting to IQ, and IQ alone.