Darwin is famously misquoted as saying: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
There is no doubt, we are all in times of massive change right now. Be it change in our businesses, our organisations, our world.
Our response to Covid has both been an accelerant for change already under way and a catalyst for new thinking and ways of working. The result. A flood of change. There is no going back.
We have an important questions to answer. How do, each of us, equip ourselves and others with the skills and mindset not just to survive but thrive amidst all this change? How do we develop Darwin’s adaptability in ourselves and most importantly our young people?
The good news is that we know the core ingredients. For instance, creativity, being open minded, good at observing and listening and giving it a go. Creativity must be twinned with a gritty determination to get up and try again when it doesn’t work the first time, or the second, or the third ...
Being entrepreneurial is being democratised. Chris Gauld the serial entrepreneur and founder of Spark Energy, points out: “What has changed in the last 12 months is the creative, innovative, change embracing ‘have a go and do it quickly’ mindset that seemed the preserve of gregarious, confident and energetic entrepreneurs (a different species to the ‘man in the street’) has been demonstrated almost instinctively by so many people in all walks of life”.
Vivienne Ming, the neuroscientist, says: “The creative economy is defined by our ability to explore the unknown.
Routine skills like writing boilerplate code, however cognitively complex, simply don’t make people more valuable in the creative economy … it is our ability to learn and adapt to new problems and environments that makes us creative.”
Eric Schmidt of Google identifies two qualities as the best predictor of success, curiosity, and persistence.
In essence, it is all about how we learn, put our learning into action, reflect, learn and go again. Learning is at the heart of it all. This applies not just to our young people but to us all. It is a lifelong endeavour. As said before, the best leaders are the best learners.
On learning, more than 2,000 years ago, Confucius cracked it: “By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
Reflection is not just a solitary endeavour , it is especially powerful when shared with trusted peers.
At Entrepreneurial Scotland Foundation, we have seen this first-hand through demand for peer learning especially through our Catalyst programmes in partnership with Babson College on each of Conscious Leadership, Resilient Leadership and Navigating Volatility.
It is our young people who are facing the greatest disruption to their learning, not just in the classroom or the lecture hall but most vitally through their access to experience.
It is not all bad, many will emerge from the uncertainty stronger and more resilient. Yet, they are starving for real, hands on opportunities to learn. Post-lockdown, we must create a flood of apprenticeships, internships, work experience for them to get that vital, hard earned learning.
The learning may be “bitter” and hard but it is essential for our future.
PS if you can create a life changing opportunity for a Saltire Scholar Intern, please go to www.entrepreneurialscotland.com
Sandy Kennedy is the chief executive of the Entrepreneurial Scotland Foundation
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