“To develop professional confidence, I tell my students you have to make a choice. Are you going to be intimidated and cower, or be inspired and say, I can do that too?” - Dr. David Finch Click To Tweet

For too long, the “real world” has been a mythical place that only exists in schools when teachers are trying to make students do things they don’t want to do. Stories of the real world create a culture of compliance. It begs the question… what’s it really like in the world of work beyond school? Dr. David Finch is a Full Professor and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. He joins Natalie to offer his research findings on the “enabling skills” that are required in every industry for a city to be able to adapt and tap into the competitive advantage of the future; learning. Get ready for a reality check on the real world!

Show Notes:

• Embracing a mindset of disruption to see opportunities for improvement, then make change happen. (8:00)
• Natural resources are no longer the competitive advantage for a city; now it’s the adaptive capacity of people. (9:40)
• Determining the skills required of a city to enable constant and rapid change. (19:00)
• A need for more accountability in high school and university for the development of enabling skills; rethinking what is meant by “foundational” skills. (26:15)
• Shocking findings from the Talent Ecosystem Audit in Calgary that reveal most of the learning happening in the city is devalued. (32:50)
• Disrupting the monopoly that credentialed organizations (schools, universities) have on “learning”. (40:30)

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