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The Leaning Tables of PISA

20 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by Burning Manager in Uncategorized

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Australia, Gonski, Happiness, mindfulness, PISA, STEM, toursim, WASP

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When the PISA league table of international educational standards was released I braced myself for some pretty hysterical responses and I wasn’t disappointed. Once again Australia, who believes it should be competing at the top of the league, noticed its position decline. There was all sorts of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Often the first reaction when shit hits the fan is to look for a culprit. Never a good example when a government does this as they set the bar for the rest of the community. Surely the best reaction is to pause and look more closely? Only after a reasoned assessment of the facts and getting input from interested parties should a relevant action plan (with measurable milestones) be put in place. Least that’s what we do in the business world…and after all isn’t it for this very business world that we want top of the table students?

I’ve been pondering how China (in all its extended form e.g. Hong Kong, Taipei) and Estonia have managed to climb to the top of the educational league. One thought that popped into my head was the internet speed of the top performing countries. This theory held good for Singapore, clearly, with their legendary speed but came crashing down when Estonia only managed a poor 44th place on the global table of fixed broadband speed. Australia came in at a miserly 64th in terms of Mbps. Maybe it has to do with diet or age when children first start to be educated? I even refreshed myself with Outliers the great read by Malcolm Gladwell. Still none the wiser, I put the blog aside for a while!

Then I got to thinking. Does it really matter where we are on the PISA list if it doesn’t deliver what we really need as a society and nation – a happy and contented community. The WASP view of life, while still an undercurrent running through society (especially the owners of capital), has much less of a sway in terms of public policy and establishment of societal norms nowadays. The rise of the happiness and well-being movement is testament to this shift. I put this down to the greater affluence of the middle classes, which in the Western world, has expanded immeasurably. And guess what – we are none the happier for all that extra stuff we get to buy! There are some things that some people get to realise as they get older and wealthier and that is they get wiser as well. It’s a wisdom borne of experience. Invariably that experience teaches us that wealth is not correlated to happiness and even if it was it wouldn’t be dose dependent.

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Next step on what had now become a quest, was researching global happiness tables. Surprise surprise! There appears to be no direct correlation whatsoever between being a happy nation and the level of educational attainment. The first point of commonality is Finland topping out the happiness league, with an educational system ranked 7th. The Scandinavians dominate the happiness table with Denmark, Norway and Iceland claiming the next top slots. Sweden, perhaps mourning the demise of Abba, come in at a creditable 7th. In the educational stakes most of them are lower than us. Where might Australia be languishing then in the happiness stakes given our parlous educational system (16th place)? Actually on happiness we score a pretty robust 11th out of 156. If we were to aspire to be another country, I bet that a public poll would opt for the likes of those Nordic countries rather than China, Estonia, South Korea or Poland.

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No-one could accuse the Nordic bloc as being industrially backward either. But let’s consider the really big league in world commerce. Surely their economies rely on a smart source of labour and that’s why they are faring so well. Once again, I’m confounded to find Germany, arguably the world’s most advanced economy, ranks at 20 on the PISA table. Japan, similarly industrialised, ranks 15th. Switzerland, land of lush meadows, skiing, banks and great wealth – where I think we all secretly want to live – ranks 28th on the PISA scale. Go figure! It features in 6th place on the happiness scale.

In my opinion Australia would be well advised to spend our time trying to implement policies to get us higher on the happiness league table than the educational one. That’s not to say that we rank lowly in either. What policies should we be implementing to improve this position? Sadly the Government seems to want to place the emphasis on education. While more could be spent, I’m not sure that just getting us better at maths and reading (when it’s boiled down that’s what PISA measures) will actually take us anywhere meaningful. Time and again we are reminded by those who have a clear eye to jobs of the future (who are these soothsayers?) that we need creativity and soft skills. Our hellbent focus on STEM is not likely to deliver without us taking a broader brush to our curriculum. I’ve heard for calls recently to narrow the curriculum when, as a non-educationalist (but an employer who gets these cookie-cut kids when they leave school or uni), I need the problem-solving, creativity, soft skills, diplomacy and high EQ. A narrow curriculum is not capable of delivering these requirements.

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So it surprised me immensely when, within a few weeks of the PISA results being published, I learned that the Federal Department for the Arts was being folded into another large Department (Transport). While a precious few might find mathematical problem solving the highlight of their leisure time, they are far outweighed by those who enjoy a cultural experience like a concert, show, art gallery visit or trip to the cinema. It is the arts that distinguish us from being mere fodder for the production of goods. Even industrialists at the beginning of the industrial revolution got that. Case in point; Port Sunlight in  the UK where the enlightened Lever family created a village where they housed all their workers from management to the shop floor. Guess what they put into their village? A library and art gallery. In fact the Lady Lever Art Gallery is an amazing small gallery with one of the best collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings you could hope to see. Yup even the uneducated working class like their art!

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Australia’s economy relies quite heavily on tourism. In 2017 tourism contributed $49.7 bn to the GDP. Now I’d hazard a guess not tourists have come solely to visit our science museums! Many though will partake in our cultural offerings. The more culturally interested and literate we become the more likely we are to be happier. Along the way we might find also that our overall IQ increases too. It’s no surprise that those countries featuring high in the happiness scales have lashings of cultural offerings.

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So where does this leave us? Let’s not beat ourselves up, go blaming teachers, funding levels, Gonski, lack of Gonski etc. Let’s focus instead on the metrics that are important to us. Hubris too often drives our thinking when we get ranked lower than we think we should. That’s wasted effort. Let’s spend our time and energy making us a happier place. If that means tweaking some aspects on the educational system by teaching more mindfulness etc. then so be it. Let’s leave league table obsession for the other great cultural aspect of Australian Society – sport. At least sport has its own Ministry that’s been left intact. Would it have been any other way?

When Mainstream Plays Catch-Up

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Burning Manager in Uncategorized

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AirBnB, Australia, BMW, collaboration economy, collaborative consumption, commercial leasing, CTC, DriveNow, Environment, Gen Y, Hot Leasing, industrial leasing, Millenials, Rachel Botsman, Share Economy, The Australian Financial Review, Uber, US car sales

P90074325                                                               IMG_7253 DriveNow ist ein Carsharing - Joint Venture der BMW Group und de

I read with interest in The Australian Financial Review (2nd Dec 2014) that BMW is joining in the collaborative consumption movement. Otherwise known as the collaborative economy or share economy (yes we have issues with nomenclature). You know when the more staid Germans start adopting new ideas that they really are becoming the new paradigm. Their contribution to the share economy is something called DriveNow. What is different from car rentals you may ask?  Well it’s a disruptor to that model (check out my previous blog on disruptors) and something that must be a concern to the car rental market and indeed traditional car manufacturing.

In the same way as the Gen Y don’t want to own the book, but just read the content, or not own the CD but just listen to the music, so people are not wanting to own the car but just get from A to B. What is different about DriveNow is that is operates a bit like the bike schemes most large cities have (except the Brisbane one where the bikes seem always to be parked up not ridden). So it is a one way disposable trip, in other words you just drive then park it. GPS lets BMW know where the vehicles are. Access is via a smartphone app and you pay by the minute. Brokerage company Aviate Global has estimated that 1 sharing vehicle removes 32 personal vehicles. You can see therefore how this can be good for the environment as well; which is a core pillar of the share economy. 5% growth in car sharing by the 2020 could halve US car sales. What is driving many squeezed by the economy and rising house prices is the fact that the second biggest asset we are likely to own, our car, is utilised on average only 4% of the time in a 24 hour day. That’s a lot of idle time.

The opportunities for BMW to tailor the experience through mass customisation to the driver are immense. Imagine getting in your DriveNow vehicle to have you Spotify database available immediately through the car’s entertainment system, the 50 most recent destinations pre-loaded into the Sat Nav, reminders through the car stereo of birthdays and anniversaries pending as you are approaching a florist. Seat positions can be pre-programmed and comfort levels for temperature etc. the possibilities are endless as is heads-up information on the screen as driverless technology takes hold. London cabbies must be quaking in their boots. Uber must be quaking in its boots. Here is old school disrupting the disruptor…the fight back has begun methinks.

While share economy companies are good for the customer and the environment one of the key issues upon which their success relies is trust. Take AirBnB for example. I was fortunate to hear Rachel Botsman do a keynote address some years ago and as a result stayed in Pat’s New York apartment for three weeks. He wasn’t there of course but he did meet us at 11pm when we arrived and he gave us a run down of the apartment and the neighbourhood before depositing his key with us and pedalling off down East 71 Street into the night. He didn’t know us from Adam but there we were in his apartment amidst all of his clutter and his most valuable possessions. Trust. As we now know Air BnB is a worldwide phenomenon. In the case of BMW’s DriveNow initiative trust will also be key, but they start off a high base because the brand of BMW smacks of trustworthiness. It’s quality cars they are offering that are fun and environmentally responsible. Once again trust. As we know from the theory of sales, once trust has been established it makes moving to sales closure much easier.

The second core pillar in making your share economy company succeed is a willingness by the public to ditch the status quo and try your offering. That first encounter they have can be all important. Everyone knows that complaints travel faster than compliments and Baby Boomers will tell 10 times more people about a bad experience than a good one. Gen Y’s will Tweet and/or Facebook about bad experiences. Millennials, according to Nick Bowditch, Twitter’s main man in Australia, will just set up a business in opposition to yours if they don’t have a good experience and disrupt yours by doing things better and faster. So the offering has to be based on trust and be enticing and fulfil or exceed expectations. Nothing difficult here then. At my company we have our own share economy initiative called Hot Leasing . The trust issue is OK as we have been in business approaching 21 years and have a reputation in the market for being ethical and reliable. The challenge for us is the presentation of an idea so radical that it will take time for the market to adjust to a new possibility. Unlike say a taxi journey or a few nights stay in an apartment, our offering requires a massive change in business behaviour with companies moving from long-held leases to a free-wheeling working life where they pay as they go, only interacting with us when they are interfacing with their clients. We are, simply put, the Air BnB of the commercial/industrial leasing space. And we are excited about it. Gradually people are catching on. There is no need to own expensive equipment like forklifts or elevated work platforms etc. There’s no need even to lease or hire them. With us that’s all part of the package. We have a well-developed process for cherishing each and every brand that uses our facilities and the experience of students and trainers exceeds expectations. We await the main-streaming of the share economy so that the more risk averse can start looking at our proposition for what it is; an excellent, low-risk, environmentally sound way to do business.

While on the subject of the environment it is always good to buy local as opposed to buying nationally and buy nationally as opposed to buying internationally. In order to assist with some Australian examples here are share economy companies collaborative evangelists may wish to consider. I’m more than happy to share these with you. After all isn’t that what collaboration is all about?

 

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