News, Information and Incredible stories to Learn and Grow
Insights, updates, and stories from the world of education and professional development.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset – Cultivating Success in South Africa’s SMEs
Written by Herbert Monadira and Dr. Derek Shirley In South Africa, the small business sector is crucial yet fragile, with a failure rate significantly higher than the global average. Approximately 70% to 80% of small businesses fail within the first five years, compared to a global average of 60% to 70% (“70-80% of small businesses fail – […]
Cornerstone Performance Solutions (CPS): Revolutionising Learning Effectiveness and Efficiency through Business Impact Learning (BIL®)
As the modern workplace undergoes rapid changes, the pressure on the talent pipeline is increasing. Technology advancements, shifting demographics, and complex business operations are reshaping the demands of the workplace. Learning and Development (L&D) professionals face the challenge of helping employees not only keep up with these changes but also thrive in this dynamic environment. However, traditional L&D practices are struggling to keep pace with these demands. While the role of L&D is evolving, there is a concern that it is not happening quickly enough to meet the needs of organisations today. This concern is justified by evidence that suggests L&D faces two fundamental challenges. • Firstly, there is the challenge of effectiveness - how can learning initiatives drive business metrics and contribute to strategic objectives? • Secondly, there is the challenge of efficiency - how can learning experiences be impactful, cost-effective, and accessible to all employees? These challenges are interconnected, forming a dilemma of increasing learning impact while reducing costs. The solution lies in addressing both effectiveness and efficiency simultaneously. This is where Business Impact Learning (BIL®) comes in. BIL® represents a paradigm shift in L&D, offering a revolutionary approach to tackle these dual challenges. It is a methodology […]
Vocational Education as a Life Choice
By Dr. Indira Bhagaloo After the initial thrill of finishing secondary school wears off, most matriculants are hit with the harsh reality that they will not be able to pursue their immediate dreams of enrolling in formal tertiary education due to access, financial limitations, or the fact that they failed to meet the minimum requirements for their desired degree or diploma. We are indoctrinated into the synchronicity of life events, such as school, university, acquiring a career, marriage, having children, etc., which can sometimes limit our options. Being unable to obtain a university degree is a deal breaker for many people. For others, it is a chance to broaden their horizons and discover the delights of vocational education. The infamy of the vocational qualification relative to academia remains a problem. Academia is still perceived with more esteem and creates the impression of higher cognitive abilities relative to vocational. Many unifying initiatives seek to increase participation in and promote parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications. These approaches address the issue of academic drift, which is the rising propensity among young people to enroll in academic programs that give them a competitive edge even though they may not provide the […]
Workplace readiness. It’s hunting and gathering.
Transitioning from school or university can be tough. When you consider ‘workplace readiness’ and what this might encompass, it soon becomes apparent that work newbies need a strong foundation to survive and succeed at work. We have all heard seasoned workplace crew saying “they don’t know what work is” or that “they don’t know how to work” when describing newbies at the office, forgetting that a bridge to work is required for everyone. They have forgotten that what they call “normal” at work was once strange and scary to them too. Its not about being a millennial or being lazy and entitled, it’s about arriving at work excited and inspired and not knowing where to direct all the energy and enthusiasm you walk in with. Newbies need a bridge to cross over into work and the workplace also needs to be ready to receive them. A colleague once described how two super-smart interns showed up for a six-week work experience in her accounting firm. It was pre-COVID and the office was full. They were bubbling with excitement and smiles. After making coffee for everyone, making copies, being told to wait for someone to tell them what to do for hours […]
Searching for Personal Significance: A foundational element of a learning architecture
Cliff BrunetteDr. Rica ViljoenAbstractIn today’s fast-paced, commercially-orientated world of work it is easy to lose some of what we, as humans, are.The demand to produce more, in less time, is an ever-changing expectation that each employee must be able to cope with. Yet, what we teach employees during training programmes is to cope with more content, more rules and more conformity.Most training programmes today are focused on compliance and administrative efficiency, rather than learning. In this article the authors are turning their search to an often elusive missing ingredient. If it becomes part of the focus of the training effort, this ingredient can assist the employee to be better in many more procedural aspects and also teach them how to better deal with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of today’s corporate world.That ingredient is personal significance.Key wordsPersonal significance; VUCA; Sense-making; Consciousness; Self-efficacy; Locus of control; Relevance; Flow theory IntroductionSocieties today are faced with overwhelming challenges of complexity - and a good measure of chaos. With what seems to be a breakdown in general value systems and the lightning speed of change and technological development, it would be easy to find a person clinging to anything that is remotely familiar.One […]
Augmented leadership through adaptive intelligence
Cliff BrunetteSeptember 2019Reference as: Brunette, C.; Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). (2019). Research Bulletin on Post-School Education & Training: Number 8. Pretoria: DHET.Available on the Department’s website: www.dhet.gov.zaas well as https://www.researchgate.net/AbstractIn this article, the author explores the notion that traditional learning architectures are too slow to keep up with the speed of learning required to match the rate of organisational adaptation.The author posits that the rate of organisational adaptation within the fourth industrial revolution requires a new learning architecture that should enable an innovative view of organisational learning itself. However, such a learning architecture would depend on augmented leadership who can harness the collective intelligence, and enable multi-frame thinking, within their organisational teams.Such a view of organisational learning, however, requires leaders to challenge their own - and their team’s – very human moral dilemma of holding a single truth. The new learning architecture will have to compensate for, and enable, multi-truth intelligence, or rather adaptive intelligence, which could be obtained through the embedding of axioms within the learning architecture.Key WordsAugmented leadership; adaptive intelligence; adaptation; axiom; collective intelligence; Fourth Industrial Revolution; learning architecture; multi-frame thinking; multi-truth;IntroductionIn this global village called Earth, or what we call our world, there is […]
A Motivation for Revised Learning Pathways and Curricula for Banking
Derek Shirley and Carin Stoltz-Urban August 2018 Contents Introduction. 3 1. The Turbulent Environment. 3 1.1 The Dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 3 1.2 The VUCA World. 4 2. Banking and financial services in the VUCA world. 5 2.1 Disruption in the banking sector. 5 2.1.1 Technology. 5 2.1.2 Innovation and agility. 8 2.1.3 Client-centricity. 9 2.1.4 Regulation and compliance. 10 2.1.5 Risk Management. 11 2.2 Summary. Error! Bookmark not defined. 3. Learning and working in banking and financial services. 11 3.1 The learner of the 21st century. 12 3.2 Changing knowledge and skills in banking. 12 3.2.1 Ways of thinking. 14 3.2.2 Ways of working. 15 3.2.3 Tools for working. 16 3.2.4 Living in the world. 16 3.3 Education in and for the VUCA world. 18 3.3.1 Global and African talent development context. Error! Bookmark not defined. 4. The South African case. 19 4.1 The South African banking and financial services context. 19 4.2 The South African post-school education landscape. 21 4.3 Employment and education in the SA banking sector. 22 4.4 Developing the banker of the future. 24 4.4.1 Existing qualifications. 24 4.4.2 Emergent educational needs in banking and allied financial services. 25 REFERENCE LIST. 28 Introduction […]