Are you a fancy dresser?

Fortunately or unfortunately, books do have covers by which they are judged.  Pictures have frames which elevate their face value.  We all have a sense of presentation which speak volumes on our behalf.

Why, then, do we continue to see poorly presented documents by people seeking employment?  Why, when all job applicants know that a letter of application and a CV will have to speak for them in their absence, do we still see such poor submissions?  Surely, if those 3-4 pages are supposed to get us invited to an interview, we would want to ensure that they are of the highest possible quality!

And once the quality has been improved, surely we would want to present ourselves in the best light possible by accentuating our better qualities?  Could we, for example, think about using language with more precision? Perhaps we could avoid repetition, and elevate our strengths just a little.  In fact, while we are at it, we may want to particularly address the key requirements of the job!  

Goodness, before long we'll stand out as though we are fancy dressed!

Complacency costs

Have you ever noticed just how naturally complacent we become?

Champion sports teams and individuals take a winning culture into each game, borne by confidence, sometimes arrogance, and sometimes complacency.  And then? Along come a mid-table opponent and does the unlikely!

Strong performers, who have always done well at school, believe they will always do well in whatever they do.  But, this is not always the case.  Just ask the top achievers who get to university and discover failure for the first time.

Similarly, successful businesses that have always been able to rely on the loyal patronage of the market, are, from time to time, blindsided by external developments.  Simply look at suppliers of bread, pasta and potatoes to supermarkets in Cape Town in 2014, and ask them how they've adapted to the low carb, high fat craze that has hit the city.

Deriving confidence from any success is good.  Becoming complacent, not so good.  

Let your success develop resilience to challenges and failure, and not the assumption that more success will simply follow.

Returning to school!

What a privilege it was to return to my alma mater, Belgravia High School in Athlone, Cape Town this week, to speak at the 2014 Valedictory Ceremony.  Apart from the ceremony, however, the experience in general was surreal since, even while I sat there on the stage, I realised that the three components of my message manifested themselves right there in the room!

The first part of my address contained a reference to the 'career revolution', a different way of conceiving personal career development.  This is not my concept, not is it new.  However, it remains at odds with the traditional views of 'future', often held by lower middle class communities such as the school community of a typical Athlone school.  The idea that traditional careers were conceived as linear, starting with some education or apprenticeship after school, and slowly growing from there.  It was based on values of longevity and loyalty, values which were, and are, rewarded at retirement.  Its progression was predictable and steady.  Most importantly, the traditional career was centred around the employer, aspirationally a large corporate, or the State.


For some years now, this idea of career development has been superceded by a more contemporary concept of personal career development.  Today, economies are no longer able to employ growing numbers of young adults of working age, skilled or not.  Today, personal growth is less and less dependent on the largess of employers.  Instead, the qualities of individuals are more and more material for their development.   Career development is unpredictable, and haphazard in nature.  Individuals may have several jobs or even concurrent interests that will characterise their productive years.  The values associated with that development are not loyalty and longevity.  Instead, success now depends on agility, communication skills and creativity.


There is a natural tension between these two positions, and the parents and learners in the hall often represented two camps on either side of that philosophical divide.  In our work we experience this often: parents wanting sons and daughters to enter professional areas of study, for 'security' and 'guarantees', while young adults want to express themselves differently.


The second part of my address related to Seth Godin's concept of the Purple Cow.  A Purple Cow is an event, action or product that generates a following because it flows upstream.  It is remarkable, and gets people talking about it.  I used Cape Town medic and academic, Prof Tim Noakes, as my example.  Prof Noakes introduced Cape Town to the Banting diet, a Low Card, High Fat diet, which he packaged in an eating plan called the real meal revolution.  In mere months, Noakes has developed a following he could never have thought possible.  The book he published along with other contributors was difficult to find in stores, and had to be reprinted.  The ingredients common to his recipes, such as almond flour and xylitol, has been in such demand that the price of the former quadrupled, and continued to sell!  Seth Godin makes the point that, while purple cows are remarkable and rare, they will soon be everyday when more and more start to appear.  In short, we should be prepared to continue searching for innovation.

My point to my young audience was exactly that: that to be prepared to fail (another of Godin's positions) in order to find what is so remarkable that others will want to speak about it, develop is, have it, buy it.


The last part of my speech was dedicated to each and every eighteen-year-old in the audience, and what awaited them, and how they were to consider preparing themselves for this.  I started with the myth that their success at school would translate into success in the future.  Conversely, those who struggled at school were not doomed to be ordinary or unsuccessful.  Our experiences at the University of Cape Town have shown over the years that a whole range of factors, not only academic ability, contribute to success.

Now for the surreal!  I realised that there were teachers in that hall who were there when I arrived!  They embodied the traditional career, and they would be rewarded for their loyalty and service to the school.  Were they able to sustain a changing world, based on revolutionary ideas about personal development?

With teachers around that long, was a school community of this nature able to recognise the need for purple cows, and support them when they emerged?  So, when a young learner delivered an oral tribute to his school that day, that clearly stood above all other speakers on the day, is this talent recognised and honed?

Lastly, how instrumental was a school community in uplifting 10% of their learners, the achievers, over the rest, the plodders.  Were they merely perpetuating our distorted perspectives of who are likely to achieve, and why?

I ended with a reference to time, and how we are all able to remember years back so vividly, but unable to imagine the very near future.

Let that be a clarion call for all of us.

Thank you Bellies!

The clock ticks for grade 12 learners...

It is 5 August 2014, and for any Grade 12 learner taking the National Senior Certificate (NSC) in a South African school, final examinations are imminent.  Is that wasn’t enough, between now and 27 October, there are any number of other time-consuming events, such as a complete third quarter, or trial, examination, a break in school, weekends with family events, and maybe even a Matric Ball!  Just what is possible in the limited time remaining, and where should grade 12 learners be now?

 

For better or worse, South African school learners are required to write a gruelling school-leaving set of examinations.  They do so at a time when the media is filled with speculation about the quality of the examinations, and even the quality of the very education that led to them.  In short, grade 12 learners do not have a great deal to be enthusiastic about, if they listen to many of the voices which freely express opinions about their development.

On top of it all, the Department of Basic Education endures a great deal of criticism as the favoured target of popular, often poorly informed, opinion.  Individuals readily pull out their soap boxes to write to the every-hungry media to voice their misgivings about the relative low level of performances of South African school-goers in relation to their African counterparts.  Or, my personal favourite, how, after twenty years of democracy, schooling in South Africa is still not adequate.  I particularly like the manner in which, often those who were educated at well-resourced schools, are most vocal that our public schools should be equal, when in fact the school system is fast becoming more stratified!  More of that on another day!

What this does, however, is paint a backdrop, simplistically referenced here, which makes for a complex context in which grade 12 learners prepare for their final examinations.  The NSC examinations themselves are sat by well over 500 000 school-leavers, and the certificate that, hopefully, follows will itself play a number of roles for the individual and for society.  For the school-leaver, it is an exit qualification, one that will be required for any number of purposes in the future including further or higher education and the job market.  So, in short, the pressure is on, and grade 12 learners start to feel it.

Why, then, do those same grade 12 learners have such difficulty envisaging the limited time remaining until the onset of their examinations, and planning for how best to use that time?  I wrestle with this question.  Like the answer to most questions, I believe that the answer to this one is multi-dimensional, and the following are but limited clues to one or two parts of the reasons.  For one, I buy into that horrible concept of ‘instant gratification’.  Young adults (as most adults do, just ask the retirement planners!) have difficulty seeing the connectedness of today, and tomorrow.  The benefits of medium to long-term gains are frequently minimised by the prospects of engaging with something or someone immediately!  Secondly, school success has come too easy to most learners at school.  There has never been a question of failure for many (indeed, I have it on good authority that even when learners actually fail, every effort is made to get them into the next grade!), and when they are challenged with the prospect of doing better in a high-stakes examination, it simply does not resonate with them in the way it should.

The bottom line, then, is the following:

·        NSC examinations start for all candidates with the English, Home Language, First Additional Language and Second Additional Language first papers on Monday, 27 October

·        the start of the examinations is 83 total days away from today

·        the start of the examinations is 43 school days away from today: those 43 days include a full September examination

 

My guess is that most South African grade 12 learners have not digested this reality, and have not placed their own preparation into this context.  So, what can be done?

I cannot begin to explain how many recently completed school-leavers I have come across over the years who have either wished that they had prepared better or repeated one or more subjects in the hope of a better performance.  In short, school-leavers realise very soon after receiving their final NSC examination result just what they have, or have not achieved!  More importantly, they realise what a difference a little more effort may have made, and they wish they could have that time back.

My advice to grade 12 learners, on 5 August 2014, is to consider the following 9 steps to preparing for the final NSC examinations:

1.      Get a grip: look at the calendar, take out a piece of paper and a pencil, and plan your next few weeks until the end of the examinations.  If you are not serious about this, do not read any further.  Your plan should eliminate parties and social engagements from the next few weeks.  Remember, going to the club is not about the 6 hours you are away, it’s also about the many hours before and after the event that occupy your mind!

2.      Your plan should cover all the work, in all of your subjects.  Coming across work that you do not understand is a good thing – rather now than in the examinations.

3.      Your plan should allow for additional time for your problem subjects, and not allow for more time for your favourite subjects, just because it makes you feel good to do this work continually.

4.      Now, once you have a realistic plan in place, discuss with your parents and siblings, so that the lives of others around you fit in with your plans.  If they doubt your sincerity because you have never worked as hard, convince them today by starting your programme of study tonight.

5.      Do not fail your programme, and if you do, make up the time!

6.      Keep a log of all the work you do not understand, and ask your, or another teacher, for assistance.  Try to avoid asking your best buddy, unless s/he regularly achieves 100% for these subjects.

7.      Whatever you do, do not panic.  There is lots of help about, be open to is, and seek it out.

8.      Get sufficient sleep.

9.      Last, but not least, START IMMEDIATELY!  We are prone to procrastination, and we do not realise that the one immovable is 27 October.  Every morning we wake signals a day fewer to prepare!

Tick, Tock!