A friend of mine recently alerted me to a significant policy report from the Edge Foundation in the United Kingdom.  This report, “Our plan for 14-19 education, Coherent, Unified, Holistic” calls for a re-shaping of how the “transition” phase of education happens for youth in the UK.

The report makes the case that education is not just about learning for learning’s sake, but that particularly starting at age 14, it must be more focused on the role of career development.   The report points out that the UK has a serious problem of well educated but underemployed university graduates; this is evidence of a serious skills gaps, or perhaps better put, a skills mismatch.

Kenneth Baker, Chair of the Edge Foundation says, “The primary purpose of education, particularly in the teenage years, has to be equipping young people with the skills and knowledge they need to reach their full potential in their working and broader lives.”

The report calls for education that is coherent, unified and holistic.  I really like this thinking on these terms, so I’ll quote directly.

“Coherent (taking young people on a clear journey from school to preparedness for work); Unified (bringing together ‘academic’ and ‘technical’ education in a single route) and, Holistic (helping young people to develop in the round, including the metaskills and soft skills that employers most value.)

While the UK has a nationalized form of education governance (unlike our highly decentralized model), the report is more what we might see as a state policy report.  It is calling for a fundamental restructuring of education so there is an extended time given for developing a youth’s career interests and related academic, technical and metaskills.  Right now that phase of transition (focusing of preparing for work or further education) happens from age 16-19.  They are recommending that the “transition” phase be extended to ages 14-19 so there is more time to adequately develop career awareness and carry out career application.

The report points out two bright spot innovations that have been well-reported in the U.S. – the Academies of Nashville and the P-Tech model.  (I profiled both of these in the Power and Promise of Pathways).  The Edge Foundation report also lays out eight strands of reform to follow to realize their vision.

You might want to take a first-hand look. It’s really interesting to see how our cultural cousins in the UK are grappling with the same issues, historical biases, and economic realities that we in the U.S. are facing.  You can find the report at www.edge.co.uk.

Hans Meeder is President of NC3T, the National Center for College and Career Transitions (www.nc3t.com).  NC3T provides planning, coaching, technical assistance and tools to help community-based leadership teams plan and implement their college-career pathway systems and strengthen employer connections with education.

This is an encore post from February 2017.

How can educators and parents move youths toward good careers with the minimum number of miscues and wrong turns?  We should adopt three guiding beliefs in how we help students think about careers and postsecondary education.

This question is extremely important because ongoing research tells us that the U.S. workforce continues to be plagued by a mismatch between the skills that workers need and the actual jobs that exist.  This workforce mismatch correlates to millions of people who are unable to find meaningful, self-sustaining work.

The National Skills Coalition (NSC) recently released an updated set of data related to high-skill jobs, middle-skill jobs and low-skilled jobs.   They have produced a national overview and then state-by-state middle-skill fact sheets, which you can find here (NSC State Policy Fact Sheets).

According to the NSC, a “middle-skill job” is one that requires education and training that is more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree.

According to the 2007 report, America’s Forgotten Middle Skills Jobs[i], the three categories are as follows:

• “High-skill occupations are those in the professional/technical and managerial categories.
• Low-skill occupations are those in the service and agricultural categories.
• Middle-skill occupations are the others, including clerical, sales, construction, installation/repair, production, and transportation/material moving.”

Personal note: I don’t particularly like the term “middle-skill” because it seems to relegate these jobs to a second class status in comparison to jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree.  The reality is that many students who graduate from college or university have a good, broad-based education but few in-demand skills.  For example, take a look at my previous post about how having some in-demand technical skills really makes a difference in employability for liberal-arts graduates.   The fact is that many people with middle-skill jobs are actually very highly skilled, they just don’t have as much time invested taking general education courses as college graduates do.

According to the NSC analysis, between the years 2014 and 2024,

• Middle-skill jobs will make up 48% of all the job openings
• High-skill jobs will make up 32% of the job openings
• Low-skill jobs will make up 20% of the job openings

Further, the NSC analysis points to a middle-skill gap in the current workforce, using data from the 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics data set.

As of 2015, 53% of jobs in the U.S. were middle-skilled, but just about 42% of workers have these specific skills needed for these jobs.  That’s a serious under-supply in the middle-skill arena.

On the other hand, there is an oversupply of both high-skill workers and low-skill workers.  Because of this mismatch, some college-educated workers take jobs that don’t require their level of education.  And, many poorly educated workers can’t find even low-skilled work.

There won’t be a quick fix to this mismatch, and jobs continue to evolve quickly through the forces of automation and globalization.  The actual job market is a moving target.  But here are three beliefs that I think we can consider that might help students make better choices in thinking about careers and education.

1. Every child should aim high, but not follow the crowd.

We should help each child (and our teachers) remember that aiming high means being well-educated so they be prepared for career and life success.  Being well-educated coming out of K-12 schools is non-negotiable, whatever level of postsecondary education and training you wish to pursue.

Aiming high does not always mean having to attend a four-year college or university. Conversely, we should also strongly encourage children to stretch themselves academically to pursue college or university if they have a clear career aspiration that requires that level of education.

Homer Hickam, the NASA engineer who grew up in coal-mining West Virginia and struggled with math is a wonderful example of a student who was driven to excellence by a deep career aspiration.  You can learn about his story in his memoir “Rocket Boys” and in the film “October Sky.”

2. More students need to participate in AND complete postsecondary education and training that is attuned to real opportunities in our economy.

Right now, too few students enroll in postsecondary education and training at the middle-skill level, so we have an oversupply of low-skilled workers (poorly educated) and high-skilled workers (college educated).  We must increase exposure and understanding of all good career options and their correlated education and training options throughout a student’s middle and high school experience.  Of course, high quality pathway programs fulfill this need.

3. Parents need to be part of this conversation, leveraging their desire for their child to have a good career and fulfilled life.

Without ever disparaging a child’s capabilities, we want to help parents understand that being over-educated and under-employed is not a good end result.  Parents should see themselves as successful parents by helping their child find a career path that is a good personal fit.  Almost all parents care deeply about their children, but can still be misguided by their own expectations and fears.  Some parents might need to let go of aspirations that are really about making up for their own mistakes or by the fear of being looked down upon by other parents if their child chooses not to go to college or university.  Conversely, other parents might need to raise their expectations for their child and not feel threatened that their child might outshine them or leave them behind by attaining a higher level of education or career success than they have.

Redefining Success

These three guiding beliefs are based on the idea of redefining success for individuals in modern America.  Success is much more than going to college or even getting a good career that pays well.  Real success is helping develop an individual’s God-given talents and aptitudes, and giving each person a way to meaningfully participate and contribute to our world.  This is how educators and parents should define success to better shape their role as adults.  This definition of success will also help the youth make better decisions about pursuing their education and a career.  Achieving this type of success is a life-long journey. Let’s help each child get the education they need to make a successful launch.

[i] Holzer, Harry J. & Lerman, Robert I. (2007), America’s Forgotten Middle Skills Jobs. Published by Skills to Compete Campaign, The Workforce Alliance, Washington, DC.  Retrieved at:  http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/31566/411633-America-s-Forgotten-Middle-Skill-Jobs.PDF

Hans Meeder is President of NC3T, the National Center for College and Career Transitions (www.nc3t.com).  NC3T provides planning, coaching, technical assistance and tools to help community-based leadership teams plan and implement their college-career pathway systems and strengthen employer connections with education.

By guest poster, Brett Pawlowski, EVP of the National Center for College and Career Transitions.

In my last post, I shared about my work around creating and implementing my Life Plan, based on the book, Living Forward by Michael Hyatt.

As I noted in developing my life plan, I identified 12 accounts.  As the old saying goes, “his appetite is bigger than his stomach.”  I want to do a lot and experience a lot, and I struggle with taking on too many things and not experiencing as much success in any of them as I would like.

That’s why the book Essentialism, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, has been such a helpful wake-up call.  I’m reading Essentialism for the second time, and I’m reminded that it is more about a mind-set with tactics for acting on the mindset.  It’s about accepting the reality that life is about choices – identifying what really matters, the few things that really matter, and then focusing in on them intently.

Here are some select quotes from the introductory chapter.

Less But Better

“The way of the Essentialist is the relentless pursuit of less but better.  It doesn’t mean occasionally giving a nod to the principle.  It means pursuing it in a disciplined way.”

Why Non-Essentialism is Everywhere –

Too Many Choices. “…the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed our ability to manage it.  We have lost our ability to filter what is important and what isn’t.  Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.”

Too Much Social Pressure

“…the larger issue is how our connectedness has increased the strength of social pressure.  Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on.  It is not just information overload; it is opinion overload.”

The Idea That “You Can Have it All”

The word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s.  It was singular.  It meant the very first or prior thing.  It stayed singular for the next five hundred years.  Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities.

The Essentialist approach “requires, not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials, and not just getting rid of the obvious time wasters, but cutting out some really good opportunities as well.”

The book is organized around three disciplines of essentialism:

1. Explore and Evaluate; 2. Eliminate, and 3. Execute. There’s too much to explain in a single post, but hopefully you’ve gotten a taste.

Essentialism 1.0 in my experience

As I said, Essentialism is a mindset and an ongoing process, not a “one and done” activity.  Honestly, right now my knowledge and interest in essentialism far exceeds my experience of living by the credo.

But in the last few months, I’ve been learning the “art of the graceful no,” and have been able to decline many good, but nonessential time commitments in my personal life.  Each decline is really choosing to trade off something nice for what I’ve determined to be more important.  You can’t have it all – at the same time!

I’ve said yes to a few commitments that, in retrospect, I could have declined.  I’m trying to really take note so I can learn and get better at determining the criteria for what I will take on, and what I will bypass.

This essentialist discipline is also important in the context of making better business decisions; we are applying decision criteria to opportunities that come across our desks for consulting, coaching projects as well as workshops.  As we better define our core beliefs and mission, we try to stay close to that mission and only work on projects that are well aligned with the mission and where we think we can add the most value.

Life Planning is Essentialism

This mindset of Essentialism is the basis of Life Planning.  Essentialism and life planning requires the discipline of articulating what’s really important and then structuring life around those priorities.

Whatever your life and career circumstance, consider taking advantage of both of these wonderful resources.   I think you’ll be glad you did.

Excerpts from:  McKeown, Greg. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. First edition. Crown Business, 2014.

Hans Meeder is President of NC3T, the National Center for College and Career Transitions (www.nc3t.com).  NC3T provides planning, coaching, technical assistance and tools to help community-based leadership teams plan and implement their college-career pathway systems and strengthen employer connections with education.

Is there a way you could have a sense of greater focus and connectedness during this upcoming school year and beyond?  I think so.  In this post and the next post, I’m going to share two great resources that have helped simplify and focus my life.

In my work in education, I advocate the idea of every child developing career navigation skills – the skills that help a youth learn about, choose, manage and adapt in their career path.

Of course, I’ve had to navigate my own career too.  But more than just navigating a career, I’ve felt the increased need to get better at my Life Navigation Skills.

Last fall, I did some pretty intensive goal setting, and that has helped this year be very meaningful.  But I realized a few months into the year that I still wanted to have a bigger picture perspective so I could see how these short-term goals help contribute to my longer-term life success.  That’s when I discovered Living Forward  by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy.  Living Forward shares the process for creating and implementing a “Life Plan” so that all the important parts of my life are integrated.  This is not the notion of “life-balance” but “Life Integration.”

The word Integrity is related to integration.  We often think of integrity as meaning moral uprightness.  It also means “the state of being whole and undivided.”  That’s the kind of life I want – where the relationships, work responsibilities, and other interests and commitments aren’t constantly battling against one another, but are working together in harmony.

First, I listened to the book through Audible, then I got a hard copy of the book because I was so intrigued by it.  It took me a couple days of up-front work, but the process was well worth it.  In short, you spend time identifying the “accounts” (as in bank accounts) that matter in your life.  There is no right or wrong way to create accounts and the book suggests nine accounts that most people will want to have.  But you have to identify the accounts that are important to you.  I have 12 of them! Maybe that’s too many, but that’s what I came up with.  They are: spiritual connection to God, my wife Lisa, my kids and their spouses plus my grandchild, my work in education, physical health, financial, friendships, mentoring, other family members, service, travel, my home, and music.

That’s a lot, but it’s the reality of what my life – and the life I want to live – entails.  So I have two options – try to keep all the plates spinning at all times, and hope to avoid them crashing to the ground.  That creates a lot of stress.

Or – as I’m doing through the Life Plan, make long-term commitments across all the accounts, and then determine on a regular basis, what are the limited number of short-term goals and actions that I’m going to pursue.  I’m not actively spinning all the plates in every account every day, but for me, it really helps think about my total life, stretching over the next few decades.  Then I can proactively plan how I can maintain my focus on what’s really important at the moment.

Think about the Life Plan as a rudder.  A craft without a rudder just drifts.  A craft with a rudder goes where the pilot aims.

Of course, I can’t control external circumstance or other people.  But I am responsible for living my life in a way that is “whole and undivided.”  That’s why a tool like the Life Plan helps me stay on track.

As a busy leader, I know you are pulled in multiple directions all the time, and our hyper-connected world also offers endless distractions from what really matters.

Give it some serious thought.  Maybe it’s time for you to step back, envision who you want to be and what’s important to you, and create your own Life Plan.  Finishing it up in these last few weeks of summer would be a great way to launch into the next school year!

Stay tuned for my next post with the other great resource for creating better focus in your life!

Hans Meeder is President of NC3T, the National Center for College and Career Transitions (www.nc3t.com).  NC3T provides planning, coaching, technical assistance and tools to help community-based leadership teams plan and implement their college-career pathway systems and strengthen employer connections with education.