Risky is the New Safe (8 page)

And it's widening
. . .

The former Soviet Bloc countries (not to mention Asia) are embracing free enterprise with zeal, while the West is getting lazy. Too many people in the West take for granted the opportunities that free markets offer.

The other alarming trend in the West is the gradual but steady meltdown of the education system. Instead of teaching kids how to think—and yes, this is an actual skill that young people must learn—the system has deteriorated into teaching to the test. All this teaches students is that they have to memorize facts to get by.

Much of the curriculum taught in the West today is no longer relevant to the real world. Children don't need to be able to recite facts and dates. Any eight-year-old kid with a smartphone (and most do have them) can get that information within seconds. What young students need is an education that helps them develop critical thinking skills that will prepare them for the real world when they grow up.

What compounds the problem at the higher level is the fact that the university model is completely out of date. The physical model is built on books, classrooms, and sprawling campuses of brick and mortar, while the financial model is built on exploiting athletes, chasing endowments, and requiring students to go outrageously into debt to earn an accredited diploma.

By continuing to keep the focus on these things, universities are hastening their irrelevance
.

A big reason for this is economics. Universities pursue endowments and hustle for cash, the biggest source of which is students who bet their future on huge student loans. The amount of debt of the average college graduate today is irrational. And more and more of these individuals will discover that the bet they made on their diploma getting them a good job was a bad wager.

Of course, universities will always have a place in our society. If you want to get a well-rounded education in languages, humanities, the arts, and philosophy, a university is probably still going to be the best place to find that. But
what
a university will be, and how such an institution will operate, will need to change dramatically.

It's no longer realistic to buy into the notion that you should borrow heavily against your future earnings to get a generalized degree, assuming the degree will lead to a job.

The accelerated speed of change has made it harder and harder for college curricula to remain relevant. And too many professors have experienced only what they teach in the vacuum of academia, not through actual experience in the real world. In the very near future, an MBA or PhD from a prestigious university is going to look fairly weak compared to a solid six-month, online training certificate in a specialized field like video game programming, mobile app design, or spaceship engine repair.

And how do you think savvy entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, Richard Branson, or Mark Zuckerberg will weigh degrees and pedigrees versus real experience or relevance when they are hiring someone for their own companies? Well, here's a clue from
Blog Maverick
, Cuban's weblog:

As an employer I want the best-prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper.

Education will evolve in the same way as the entrepreneurial world; those willing to think differently will find—and offer—great opportunity. North Carolina's High Point University tripled its enrollment because it daringly tackles some of these relevant issues: Preparing students for a future of both success and significance, going beyond training to a holistic education, curriculum with an emphasis on experiential learning, and a focus on valued-based living.

HPU has worked hard to be relevant in a rapidly changing world. This includes taking such actions as adding majors like interactive gaming; giving students more experience through internships; offering study possibilities in 25 countries; providing off-campus experiences in places like the stock exchanges to add context; and bringing in thought leaders like Malcolm Gladwell to address the student body.

It's no coincidence this renaissance at HPU is coming about under the direction of Dr. Nido Qubein, who took over as president in 2005. Nido comes from the real world of business. He arrived in the United States with $50 in 1966 and went on to reach extraordinary success as an entrepreneur. He helped start a bank in 1986, and today he chairs the executive committee of BB&T, a Fortune 500 financial corporation with $175 billion in assets and 35,000 employees. Nido is also chairman of Great Harvest Bread Company, a bakery with 218 stores across the country. He also serves on the boards of La-Z-Boy Corporation and fashion chain Dots Stores.

Nido acknowledged the challenges facing education during a conversation I had with him; however, he was excited to discuss how High Point is meeting these challenges. He said,

The number of institutions will diminish and demand may indeed lessen. Transformative academies like HPU will prosper while transactional ones living only in the past may suffer. The real growth opportunity will be in making a college education affordable and available to the masses (who otherwise may not have pursued it). That is where you now see online classes and the like flourish.

The “Ivies” [Ivy League universities] will do fine in spite of everything, the HPUs (very few of them out there—we're close to unique in some ways) will grow because they are nimble, responsive, provide value, and interpret that value in ways that produce productive outcomes. The smaller schools that drown in an ocean of sameness may indeed meet very tough (if not catastrophic) times.

Yet, even forward-thinking institutions like High Point will need to reinvent a lot about what they do. You'll find a great deal of proud proclamations on their website about the huge increase in buildings and acreage on campus. How those kinds of investments will pay off in the digital world remains to be seen. (We can safely assume that at least one of those buildings is a library, housing books like dictionaries. The average kid today not only has no idea what a dictionary is, but would never have a need to know how to use one.)

We do know one thing for certain: Creating success in the new economy will require students to take much more responsibility for their own education. They'll need to make it less about degrees and more about practical application.

Nations such as India, Japan, Korea, and some other Asian countries are placing a renewed focus on education. They are churning out scores of college grads who are highly trained in very relevant fields like programming, gaming, biotechnology, environmental engineering, and entrepreneurship (taught by real entrepreneurs). Universities in the West will need to think more like High Point to regain relevance.

Take the passion for free enterprise you see demonstrated in the former Soviet Bloc countries, add in the focused attention to education in some of these countries, and you have the potential for a New World Order.

There are some small signs that the West is waking up—and hopefully this trend will continue. But right now, the advantage goes to a lot of the smaller, developing countries. Outsourcing will continue to expand, but instead of using this approach to take advantage of a cheaper work force, companies will be outsourcing to tap into a better-educated and more motivated labor pool.

Disruptive technology is eliminating millions of jobs and requiring drastic changes to others. Cloning, along with other advances in medical technology and longevity, will shake things up even more. The irresponsible government financial policies we discussed in the last section are threatening the world economy.

Power is shifting from the West to developing and even third-world countries. The education system is not preparing you or your kids for how to succeed in the new economy. So just how can people and companies compete and remain relevant in the new world order?

All true prosperity springs from the power of ideas. (If you are interested in the metaphysical process behind this, read
Prosperity
by Charles Fillmore.) Because the education system has lost the plot, people's critical thinking ability is shrinking and ideas are diminishing.

The most valuable, cherished, and sought-after currency in the new economy will be
ideas
.

Savvy employees will create their own critical thinking curriculum that incorporates a mélange of problem solving, lateral thinking, logic, and creativity. People who do this will become idea generators and declare themselves free agents. Just like superstar athletes, they'll be able to entertain a variety of offers and choose the most lucrative long-term deal.

The future still lies in education—just not in the way we know it now
.

Because I never finished high school, I'll admit my experience with formal education is quite limited. When I was 30 years old, I took some college courses for about a year and a half to keep myself challenged. I was amazed at how little college actually prepares you for the real world—and I was incredulous that it seems to follow the same model of high school and primary school:
It programs you with
what
to think, instead of teaching you
how
to think
.

Higher education still leads you to believe that learning is about memorizing facts, which I think is actually the least important element in education. The most essential areas relevant to education in the new economy will be:

• Curiosity
  
• Discipline
  
• Discernment
  
• Contrarianism
  

Let's look at each of these in greater detail.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that curiosity is important to a good education. This is what creates the passion for learning. The most intellectually developed people are also the most curious. A guy named Einstein once said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” And he seemed to be a pretty bright fellow.

If you want to grow and develop, you must maintain your childlike curiosity about the world around you, because curiosity drives us to knowledge. However, being curious is just the beginning. You also need the second trait we mentioned . . .

Casual curiosity ignites the spark of learning and leads you to investigate ideas and topics that have surface interest for you. But any learning of real substance requires discipline. It will require you to go deeper and study subjects that don't seem as intriguing at first, but truly make you think.

I have a CD series on the great philosophies of the world. I have another one of the principles of the Objectivist philosophy. They both give me a headache, literally. When I listen to them, I have to pause and replay, stop and look up words in the dictionary, or just take a breather to process what I just heard so that often I actually
do
get a headache.

But that's the good kind of headache, the one that comes from stretching your brain around new concepts, learning new vocabulary, and developing new thought processes. These things are the sure signs of growth and enlightenment.

But just being exposed to enlightening material is not enough. You must employ the third trait from the list . . .

What a lost art this is today. So many people have worthiness and self-esteem issues that they desperately look for others to tell them what to think. This takes away the pressure of having to make decisions, discern truth from fiction, and actually think for themselves.

But you have to do better
. . .

When you are exposed to new information, you must process it first through your powers of discernment. This is the ability to form opinions by objectively evaluating the information presented to you. This facility is what allows you to make good judgments. But that doesn't happen if you blindly accept
all
the information presented to you. Intelligent people realize everything presented to them (including this book) comes shaded with some bias. And that leads us to the last very critical trait of enlightened learning . . .

Because sometimes even discernment isn't enough. Sometimes you have to see the world in a totally different way than the rest of the herd.

The reality is most people today are automatons, blindly following the herd through the motions of life. They are merely existing—not living. Most people today are not happy, healthy, or successful. So why would you want to think like them? You don't. Or you'll end up like them. So don't be afraid to be contrary to what everyone seems to be doing. In fact, be afraid if you're not. Not only is risky the new safe in the new economy; weird is the new normal.

This means individuals will take a personal responsibility for their own education. It will likely include elements of the traditional education system but will also require an additional mix of alternative, experiential, and contrarian content.

For companies, the most important resource in which to invest will become people. Of course, many companies claim that they already do this—but that is simply window dressing. This investment will need to become deeply integrated in the corporate culture.

For HR departments, the focus will shift to stronger recruiting, more vetting, and creating the best free-agent packages. Of course, a lot more of these workers will be independent contractors. But all of them will need to be wooed and paid based upon what they bring to the table. Your success as a human resources manager will be judged on your ability to sign the premier free agents.

I believe you'll see a return to companies encouraging employees to continue their education and even be willing to participate in the cost. But just as athletes have to refund a portion of their signing bonus if they walk away, don't be surprised to see companies requiring a certain amount of service in return for what they invest in an employee's or contractor's education.