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1O lessons every leader can learn from their pets

From resilience to empathy, pets have much to teach their owners and can help people to develop numerous traits that are essential to becoming a successful leader in the 21st century

It is well-known that dogs and other pets bring joy and happiness into our lives but what lessons can business graduates and future leaders learn from their pets?

Lesson 1: resilience and willpower

The path to success is often stormy with huge obstacles that block our way. Often, we are inclined to take the easy way out and simply give up. In contrast, animals don’t give up due to their instinct for survival – even as pets. We should follow their incredible resilience and willpower as this is one of the most important traits of successful leaders.

Lesson 2: positive relationships

Relationships with team and other staff members can make or break a professional career. Owning a pet can enhance our careers and help us climb the corporate ladder. In a 2018 study from Banfield Pet Hospital, 62% of surveyed c-suite executives said that childhood pets had had a positive impact on their ability to build rapport with co-workers and clients; and 79% believed that co-workers with pets were hard workers. When we build great, high-performing teams by having a positive and nurturing relationships with them, the chances of becoming a successful and respected leader increase.

Lesson 3: creativity

Businesses rely not only on leadership and communication skills, but also on creativity. A total of 84% of c-suite executives who grew up with a childhood pet said they were creative in the Banfield Pet Hospital study, and an amazing 77% said they come up with business ideas while walking their dog.

A 2010 paper led by Samuel Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Psychology, meanwhile, found that cat people were 11% more likely to be open than dog people. Openness is a characteristic that is often said to enhance creativity and one secret to business success is to think out of the box, and to innovate and create completely new products or services that appeal to customers.

Lesson 4: conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is a key element of success. Gosling’s research concluded that dog people were more conscientious than cat people. However, owning any pet will increase our conscientiousness by around double compared with non-pet owners, according to a 2011 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Dog people tend to be ‘planners’ – and are likely to be more self-disciplined and have a keen sense of duty. Proper planning in business is essential to avoid unexpected project holes that can be detrimental. Self-discipline is the signature mark of a great leader who serves as a role model for his team.

Lesson 5: non-traditional thinking

Cat people were more likely to be more curious than dog people in the Gosling research. Combined with a tendency to be more open than dog people, cat people have qualities needed for non-traditional thinking. Great leaders do not follow traditional thinking, they have new ideas, look at situations from a different angle and amaze their teams with unexpected points of views.

Lesson 6: being more extrovert

It is well-established that extroverts have it easier in their professional lives and experience greater success than introverts. Pet owners are found to be more extroverted than non-pet owners, according to the aforementioned 2011 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In a 2019 report from the Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI), 51% of participants claimed their pet helps them feel less shy. The Gosling research, meanwhile, found that dog people more extroverted than cat people. Outgoing, enthusiastic and energetic character traits are essential for leaders to express themselves, make deals, convince their customers, and create a formidable team bond.

Lesson 7: communication skills

Communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal, are of utmost importance for leadership and business

success. The easiest way to learn is to observe our animals. In the Banfield Pet Hospital survey, 92% of surveyed c-suite executives said that they learned to pay attention to nonverbal communication from their pets. Pets understand even the slightest hint of our body language. Understanding non-verbal communication in negotiations and in meetings can provide the clue to a successful outcome, as it helps to estimate the reaction of the counterpart. This helps us to improve and clarify our communication, which helps us to become better negotiators and leaders.

Lesson 8: dealing with rejection

Every successful leader must deal with rejection; the higher he climbs, the more rejection he will experience. The 2011 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study revealed that pet owners deal better with social rejection than people without pets. A 2016 study led by Arcadia University’s Christina Brown, meanwhile, found that momentary feelings of social rejection can be soothed by thinking about a dog, recalling its name, or even simply by having a dog nearby. Therefore, positive thoughts of one’s pet is an immense help towards building a strong shield against rejection. That would explain why so many famous CEOs of big companies are pet lovers.

Lesson 9: dominance

A certain level of dominance is necessary for c-suite executives who get people to carry out their decisions effectively. It has been shown that a preference for dog ownership can elevate a person’s ‘dominance score’ predict a preference for dogs. This might be one reason why the Banfield Pet Hospital survey found that 83% of CEOs and c-suite executives have dogs. No leader can be successful if they are not dominant, but dominance should be used in a positive way to carry out decisions that better the company and team, rather than being used to intimidate team members. 

Lesson 10: empathic leadership

The Banfield Pet Hospital survey also found strong parallels between pet ownership and leadership skills. Some 92% of surveyed c-suite executives attributed pets to having helped them develop the ability to discipline subordinates; and 79% regarded pet ownership as important to developing better organisational skills.

People living with dogs can most easily understand the importance of ‘bio-empathic leadership’, which is the ability to look at things from nature’s point of view. Instead of taking, these leaders give back and help nurture their organisations, as dogs do with their families or packs. This is the kind of leadership we should all strive for. Empathic leaders work towards giving back to their company and not just their own personal success. This kind of leadership regards team members as vital contributors to success and not as interchangeable human resources in an organisational structure and static bureaucracy that doesn’t care about anything beyond its immediate business goals.

Conclusion

Pets can serve as fabulous role models for all leaders and especially for business graduates who are starting out and making their mark in the corporate world. They can help improve both our personal character traits and the leadership skills needed for greater success in our professional lives.

Margit Gabriele Muller is Executive Director and Chief Veterinarian at the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital in the United Arab Emirates, and the author of Your Pet, Your Pill. She holds a PhD in veterinary medicine as well as an executive MBA from Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, Scotland.

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Sharing stories to empower women worldwide

The CEO of female empowerment platform, Smart Girl Tribe, talks about her entrepreneurial journey to redefine the media’s take on womanhood and to offer a resource through which women can share and access narratives that resonate and inspire

Harvard University is ostentatious, majestic and a pioneer of education and in the autumn of 2019, I was there about to speak at its largest annual conference as a ‘female empowerment expert’. Having only just returned from Tanzania, quickly followed by Switzerland for another speaking gig, you would think I was fatigued yet, as I studied my speech notes, I thought about the unconventional journey it had taken to build a fully-fledged business at the age of only 19, everything that had been required to realise my dream and how far, collectively, the team had come.

Since grafting from a dorm room as that wide-eyed teenager, Smart Girl Tribe has grown to boast a top-rated podcast, an event series with the BBC and a published book.  My job involves arming women with the tools and knowledge to live freely as their most authentic selves. As CEO of a leading UK female empowerment organisation, it is easy to focus on the triumphs, such as moving and making it as a journalist in New York, or walking the famous British Vogue corridors – but there is a lot more to the story than this.  

Women deserved more

When I was growing up, women’s magazines were only promoting three topics: body image, intimate relationships and boyfriends. Desperate to be a writer, I struggled to accept the internships I was offered as I didn’t follow the same ethos as these magazines. Women deserved more from the media, an outlet to concentrate on mental health, confidence, social issues affecting women and tangible ways to become the people we are destined to be. At what price was my dream going to cost?

It was during a summer holiday in my hometown in Italy that I had a monumental conversation with my mother and decided to create my own magazine. Being in rural Le Marche, I had no internet or phone connection and having spent the majority of my time at university in the library striving to be an academic – no valuable mentor or real friends. Persevering, I contacted my entire email list asking if anyone knew someone who could help me build a website. After three months of designing and writing the first few articles myself, the launch date was set with a Twitter account set up to promote my endeavour. Within three days of launching, we had more than 40 applications from writers requesting to contribute to Smart Girl Tribe. At that very moment, I knew we were onto something and realised how many smart girls like me existed but didn’t have a platform to inspire, educate or entertain them.

Know your mission

Women were worth more than what they were being sold. Major magazines perpetually had us buy into the idea that we are not enough, they continued to undermine our intelligence and innate power. Someone had to change the system, someone had to do something, and then I realised I am ‘someone’. It was crucial for all women to have a safe space online to lend a voice to the female experience. Even when having a bad day with Smart Girl Tribe I wasn’t prepared to jeopardise its mission – to redefine the media’s take on womanhood. We didn’t focus on the directions other publications were following but stayed true to our subject matter – becoming the change we wanted to see in the world and developing an all-inclusive platform for every woman. As a result, we have worked with some incredible organisations, including UN Women, HeforShe, Women for Women International and 50:50.

Be obsessed

Entrepreneurship demands everything from you. You have to eat it, breathe it and live it. Being an entrepreneur can also be risky, but not going after your dreams is even riskier. During my final years at university, I began recording my lectures purely because I would end up drafting ideas for Smart Girl Tribe during them. Coding was initially a foreign language to me, but not having the funds or investment to support my venture meant I had to learn everything myself. In one day, I could find myself being editor, writer, proofreader, speaker, photographer, model, activist, graphic designer and web developer. The entrepreneurial life in itself can bring many challenges – it’s not about being the smartest or the most experienced, it’s about being the one who can hold on for the longest.

Leave excuses at the door

I didn’t have an economics degree, business qualification or experience when setting up Smart Girl Tribe. Its foundation was built on its core principles, a strong mission and tenacity. At the end of the day, if you don’t have the answers, Google does. You will either find a way or an excuse. My approach to Smart Girl Tribe has never changed. How do you build a house? From the ground up. I never focused on white noise, such as our following or how pretty our site was, I homed in on the only trait I knew would help me get to where I wanted to be – my hustle.

Know your audience and the times

For some businesses, the priority is the client or customer. For us, it was our readers and later, listeners. Getting ready to launch, I constructed the Smart Girl Tribe reader – their age, hobbies, shopping tendencies and even minute details such as what she drinks, who her friends are and where she travels to. We knew the reader inside and out, so with every conflicting decision that appeared we could come back to that same question – what would the smart girl want? Times have evolved but the readership has remained committed. Everything we have created was a response to what our tribe has asked for.

Max your dream

Women have been conditioned to shrink themselves and apologise for taking up space.Smart Girl Tribe is essentially a personal development community for women where they can heal, grow and become. Despite its astounding growth, for years, I kept this platform to my dorm room, rarely talking about it, even to friends and family, out of fear. It wasn’t until I entered adulthood that I realised the detrimental effect this attitude would have. Seeking validation or permission from anyone can only hinder and hurt, it never helps. Indeed, one woman rising gives other women the courage to rise too, so I started maxing my dreams and building everything on a larger scale. This is how I have been able to work with international organisations and received invitations to speak all over the world.

Smart Girl Tribe, the platform, has served as a great terrain to share stories. They were always the fixture throughout the journey – the magazine, podcast, events and book have really always just been channels to feature narratives that resonate with people on a deeply personal level. Often, we don’t want to be vulnerable or show struggle but Smart Girl Tribe has been the quiet ally that says: ‘you are not alone’.

Scarlett V Clark is CEO and Founder of Smart Girl Tribe and author of The Smart Girls Handbook (Trigger 2021).

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How to onboard graduate employees remotely

What to expect when joining a company in the work from home era, with advice and tips on how employers can integrate graduate employees into a business remotely, and effectively

New graduates preparing to enter the world of postgraduate employment for the first time are doing it in unique circumstances. Not only did many spend their final months of university learning remotely, but they also now face the prospect of being remotely trained and integrated into their new workplace. This has resulted in 82% of 2020 graduates feeling disconnected from employers and 83% lacking in motivation, according to a survey from Prospects.

One upside is that with each new cohort of graduates comes a better understanding of technology. They’ve grown up with technology, using it daily throughout their lives. In fact, the current crops of generation Z university leavers are commonly known as ‘digital natives’. Digital isn’t new to them – they’re at the forefront of new tech, with the latest smartphones and tablets. Despite this, the prospect of beginning their chosen career remotely may still be a daunting one.

Equally, integrating new employees into your business remotely presents challenges. If you train graduates by having them shadow senior employees in the office or on site, that might not be possible. Here is how you can use digital training methods to ensure you onboard graduate employees easily.

Remote inductions

Most new employees will have a schedule of inductions with their manager, team, and various departments in your business. This gives them a full picture of what your business, and each department, does. Even if a graduate employee has secured a role in marketing, knowing what the finance team does, for example, will allow them to understand how teams work together.

For office-based graduate employees, there’s an easy path to digital induction. Tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom offer a simple way to organise remote introductions and training. After all, it’s likely that your graduate employees are already familiar with these tools – between February and June 2020, Microsoft Teams and Zoom usage is said to have grown by 894% and 677%, respectively.

These tools allow you to deliver presentations to your fellow call attendees, replicating the feeling of in-person inductions. They can be delivered in groups or in single sessions, depending on how many graduate trainees you’re onboarding at one time.

Shadowing

Job shadowing is a critical element of training for a lot of companies. This is particularly important when integrating graduates and young people who are in the first stage of their career. Shadowing allows new employees to see how their department and the role they’ve secured works in the real world. They’ll also have an unrivalled opportunity to learn about the company and its processes.

This is especially valuable to the current cohort of graduates. Many students have lost out on doing or completing an in-company internship as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which means they have missed out on valuable on-the-job learning. While some key worker roles will allow for in-person shadowing, it may be out of the question for many roles. But there are ways around it.

Meeting shadowing

One of the most effective ways to get to know a job or department is to attend the meetings of the person in this role. For graduates in customer-facing roles, bringing them into client calls will help them understand how your business interacts with customers and how you deliver excellent customer service. If staff are all working remotely, these meetings will likely be happening online. Ensure your graduate inductees are on the attendee lists and encourage them to take notes and ask questions.

Observational shadowing

While it may not be exactly the same as in-person training, digital observational shadowing can still be an effective learning tool for office-based graduates. They can shadow employees carrying out a number of tasks via Teams or Zoom, such as adding a new business lead to the CRM or updating content on the company website.

Online learning

While your new graduate employees might have studied a degree in the role of their choice, it’s likely their learning isn’t 100% complete. There are a wealth of online training options available, including pre-existing courses created and delivered by market-leading expert organisations. For example, HubSpot has many free courses, including content marketing, search engine optimisation, and more. These courses can supplement your inductees’ existing qualifications.

In-house training can also be delivered online. Whether you pre-record videos and put them together to form a course, or you deliver real-time training via video chat, you can ensure your graduates are taught your company’s key processes and are trained in the systems and tools they’ll be using in their day-to-day role.

Online learning is proven to be effective. What’s more, thanks to advances in technology, you can provide new employees with simulated tasks. This allows them to gain critical skills in a no-risk environment. Many industries are already applying innovative technologies, such as augmented reality to simulate medical work, evidencing the wide-reaching possibilities offered by online learning and training.

The current environment for graduates and businesses looking to onboard new employees is vastly different from what we have been used to. Graduates are being thrown into a tumultuous market with fewer prospects. Meanwhile, businesses are facing challenges in onboarding graduate talent remotely. However, with the right approach, you’ll still be able to integrate new employees into your business effectively. What’s more, the majority of these young graduates will expect digital as standard. If you get it right, you’ll also be able to retain the best and brightest graduates you bring on board.  

Natasha Bougourd is a Copywriter for Exterity, a provider of IPTV technology. She has more than seven years’ experience writing about a number of topics.

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In search of the new sustainability trailblazers

Programme leaders are best placed to integrate the myriad of issues around sustainability into Business School content, say ESSEC Business School’s Carina Hopper and Johanna Wagner

Chances are that you have been hearing talk of sustainability and the need for Business Schools to do more to bring forth a new generation of business leaders that are more environmentally and socially inclined than their predecessors. In the broader context of society, we might ask who is responsible for driving this change. While there are many factors at play, we would be doing a disservice to Business Schools to deny their unique influence on the minds they help form. Once set to work these minds can influence society through diverse channels as business leaders and informed citizens in positions of power. 

An initial exploration of the topic of sustainability content in management education raises many questions. What change are we looking for? Which strategy will create the greater impact – offering a specialised sustainability diploma to a minority of students, or introducing sustainability fundamentals to the majority? Is the main objective to impart knowledge, or to convince students to care? Who, within the institution, should be responsible for taking the lead on sustainability education? In this article, we propose answers to these questions in an effort to accelerate change.

The changing landscape of business and society

Among other things, Business Schools teach their students to become reliable problem solvers. They give them the techniques and the confidence to approach challenging business situations with a strategic mindset, ideally one that drives innovation and a sense of progress for the company.

These challenging situations have traditionally been about the bottom line and increasing shareholder value through return on investment. Today, however, not only is the concept of shareholder primacy under question, but also the shareholders themselves are increasingly supporting more sustainable business practices. This is due to developments in the regulatory environment at national and supranational levels as well as a search for purpose both from employees and customers. 

In turn, these transformations are creating greater demand for new skills and competencies to move organisations forward in a context of growing uncertainty and constraints. While recruiters are seeking candidates who are ready to navigate and help shape this evolving business ecosystem, millennials are breaking with previous generations by expressing an openness to accepting lower pay to work for organisations whose values align with theirs.

Introducing sustainability in management education

In reaction to these signals, the exploration of sustainability in Business Schools is currently two-dimensional. The first dimension is operational and relates to the way Business Schools are run, in terms of facilities and services as well as governance and recruitment. The second dimension, and the focus of this article, is the introduction of sustainability content, mostly emerging as dedicated electives, diplomas and chairs, or one-off activities with specialised partners.

The first issue when discussing academic content is the current practice of siloing sustainability, in which learning is restricted to a limited, interest-driven audience. In this model, a small minority is trained while the large majority remains distant from discussions on topics that are now affecting every field, industry and manager.

The second issue is related to the gap between the supply created by these specialised diplomas and corporate demand. On the one hand, master’s programmes in sustainable business train specialised managers whose profiles are very attractive for only a limited number of organisations. Elsewhere, their profiles may even frighten recruiters or managers whose organisations have not yet made a strong commitment to sustainability. 

On the other hand, organisations could use more managers who, while not specialised in sustainability, are well equipped to contribute to sustainable innovation and change. This is especially relevant when working with engineers, scientists and technicians who are themselves specialised in sustainable practices.

It is interesting to note how this siloing of sustainability mirrors corporate trends. There, the development of dedicated CSR departments have, in many cases, proven to be an imperfect answer to lingering issues with a lot at stake. For this reason, Unilever, to name just one example, dismantled its CSR department in 2016 for the purpose of embedding sustainability throughout all of its activities, an approach called for by other CSR professionals across industries.

Towards actual integration

In academia, a comparable de-siloing dynamic is needed. In our proposed model, programme leaders are given the necessary resources and support to integrate sustainability effectively throughout their programmes’ current courses. This involves empowering them to embed a cohesive sustainability message into their existing curricula, organise relevant training for their faculty, and engage with prospective students on the topic.

Programme leaders are in the best position to initiate and foster this paradigm shift. Their proximity with all programme stakeholders bears the potential to accelerate decision making and customise action, which in turn impacts the success of their programmes in rankings, which is one important measure of their performance.

On this trailblazing route to sustainability integration, programme leaders may face obstacles that mirror the experience of visionary business leaders: 

+ In the midst of conflicting interests and ideological debates, you should anticipate a battle for resource allocation.

+ As in any process of change, you will find reluctance among your teams (including faculty and staff), who will need to be brought on board using the appropriate support and training mechanisms.

+ You will have to find ways of implementing your ideas even though they may not tick existing boxes in terms of administrative planning and reporting.

+ You will have to define the specific terms of stakeholder engagement adapted to your programmes and region.

+ In a constantly evolving context, there will be few impact measurement tools available at the onset of your work (BGA’s Continuous Impact Model is one) and there will be limited recognition by rankings. It’s important therefore to keep in mind that you are contributing to the development of both, by generating data and providing feedback.

Conclusions on the current state of affairs

As both MBA alumni and postgraduate management programme lecturers, we believe programme leaders hold pivotal responsibility for the integration of sustainability in business education. 

This is because they are strategically positioned at a crossroads between companies and the individuals who will one day manage them. Not only will these individuals impact communities through their businesses’ operations, but they will also send signals that, in turn, influence public policy and, more generally, public opinion. 

More than just becoming reliable problem solvers, students should be taught to become accountable solution designers. 

Higher education should empower students with knowledge on a wide range of systemic reactions to help them make enlightened decisions on what to care about and how to prioritise, thus arming them with the capacity to act responsibly before a full range of stakeholders. 

Judging from the current state of affairs, it seems that too many management students are graduating without that capacity.

Carina Hopper teaches sustainable business and entrepreneurship at Business Schools including ESSEC Business School, SKEMA Business School and ESMOD Fashion Business School. 

Johanna Wagner is a hospitality finance and asset management expert. She teaches in leading European hospitality management master’s programmes. 

Hopper and Wagner are Co-Founders of La Belle EDuC, which offers training for institutions on the path to sustainability integration with the goal of empowering students in their choice of studies.

This article was originally published in Ambition, the magazine of the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

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Covid and caution: how we can use universities safely

Steps to take to ensure the safety of those who may be arriving back on campuses around the world in 2021

For everyone at university, whether they’re staff or a student, the future looks uncertain. Universities across the world are transitioning to work through the ‘new normal’ of the world. This involves trying to work out how they can allow students to study safely. In the UK, a big problem has been funding, with many institutions relying too much on fees from international students and now facing the prospect of going bust.

Worries

Many universities have been given the freedom to put their own regulations in place. This has resulted in a lot of big decisions happening in a short period of time before students were welcomed back for the autumn term. Some universities were still offering students a full year of teaching, whether the plan was to use a combination of online and face-to-face learning, or in some cases just online. Cambridge University announced that all of its learning would be done online until summer 2021. In India, only one state has allowed its universities to open as the recorded numbers of Covid-19 cases in the country have continued to rise.

Universities have been making the effort to bring students back in the safest way. However, in some cases, it has not been easy to maintain the necessary social distance standards. Masks are mandatory but how safe can they be when the lecture hall is packed, and many late arrivals have to sit on the floor. Students in France have been using the hashtag #Balancetafac (‘call out your uni’) to post photos of their overcrowded learning rooms. Since French universities reopened there has been a dozen clusters of Covid-19 cases.

In the UK, where restrictions are being heavily enforced, many students are upset about what their first-year experience has turned into. One first-year student at the University of Glasgow told the Guardian: ‘Moving up from London, living away from home for the first time, was scary enough without people now saying that we may not be able to home for Christmas. That’s made me really upset and I did have a little sob last night.’

Regulations

If universities want to welcome students and staff back as safely as possible, they need to follow their own government’s rules and regulations. Here are some key rules that universities need to implement before having large levels of staff and students coming back on campus.

1. Social distancing

Limiting the amount of staff and students on the campus entirely is something that needs to be looked at, as well as considering those who may need to shield. assess how many staff and students are vulnerable, and conduct risk assessments. Use floor stickers and signs to make social distancing easy to follow across the whole campus.

2. Welcome international students safely

The total amount of students from other countries may be lower this year, but there will still be many heading to countries outside their own to study. Many will have a mandatory period of self-isolation, or other requirements, to perform when they arrive in their country of study. Ensure your international students are aware of this and that they have the support they need to get through any self-isolation period, such as ensuring they can receive basic food supplies and providing them with books and materials needed for their studies.

3. PPE

Giving students PPE (personal protective equipment) is not something universities need to do, but it should be considered. Knowing all have students face masks and hand sanitiser as they arrive back at campus gives peace of mind and allows students to concentrate on their learning without worrying about where they can get a mask, or where they can next wash their hands.

Of course, this would come at a cost. If every student and member of staff in the UK is provided with a face mask, it will cost around £4,229,933 GBP, assuming that the number of staff and students are at the same level as the previous academic year (2.38 million students and 439,955 staff members) according to data collected by Where The Trade Buys. For hand sanitiser, for each student and staff member to use two squirts of hand sanitiser an hour, the cost would be £355,314 GBP per day. These costs may sound a lot, but it could be a price worth paying to make sure your staff and students feels safe.

4. Online learning

A lot of universities were already recording lectures so students could watch them back, but streaming lectures is an option in full force this year. It allows students to decide whether they feel safe enough to attend a lecture in person. If they don’t, they won’t feel like they are missing out because they can watch the lecture at home. This will also allow people who have to isolate to do that without worrying they are missing valuable learning time too.

There are a lot of unknowns about this academic year, but if universities want to carry on offering education to those paying, following the steps outlined above could be a must. It’s a positive that many universities are trying to get back to face-to-face learning, but this must be followed with the strictest of regulations to make sure it can be done as safely as possible.

Rachel Gray is is a copywriter based in Newcastle Upon Tyne that writes across a variety of sectors such as healthcare, wellness and lifestyle.

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Liquid is the new agile

Covid-19 has accelerated our ‘liquid’ lives – that is, our ability to be adaptable, flexible and fluid have become ever more important – and educational institutions must adapt, say Nick van Dam and Noémie Le Pertel

In an ever-competitive market, universities and Business Schools that build the ability to stay ahead of the game, rather than merely responding after an event, will ultimately be the most successful.

Covid-19 has brought about the kind of change in months that you normally only see after generations. Like most industries, education has had to rapidly acclimatise.

The fact is, universities have always adapted, learned and moved on – that is the basis of academic enquiry and the heart of the sector’s strength. Across higher education, universities are already offering new, and completely online courses, attracting new students from different markets and innovating in how they work.

But in the Covid age, we’re also seeing the disappearance of existing structures, patterns, codes, rules and institutions that once provided stable foundations in society and guided people’s behaviours.

Liquid modernity

The late sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, described this phenomenon as ‘liquid modernity’. The theory states that liquids are characterised by ultimate agility – they flow and conform to various structures while retaining their volume. Therefore, liquid represents adaptability, flexibility and fluidity. The world we are living in has become liquid across many dimensions, including economic, social, geopolitical, environmental, technological and educational.

The reality is that the ‘new normal’ may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites it all is its fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To ‘be modern’ means to modernise – compulsively and obsessively; not so much just ‘to be’. Each new structure which replaces the previous one as soon as it is declared ‘old-fashioned’ and past its use-by date is only another momentary settlement – acknowledged as temporary and ‘until further notice’. As time flows on, ‘modernity’ changes its forms.  

The new agile?

Despite these fluid times, institutions of higher education continue to operate in a state that Bauman calls ‘solid modernity’. But with the absence of stable employment structures, the chaos from Covid-19 and ever-evolving technology, there is no doubt that we are in a liquid state.

But this passage from solid to liquid modernity has created new and unprecedented settings and challenges for individual life pursuits. Essentially Covid-19 has accelerated our liquid lives, which means our ability to be adaptable, flexible and fluid have become ever more important. This renders many of our plans and forecasts irrelevant.

But even before Covid-19, work and careers were becoming fluid. The workplace is a very different place to what it used to be 30 years ago or more. From the introduction of new technology and tools, to the rising trend of remote working, the modern office has adapted in a number of ways. Employees now tend to stay with a company for only a few years before making a change. Gone are the days where people would regularly stay with a company for 30+ years. People are also more likely to change their careers, and not just their jobs, over their lifetime, partly because they will be living and working for much longer than their parents did. Because of this, people will need to develop distinctive competencies as they switch between roles as students, employees, contractors and entrepreneurs. In many ways’ ‘liquid’ has become the new agile.

Educational institutions can and must adapt

It has become almost universally accepted that universities must adapt to the world they live in. But the way that university education has been organised and delivered has not changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Students still turn up on campus, take exams and begin their careers after graduation. They do not operate in a liquid state – the reality is the world has changed so much, but the way students are educated has not.

The current educational model is not sustainable in a modern world. But the pandemic has proved that educational institutions can adapt when they face a compelling need quickly and comprehensively.

At their best, Business Schools are innovators, risk-takers and pioneers, and it is these characteristics that should be brought to the fore. Often, my experience is that university leaders are keen for their institutions to develop, and academic and professional staff share an ambition to deliver the very best teaching and research. However other factors are at play, institutional inertia, governance by consent and the ability of individual stakeholders can hinder innovation. However, as work and careers become more fluid, innovation and progress are more important than ever.  The virus has underscored the fact that Business Schools need to develop a liquid learning model – and they need to do it now.

The five characteristics of liquid learning

‘Liquid learning’ is a comprehensive, holistic, complete and interactive educational experience. It blends physical and digital learning ecosystems in innovative ways so that students obtain the highest quality of education no matter where in the world they are and what their current situations might be, as long as they have access to the technology they need. Liquid learning embodies richness of experience through experiential learning and is based on five guiding principles:

1. It’s active and social: in a liquid learning environment, students have active and social experiences that stimulate both their cognitive and emotional development. When they’re in active learning mode, students collaborate, observe others, give and receive feedback, and reflect on their experiences. As they engage in social learning, they also foster human connections.

Active and social learning is enhanced through multicultural group assignments and discussions, individual study projects, multimedia cases, simulations, learning games, labs, role-playing exercises, presentations, networking events, discussion forums, debates, peer evaluation and feedback, and gamification techniques that engage the learners. Through active and social learning, students gain a deep understanding of concepts and boost both short- and long-term recall. They acquire knowledge, develop skills, and change mindsets.

2. It’s multichannel: multichannel learning enables interactive learning at any time and in any place, whether students are taking classes in person, online, or in a hybrid model. Schools that offer multichannel learning can easily switch between formats, so they can still provide a dynamic learning experience for their students even in sudden emergencies. In this way, multichannel learning is ‘liquid-proof’.

3. It’s personalised to the student: today’s students can customise every aspect of their lives, from how they order coffee to how they read the news. It’s no surprise they expect to be able to personalise the way they consume education in order to meet their unique needs and aspirations. Personalisation allows students to opt for learning in any place, at any time, through any pathway, at any pace of study, with any cohort, following any professor, using any technology and any type of pedagogy.

For instance, a student in Europe might enrol in an elective class in Asia that he can take online on a part-time basis. He meets with other international students in virtual classrooms where they’re taught by an adjunct professor and a CEO. He learns by doing when he undertakes to solve a real-world problem at his current job.

Some Business Schools offered a few of these options in the past, but the pandemic has highlighted the need for more Schools to make such options widely available. Customisation allows students to continue learning even if travel bans keep them from returning to campus or if other unforeseen circumstances arise.

Not only is personalised education critical for a liquid world, it’s also more engaging for students, which means it enhances motivation and drives academic achievement. While Schools might find it daunting to offer extensive personalisation, it can be supported by big data and AI.

4. It features faculty excellence: whether Schools are offering online or in-person education, the students’ learning experience will depend on the quality of the faculty. Excellent faculty have the capacity to inspire students to approach their studies with intellectual curiosity, which will lead them to pursue liquid learning for the rest of their careers.

To promote faculty excellence, Schools must require ongoing faculty training and solicit feedback from students and faculty peers. They must align their rewards and recognition with desired faculty behaviours. Schools must also develop a liquid faculty model that leverages a diverse blend of different faculty profiles, including researchers, adjuncts, visiting faculty, practitioners, facilitators, coaches, mentors, teaching assistants, and guest speakers.

5. It’s anchored in the real world: because the real world is liquid, students need to unlearn old habits and develop new behaviours. Once they’ve acquired new expertise and skills, students will be able to drive change and innovation. Because Covid-19 has accelerated the digitisation of real-world work, students who participate in classes that include online components develop invaluable digital skills that will help them on the job.

The future of education

If universities and Business Schools are to prosper, they must be relevant to the societies in which they exist. Universities shouldn’t operate merely as trainers of school leavers about to enter the job market; they should assert their importance as critical builders of knowledge and human capital. They must be relevant and be willing to engage with society to show how that is the case. True relevance could mean substantial change for some – more flexible models, mixed-mode pedagogy, or learning while earning, for example.

The reality is, thanks to Covid-19, the future is here. And the future of learning is fluid, dynamic, adaptable, immersive, personalised, and engaging. It is all about the richness of the experience: curricular and extracurricular, social and individual, global and local, active and reflective, cognitive and emotional, professional and personal, physical and digital, supported by research and teaching excellence.

While this mode of learning has long been in our future, the pandemic has made the transition more urgent. It has shown us that universities must embrace ‘liquid modernity’ so they can not only meet any crisis that arises but also prepare students for an ever-changing world.

Nick van Dam is a Professor at Nyenrode Business University, IE University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is also Chief Learning Officer at IE University.

Noémie Le Pertel is an Academic Director and Professor at IE University.