Satya Nadella says, “The sum of education and innovation, multiplied by intensity of technology use = economic growth.”1 Value-added education then can also enhance the growth of people by using innovative Value creating techniques and technology.
Teaching Value Creation
CEOs might have noticed our main Value creation discussion in education has focused on business schools. In fact we are developing course content for a Value Creation major in MBA schools. I just taught a course on Value Creation in Engineering to students at IIT Mandi and IIT Gandhinagar, to faculty and staff at IIT Mandi and IIT Jammu and to staff at IIT Delhi.
We all know there is a disconnect between academics and practitioners. Practitioners are looking for short-term, here and now solutions. Academics work on long-term research with rigor and relevance (and it is often said that academics publish for themselves).
Thus educationists produce students who industry lament are not usable.
First, who is education’s customer? The accrediting body, the students, the parents, or the employers, or society at large? And for how long should the education last? Or in today’s changing technology world, should education make people ready to face and manage the future as it changes, and not get swept under by the technology and disruption wave? If we were to assess how valuable students are, should we do this on the basis of the grade or on the basis of the feedback from the employers? Or on the basis of the future?
Whom should we be creating Value for? Of course for all of these, but also for the teachers. And for readying the students for the future.
We also have to see if we want to teach employability or make students think like employers: be capable of adapting, changing, and facing challenges.
The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
–Alvin Toffler
Thus, with VI, we have to make Value creation an important part of our education. After each lecture, teachers should spend five minutes discussing how what they taught created Value, for whom and how, and how students could use the learnings to create more Value.
Hence we have to bring in a Value creation thinking and initiatives into education. That the role of education is to produce Value creators and Value creation thinking. Such people will be more employable and capable of creating greater Value at work.
Current teaching produces functional executives, focused on efficiency, being good administrators and improving profits. We do not produce too many Value creators. Those who succeed do so because they create Value intuitively and not consciously. Imagine how much more Value they would create if they were doing so consciously and destroying less Value.
To make the students receptive to the idea of creating Value, we must teach them what Value is and how to create Value for themselves. Short courses on Creating Value for You can make the students learn about Value creation and become Value creators. They start to understand that they can create Value for themselves and for others.
Once we have teachers teaching about Value creation, we can have at least one lecture in each course on creating Value. For example how can IT and HR professionals create Value and aspire to be CEOs? (By stopping being functional and act as Value creators to create Value for the employee.)
Then these courses can be designed from the point of view of creating Value. Next we can consider adding a lecture per course on Value creation and in-depth thinking of how to use the course content in the real world and how Value creation research can be done.
The next step is to create a Value Creation elective instead of a general management elective. We need courses for a Value Creation elective. This will lead to Masters of Value Creation and Masters of Value Management.
The first step toward companies and executives converting to Value creation is awareness, an awareness that they can create or destroy Value, and what they can do to create Value is necessary and has to be taught. Awareness starts with secure people who have self-esteem. Else we have to build self-esteem. As part of my course at IIT Mandi I had the students go through an awareness exercise. And suddenly they started to notice things they had never “seen” before. Companies can establish Value creation centers. Here they can teach the 6A’s, awareness, ability, anticipation, agility, ambidextrousness, and attitude.
The concept of Value creation has to be taught to college faculty, and to companies’ senior executives, so that they can teach Value creation and set up an enabling environment. The concept is simple. The role of a teacher goes beyond imparting knowledge. It goes into how the knowledge can be used; it goes into how the knowledge has been used by others, and how the student can create Value in the real world with the knowledge.
We are also setting up Value Creation Councils at IIT Mandi consisting of various stakeholders to create more Value.
• Value creation should be taught in universities.
• It should be taught to executives in companies.
• Teachers should strive to create Value.
• Examples of Value creation and Value destruction are useful in getting people to understand.
• Awareness is a necessary step in creating Value.
• Value creation should be taught to faculty and to executives, so that they can teach Value creation and set up an enabling environment.
• Value Creation Councils should also be established.
Here we discuss Value creation for students and how to figure out what students Value. CEOs can use these learnings in creating Value for their customers and employees.
Security and self-esteem in a person help to add greater Value.
So teachers and executives have to go through refresher courses and understand the question of Value creation. And they have then to suggest how students can use the learnings of the course to create Value for themselves and their employer and society at large. And students should start to think about Value creation as their role rather than just to be subject learners.
Role of Faculty Members
There are two major areas for faculty members to learn about Value creation:
1. To create Value for the students and the institution and for themselves.
2. To teach Value creation and its importance in life and in business.
Value for students is a feeling of a sense of fulfillment. And some of it comes from a feeling of ownership (of one’s life or job), a sense of involvement and of fulfilling a vision (if you have one). Value comes from not only gaining knowledge from the teacher, but also how to use the knowledge to create Value for others, including society, thereby fulfilling the student and making him feel more useful and capable. Value creation is building the students security and self-esteem and belief in himself and that he can be useful.
How does the student learn to create Value for himself, his institution, and for the company he might work for, and for its customers?
The faculty has to weave this into the course so that the student buys into Value creation.
The second part of the course is to teach Value creation to the faculty member, what it is, how to create Value, and how Value is created for companies though its employees, its customers, and partners and thereby for society and the investors.
Soka Gakkai’s educational philosophy and efforts is developing the Value-creating potential of students. For the creation of Value is the “ultimate purpose of human existence, defining a happy life as one in which the capacity to discover and create Value has been fully deployed.”
Makiguchi’s understanding of happiness as the goal of both life and education begins with the recognition that although humans cannot create matter:
What we can create, however, is Value and Value only. When we praise persons for their “strength of character,” we are really acknowledging their superior ability to create Value.2
Soka education today is not defined so much by curriculum elements as by its underlying philosophical stance: its emphasis on close student– teacher relationships, and on each student’s unique capacity to learn, grow and create Value.
DePaul University is offering a Master’s in Education on Value-Creating Education for Global Citizenship.
Martin Lackeus3 suggests letting students learn through creating Value for others, giving teachers prescriptive advice on what, how, and why issues in education.
Further, educational institutes, apart from granting degrees, have produced people who strive for authority, power, and materialistic wealth. However, they must foster and create wiser future leaders who create “Value” in their own lives, families, workplaces, society, and in countries. Such individuals without fail can also create materialist wealth in sustainable manner, which can be appropriately used for making a Value creating society.
“Value-creation” is not something distant and separate from our lives. How can we use education as a weapon to create Value in every aspect of human life?
Eric Cooke at the University of Southampton feels universities as we know them now have no future. In 15 years, we will have no students to teach (I think the time might stretch). Students want a good, professional job and degrees are evaluated against employability. But the professional jobs for which we currently prepare students will be done by intelligent machines.
So why would students take on the debts involved in undertaking a degree course as it is conceived today, he asks.
This is not necessarily about technology but about humanity and learning. There is a school of thought that says that if you can be replaced by a robot, then you probably ought to be!
Haptic screens (based on touch and vibrations), deep learning, deep quality (of deep learning and blockchain) machines, sense-making networks, convolutional neural networks, smart network convergence, cognitive systems, and cognitive computing to the future of teaching, uncollege and experience university, brain–computer interfaces, nanodegrees, and microcareers are all reasons why our education system must change.
Experience universities, experience degrees, more hands-on learning, applied sciences, intuitive way of knowing, and answering the question, and knowing what are all in the offing.
Digitization and virtualization of education by following music, news, brain–computer interface to learn or teach, Centre for the Unknown; human-centered design, community as curriculum might happen in the future.
Since we do not know the job market in 30 years, what are we to teach? Sixty percent of the best jobs in 20 years have not been invented yet. Learning and working will give way to lifelong learning or learning and re-learning. More complex workplace and portfolio of microcareers will happen.
Some of the new jobs created will be:
Productivity counselors, personal digital organizers, organizational disorganizers, personal life loggers, hack school counselors (hack rather than go to school), medical nanotechnologists, digital history analysts, cybersecurity professionals, work transformers, social media managers, sustainability officers, unemployment service managers, keeping unemployed people occupied managers, retirement service managers, classroom avatar managers, deep learning specialists using computers to figure out what something is, how a brain recognizes, machine human interaction specialists, big data and information specialists, cognitive using knowledge specialists, bio-AI interface/nanobot interface specialists, and humanizing experts.
Corporate CEOs should worry too. For a while, everything will seem great for them: falling labor costs will produce heftier profits and bigger bonuses. But then it will all come crashing down. After all, robots might be able to produce goods and services, but they can’t consume them.
And eventually computers will become pretty good CEOs as well.
The lesson for India is that while focusing on here and now, start a parallel program for new universities based on technology and artificial intelligence, focusing on jobs of the future, and re-employment and Value creation.
How Value Is Created/Destroyed
By focusing on now, we may create some short-term Value, but will be big losers in the future.
How Executives can use VI? These lessons are to be learnt by executives as they think through the future and disruption.
What We Learn Is
• Security, belonging, encouragement, emotional support all create Value.
• Value creators do not need incentives, they are self-incentivized.
• The Value-creating environment is important, and fellow students can create Value.
What do you think about Value creation as a part of education system? How can you use this in your company?
The first principle of VI that education is basic for human endeavor and well-being, and good. Education is important. The second principle is that education expects you to go beyond what you thought you were capable of and the third principle applies, which says that you have to use your education and abilities to create Value for others so that they can create Value for you. The fourth principle is that your learnings impact all of those around you. The fifth principle also applies, and it suggests that education will help you leverage your potential. The seventh principle implies that you must use your education to create more Value than you destroy. Education should teach you Values, as per the eighth principle.
You can see the all eight principles of VI apply: Creating Value is basic, creating Value goes beyond what is expected of you, and you have to create Value for others. The fifth principle of leveraging people’s potential, the sixth on decision making not to destroy Value, the seventh on not destroying Value, and the eighth principle of VI that Values create Value:
• First understand what Value the student is looking for.
• Next, what Value is he expected to create and where.
• Also, what Value is the employer, his family, and the society expecting.
• Faculty must understand their role in Value creation and create Value for students.
• Colleges and companies must teach Value creation.
• The MBA will be replaced by the MVC (Master’s of Value Creation).
1 Satya, N. 2017. Hit Refresh. Harper Collins.
2 (1983–1988, vol. 5, p. 13; in Bethel, 1989, p. 6).
3 http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/236812/236812.pdf
“Value Creation as Educational Practice—Towards a new Educational Philosophy grounded in Entrepreneurship?”