Whatever you are, be a good one.
Thoughts on education and finance
I believe education is one of the topics that we, as people, have the most interest in. Why? Because education is meant to take us into a future that we can’t seize. It is meant to guide us into our lives.
Education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life. — Martin Luther King, 1948.
Achieving the legitimate goals of one’s life. That’s a very hard mission to fulfill. And yet, it appears to be an object of vital importance and we shall all contribute to its advancement. So here is my contribution.
Our school today is not suited for our digital-paced environment.
Our organizations are in constant movement. New business models are emerging, new technologies are being developed, new jobs are being created.
We are in what we could call a digital tsunami. Michel Serres refers to it as the third revolution in human history — the first one being orality passed to writing ; the second one was the emergence of printing, the third one being printing passed to digital. This revolution is challenging entire business models. It is shaping our world socially, economically and culturally.
According to the US Department of Labor report, 65 % of today’s students will be employed in jobs that haven’t been created yet.
The workplace isn’t linear anymore. You cannot go through a track and expect that if you do everything right, you will end up set for the rest of your life. We are evolving today in, what Edgar Morin calls, a complex environment.
The idea of “complexity”, (lat. “complexus” = embraced with one another), refers to a reality where things are not separate from one another but linked. Complexity is what defines an ecosystem, where the relationships between the living beings and the physical environment end up creating a spontaneous organization that bonds them to one another. Around complexity, there is no such thing as an exact solution. Binary alternatives are not enough to solve the complex problems.
The workplace is therefore complex and there is no exact solution to create our lives paths. We have the responsibility to design our own.
And you might think, school would be the perfect place to do so, but too often, it is not. Educational programs in schools have not evolved enough. If you look at educational programs in prestigious French business schools, you’ll see teaching has been the same over the last 20 years.
From a linear education to a growth-mindset.
And why it is crucial in the Fintech world.
We have been taught to only look at academic ability and degrees when it comes to education. The system is made that way, trapped into academic inflation. We have been encouraged to seek for the academic overachievements and performances, despite talent, personality and courage. Who hasn’t fallen into the dark sides of CFAs, GMATs, LSATs, TOEIC, TAGE MAGE and so on — just to put on a resume? I wonder.
The workplace is highly competitive, particularly in the start-up world where CEOs are looking for the best talents. So, when everyone around you has the same set of expertise, how do you differentiate yourself?
One word : talent. What matters most is to find and develop your talents.
In tomorrow’s society, the major inequality will arise between the people who will have spent time developing their talents and people who won’t have. Our focus should be on trying to find and cultivate our talents.
One way to achieve that is to espouse a “growth mindset”. As Carol Dweck defines it : individuals who believe their talents can be developed — through hard work, good strategies, and input from others — have a growth mindset. You’ll learn to learn and become a true knowledge nomad.
Some keys to develop the right mindset :
- Become self-aware
- Follow your intuition
- Risk a little
This is all the more important when it comes to the Fintech industry. In order to create tomorrow’s new digital banking system, Fintech teams must have tremendous talents.
After all, aren’t they trying to turn traditional financial services into real-time intelligent contextual services that will improve every customers’ life? Aren’t they going after one of the most ancient industry, challenging stubborn legacies?
We know tomorrow’s bank will be digital. Fintech companies’ ability to provide the desired services and match customers expectations has been proven. Yet the market competition is fierce and efforts will still be necessary to achieve mass adoption of the Fintech services and products worldwide.
With the complexity of the banking industry, Fintech teams must gather the best talents, that will allow them to become the next big player in the field.
So now, what?
Tomorrow’s education should focus on providing the keys for students to develop a growth-mindset, necessary to finding and developing their talents. Schools should be the place where we could embrace this growth mindset and develop our future talents.
Actually, this could result in a more condensed and shorter school length, where students would be given the keys to the right mindset in order to realize their dreams.
Today’s education sadly relocates many people from their natural talents. Often, our talents are not seizable in the surface, we have to go looking for them. It requires self-awareness, intuition and some risk-taking :).
