Transcription
[Music] Wow, there's a lot of skill, experience, and talent in this room. I can feel it. I wonder if, when you were growing up, you knew you would end up here.
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a professional basketball player. Now, this may surprise you, but I didn't make it. You know, teenagers get that same question, right? "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And they think they need to pick one thing for the rest of their lives. Isn't that awful?
I did a career quiz in high school. I'm sure you did the same one, and it said I was going to be a forest park ranger. I think the salary would have been lower than an NBA player, you know. But choosing one job title like this really limits teens' options. Instead, they should see their world as full of opportunities. I'm excited to see the future that they're going to create. I'm optimistic. There's so many ways for them to make the world a better place. Don't you agree?
Yeah, unfortunately, teens don't see it that way. Teens today are stressed out and anxious about their future. So, what's going on? For the last 10 years, I've been trying to find out. Here's what I've learned: When we make teens choose one thing, they get stuck.
Here's my contention: To succeed in the new economy, students today need to look beyond job titles to challenges they want to work on. Let me explain through Anna's story. She's being asked that big question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And that's a hard question for her to answer because, as a teen, she only knows about 20 job titles. There are over 20,000 out there. At least some of them don't even exist yet. So why are we making her pick one? It's not like she'll be one thing for the rest of her life.
When I worked with Anna, we took a different approach. We looked at the challenges, problems, and opportunities that she could work on. And to do that, I gave her a copy of a magazine called The Economist, and I said, "Pick your favorite article." Here's what she chose. You see that green-colored water? That's a specialized algae that's being used to clean polluted waterways. That's a pretty cool problem to solve.
Once we identified that challenge, we worked backward to find the company that was working on it, the people who worked there, and what they needed to learn to be able to do that. We found out most of them had studied material science and engineering. I never heard of this before. Anna hadn't either, and I felt embarrassed because I was her career coach. What, I'm supposed to be the expert?
Well, we used a different approach to get there. We use what I call a challenge mindset. The challenge mindset is an approach to career exploration that focuses on challenges to tackle, not job titles to fit into. This flips the model of the current career exploration system. And attack is a huge problem. Imagine the millions of students like Anna who are stressed out and anxious about their future, leading to increased tuition fees, dropping out, unemployment, underemployment. Well, maybe this is not such a bad thing after all. There's some parents in the room. Maybe you could renovate your basements, turn them into apartments, and then your kids can live with you forever.
I loved working with Anna. She's bright, she's funny, she laughs at The Office, just like I do. The sky's the limit for her. She's ready for the future because, from now on, she's actively looking for new problems to solve along her journey. What she likes will change, but now she has a mechanism, a mindset, through which she can explore and understand the world around her. Think of the day that she'll take on a leadership role. That's a completely different challenge than being an engineer, but these changes are exactly what we should be preparing youth for because that's what's coming next.
Early in my career, I had a unique perspective on these types of transitions, like going from engineer to leader. I worked for a leadership development company that did leadership simulations. During the simulation, some leaders thrived. They made great decisions, they motivated their employees, and they were very successful. Others crashed. They were stressed out and boxed in, and they... a one person in an email wrote that their colleague was a fool. They didn't do very well with assessment.
What I learned from watching hundreds of leaders is that the most successful ones weren't focused on the job title. They were focused on challenges. And that's when it clicked. We are not preparing young people for this new reality. Here's what we do instead. Can you please picture Stephanie walking in to see her guidance counselor and she's upset, and she says, "I have no idea what I want to do." How do we help her?
Well, first, we ask about her favorite classes in high school. "What do you like?" "Oh, you like drama." "Oh, anything else?" "Oh, you like math, too." Okay, math. Yeah, okay. If you like math, you can study accounting. You could take the job of an accountant, and then you get hired by a firm of accountants. Pretty straightforward, right? Sure.
But when Stephanie turns 30, she starts to understand the challenges that she works on as an accountant. Maybe she helps her clients be more fiscally transparent. Maybe she's helping them collect better financial data so they make better decisions. And maybe she loves that, or maybe she hates it. Maybe she wakes up one day and she thinks, "I'm not happy. I don't like my job." I'm guessing you all know someone that this has happened to. Maybe it's happened to you.
Today, I'm asking you, what if we flipped the model? Start with challenges first, just like Anna did. Then we work backward to find the companies working on those challenges, the people who work there, and what they needed to learn to be able to do that. Then our students can do experiments. They can go for a coffee with someone working on the challenge they care about. They can do an internship at a company. They can take a class on a related topic. Maybe for the challenge that Stephanie cares about, the drama classes are exactly what she needed.
All right, can you contrast this to a career system that was built for a previous era? Step one: Take a test. Why? Students love tests. From that test, get matched to a list of job titles. You like being funny? You can be a clown. You like keeping your room tidy? You can be a window cleaner. This approach lacks depth.
If we're going to prepare young people for a future of growth and change, we need to go deeper. If we don't, we cause two types of pain. The first pain is human pain. Stephanie is suffering. She thinks she needs to have it all figured out in high school. When she thinks of her future, she feels pressured, not hopeful. The second pain is economic pain. Imagine someone not reaching their full potential. How many billions is that costing our economy?
We need to stop this pain. Thankfully, the education system can help. I feel really lucky because I've gotten to work with some of the most passionate teachers. And by the way, can we give them our support right now? I think they could use it. Can we give them a round of applause? Thank you. Thank you. These teachers, they want their students to be difference-makers in the world, and they know that starting with challenges prepares young people for a life of meaning and purpose, not commitment to one path forever.
John Crumbolts, a pioneer in career theory, said this: "Asking teens to pick a job title that they've never tried out is like asking them to name their future spouse before allowing them to date." Maybe we should let them explore a bit first.
So, you might be wondering, what's a good challenge to solve? I'm guessing you know several. But one exciting opportunity is designing the future of transportation. That's the challenge to Adam chose. I want to tell you about him because his story shows the benefits of career education inside the classroom, not just outside of it.
Adam's a kid who's bright but doesn't apply himself. Do you know the type? Yeah. So now he's in class, not even listening, he's not engaged, and now he's not performing well. This is starting to impact his self-confidence, and now he's feeling depressed. Think about what it's like for his parents. They know there's a problem, but they don't know how to help. In fact, they're even thinking about renovating their basements.
Well, what we have to remember is that Adam doesn't know why he's in school. Here's the promising part: Once he discovers all of these problems and opportunities in the world, he learned a message that changed his life. "The world needs you. There are so many broken things to fix out there, and we need Adam to fix them."
So now that Adam picked this challenge, "Design the future of Transportation," he shows up to class in a different way. He understands why he's in school. "I'm here to learn something important that will help me work on a challenge that I care about." Boom. Engagement. Now his parents are relieved. They started drinking less, they started going to the gym, they stopped the renovation project. Now Adam's doing better. Can you picture him now? Motivated. He's in class, he's performing better. Now he picks up a skilled trade that connects his biggest strengths to a real-world challenge. He's seeing the bigger picture.
When we connect education with work challenges in this way, students like Adam show up to class in a completely different way. This transformation that he lived is possible for any, any student. I believe that every student has a unique contribution to make. Doesn't matter the size, the scale, the scope. At the end of the day, they're going to be solving a problem for someone. And this belief is why I do what I do.
You could probably tell I'm excited about this. I am. I used to take the same excitement to the students I was working with, and I would ask them, "What's the problem that you want to solve?" They had... nobody would say. We haven't taught them to think about careers in this way yet. But I thought the fix for this was simple. All I would need to do is show them problems to work on.
So I researched books, blogs, experts, and futurists, and I created a simple tool called the Challenge Cards. On these cards, the students picked them, and they say, "Oh, I want to redesign the healthcare system," or "Increase sustainable energy," and they sort them into what they're not interested in, interested in, or very interested in. This is the challenge mindset in action, and it's my mission for this mindset to be taught in every school. But I need your help for this to happen.
So let's do an example together. Look at this challenge: "Engineer better medicine." There are advances in genetics research that could improve the lives of millions. Who works on this? If you're thinking about a scientist with a white lab coat, you're right, but there's more to it than that. What about the very important finance lead who created the budget for this? There's a project manager keeping everyone on task. An HR person hired this superstar team. Someone's buying the lab equipment. Someone's cleaning that lab. There's somebody in graphic design that's making the logo.
In the real world, it takes an interdisciplinary approach to solve a problem. There are so many different skill sets that can contribute. Starting with a challenge like this is a message that's just as relevant to adults as it is to young children, and they need to hear this too because what's coming next for them is a future that's unpredictable with massive changes. You already know about how technology and artificial intelligence are accelerating this pace of change.
In this new context, career education is no longer about commitment, choosing one path. It's about exploration, purpose, impact. And you know that's what students want. They want to make a difference. So let's give them an exciting cause that they can contribute to. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die." What about those who feel like they haven't made a contribution yet? Maybe they aren't fully alive. Well, it's time to make this generation come alive.
When students discover the challenge mindset, they can learn a message that will change their lives: "The world needs you." Let's end youth on a mission of impact and purpose so they can lead incredible lives. Thank you.
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