Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Anne Mangan.
Description
Anne Mangan believes the current teacher-centered/content oriented educational systems are setting up many students to fail. It's a belief I also share. They also widen the gap between how well young adults are prepared for the modern workplaces and what organisations expect.
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Transcript
Ciao. You're probably wondering what's up with the Italian greeting, but that will become apparent a little bit later on in the episode.
Speaking of which I often find myself ranting about how the educational systems are not preparing young people well enough for the career. The workplace lives ahead of them. And how that gap between. Who comes out of the educational systems and what the organizations expect. It gets wider and wider. And I've spoken about this to many people, including some of the guests on this podcast. I thought it would be good idea to get a little bit further and deeper into this topic.
And there's probably no one better to talk about this, than Anne Mangan. Anne, is a career development coach and educator with almost 30 years of experience in higher education. She believes that without a strong sense of self young people can struggle to stay on track educationally and career wise. She also believes that the current teacher centered content oriented educational approach is setting up many students to fail in transitioning to the next phase of their lives and that nothing short of a radical reform is actually able to fix that. And that's something that I also believe in this is what most of our discussion is about. Ease the situation. Of the young adults, young learners, um, in that, at the start of their journey. In their lives to get them ready for not only their careers, but for the rest of their larger talk about passive learning, the impact the educational system has on young adults, um, that the systems don't value mistakes, but actually encourage them to cover them up.
And how they are not being taught to be self-aware self-reflect or how to accept or deal with crucial critical feedback. I wondered long and hard what the takeaways of this episode should be. And I arrived at the conclusion of that. Like few to listen. To this podcast would an open mind to understand what young adults. Both either the end of their education in a university or just freshly after in their face career jobs, what are they going through? What have they been through? What's what are they dealing with and how big of a mountain do they have to climb?
So that we can create a better environment and be better prepared to welcome them and help them out in the first stages of their, of their new lives of, the careers. Here's my interview with Ann Mangan. enjoy. I usually start with the same question for all my guests. And that is when you were little what did you want to be when you grew up?
Anne Mangan: [00:03:11] so, yes, I decided that I wanted to be a nurse. Having already excluded a few things like being a non or being a teacher are working in an office. Are going to university. So yeah, nursing came up trumps there.
Lech: [00:03:29] Why was it, why did you choose that over teaching? For example, considering the, the job that you're in now,
Anne Mangan: [00:03:34] yeah. Where I spent a week with my aunt who was a teacher there were 24, four year olds and, it was the longest year of my life. I never forget it. It was just off. So I think, you know, that that certainly pulled me away from any ID of doing teaching. but of course, what I wasn't thinking about was the fact that teacher training presumably prepares your farm, but actually it just didn't appeal to me anymore.
And from a nursing point of view, my mother was a nurse. Now she would have had to give up her. Job in nursing when she got married, because they were the ruins at that particular time, but she was kind of at the Beck and call of people in the community. So I guess I kind of picked it up from there and decided firmly.
That's what I wanted to do.
Lech: [00:04:21] and, but you ended up in education, higher education for, for, for big parts of your life avenue.
Anne Mangan: [00:04:27] absolutely. I suppose one thing I'd have to say is I absolutely hated national school, hated it with an absolute passion. And secondary school Fila was better because obviously you had a variety of teachers. I still found it just dull and boring. I think because I had such a bad sense of school when I did come across an importance to education that really made sense to me.
Then, then I was sold on it. I have to say though, that in nursing nurse education really wasn't any better than what I experienced prior to that particular time, because it was still. Very much the, the traditional model and with a power imbalance, I think is one of the ways that I'd put it. So Yeah.
eventually did find my way into education, but it took quite a while.
Lech: [00:05:21] So was that when your, your, your passion for education in terms of how outdated it is and how some of the approaches it being mostly teacher centered has started. And that's kind of how you got into what you've been doing for past few decades and most recently as well.
Anne Mangan: [00:05:41] Yeah. You know, when I think about values, I find it very difficult. If somebody asks me, what are your values around education? I wouldn't have known what they meant, but actually when door's values are being. Adversely affected when they're being challenged, I suppose that's when you know what your values are.
So I didn't realize going to school that values around fairness and around respect for students. At that time, I didn't really realize that was actually my big issue when I discovered an educational system that did value fairness and did value respect. Oh, I was in absolute heaven. Yeah. And it was just magic from there now.
It probably sounds a bit strange really, but yeah, that's, that's kind of how I ease my way into it. And I, I do have to say that the positive education experiences that I've had were all outside of Ireland. So I guess that's a bit of a damning of the corn system. It's changing, but it's changing very slowly.
Lech: [00:06:47] And where was that? That the other, the other educational systems that you experienced
Anne Mangan: [00:06:52] The first one was in New York. The next one was true in Australian university and mine. I didn't actually travel to Australia. It was at a time where you could study online. And, and that actually was probably, that was the key area for me because I was studying clinical education. And actually, it was really interesting for me because.
At that time. So I started my. Training and education in clinical education in 2000 by that stage, there was a really strong sense within medical education that they couldn't continue to train medical educators or our doctors in the, or traditional Stein. Because the key thing that was happening was there was a realization that how can you teach somebody something that actually.
Does not exist yet. So how are you going to prepare them for the future? Because it's such a, I suppose, such a deluge of information in the, from the scientific community. But that was true. You couldn't keep cramming information into people. And, and the system was that it was about cramming information, but when you do that, you have people who cannot really think strings who cannot take logically.
And you certainly don't want that from your doctor or your medical, your, your health practitioner. So, so that was kind of the beginnings of it. It was about Instead of just teaching content. It was about teaching people, the skills, the lifelong learning skills, being able to look at the patients coming in the door and from beginning to end, in terms of being able to communicate when being able to develop a rapport, being able to look at the symptoms that this person is presenting with.
And combine them with what it is that you're finding and trying to figure out what might be the cause of the problem. So communicating problem solving, going off, researching, they were all kind of key skills. And I guess what I realized then was that's the way to go. If the stuff was the way I wanted to go.
And I was in a very fortunate position at that particular time trunk at seven years where I was running a physical therapy program. And yes, initiative started as a, it taught in a very traditional way. Like you start as a, and your work your way through dizzy. So over that period of time when I was training, which was very work-based program, I.
At waist, our staff converted every aspect of what we were doing into a different approach. Probably based on earning was was an important part of it which is really active type of learning. Very exciting type of learning. Very exciting for the students once they actually got the hang of it, because I think more than anything, it made them feel when they get out there, dosing will really phase them.
They don't have to have learned it in the classroom. And I think that's really important. Just the confidence we need to know that you can learn for yourself. If that makes sense to you.
Lech: [00:09:52] it makes sense on so many levels. I'm thinking about it from a organizational point of view from obviously from a workplace point of view, but I'm even probably most of all thinking about from my point of view and what I experienced and what my attitudes are and what you've described is. Just having that readiness to, and as you said, confidence to deal with whatever comes your way in life.
In general, it's not just about resolving problems, work-based organizational problems or anything like that. It's just anything you go abroad into a country where you don't speak the language. It's, it's stressful. It's very anxiety kind of inducing. Even in a way, not knowing how to, how to deal with that situation, but then knowing and being prepared for, for, for, for being able to deal with anything and having that confidence to be able to do that.
It just alleviates most of that because you know that no matter what's going to happen, You'll be able to cope. And I think that's, that's a massive piece that is missing. And I think it's, it's an important point that you, that you make that it's in the, we look at it globally, not just from from that one point.
And I guess this is, this is the educational systems and how are we being taught that that's, that's the programming that we get from our families, which is obviously outside of the educational system as well. But all of that. Creates that one big massive kind of picture for us with all these little pieces and.
I don't know much about the Australian educational system. I know about the UK system, a Polish system, a couple of the ear, European ones. A fair bit about the U S one of the only experience personally, firsthand UK and Polish. N I am a little bit surprised though, that you do say that, that you've, you've picked out stuff from.
The U S system. I'm not saying that it's all doom and gloom, but from what I've seen and from what I've been talking to people, there are elements there that obviously that system is, is fairly, fairly broken. I I'm curious. What are the bits that you've picked up from
Anne Mangan: [00:11:57] Yeah,
Lech: [00:11:58] would find most useful?
Anne Mangan: [00:12:00] I think in a way it wasn't really the system itself because I think their system isn't great. It was more to do with the fact that I'd actually found in the area that I was really, really interested in. And, and that's, that kind of triggered for me a sense that was my beginning, the beginning of my learning.
So I was studying an area that I had already studied. As part of nursing. So when I was nursing, I was falling asleep when I was still doing this stuff now, because it was related to an area that I realized I had a really strong interest in, Ugh. I was like, I was a nerd, basically. I was at my happiest on my day off when I was down in Barnes and noble was bookshop.
And I was just looking through a book and anatomy and physiology. I mean, that would never have happened years earlier. So, I guess really it was probably misleading. It would be to suggest that it was the system, the American system that really wasn't taste. And actually, I probably couldn't say that the Australian systems, what did it for me either, but it was this one particular program.
And I think it's probably worth mentioning that it was a program that was funded or supported by the world health organization to encourage medical educators move towards. Move away from the traditional approach, basically. So I guess I think I hit a real sweet spot with it because it was quite unique as far as I know, and it just hit the values that were dormant in me and it just answered so many questions and it just fires me with enthusiasm that lasted for years and years and years actually still lasted well.
Lech: [00:13:40] These systems might not be perfect, but they definitely have the right pieces and it would be nice to build that utopian educational system that that, that serves the purpose because it's, it's great to have you on the show mostly because of the work that you do.
And it's a topic that I've been discussing with a number of people. Just a normal conversation conversations, but also with some of the guests, one of whom was Eva Lennox. We, we did go into education systems and Montessori approach and so on quite a fair bit. And I thought it would be useful just to do a bit more of a dive in.
Into that specific specific area of educational systems. Why are they broken and what, what, what, what, how does that affect the individual? Because I think we can talk about, about how the systems are broken. Yes. How we could make, make them better. Yes. But that's okay. That's one part of it. The other part, I think, I don't know whether we do, I don't pay enough attention or we take it for granted or it's too difficult to deal with because it's intangible, but that is the.
How, how this affects the, the, the, the, the students, the young people who are being supposedly prepared for the next phase of their lives, go in into the organizations, because this is how the conversation, this is the competition often have is. What's the people who are coming out of the educational system are not fit in many respects to deal with the pressures and the expectations of the, the organizations that organizations put on them.
And the S the organizations have to kind of pick up that slack. You have to redevelop the, the, the people coming in, but there is a point where that goes between the educational system, the people coming out. And what again is organizations expect is just going to be wider and wider. It's going to get.
Too wide for the organizational systems to be able to, for the organizations to be able to deal with that. So I'm guessing the question I've got for you is what have you've observed in terms of the, the, the impact going through the AK educational system has on the individuals and maybe shortly after sort of the initial, the initial few weeks, the initial couple of years in the work environment, what slide from a psychological point of view?
What have you noticed.
Anne Mangan: [00:15:55] okay. Well, I suppose this is really just coming from me as an individual. But I think the effect that it has on individuals is really the key piece, because what has any system made up of individuals? And okay. I maybe I'll talk from my own point of view for just a minute and then kind of maybe.
More about what I'm actually seeing with students, but from my point of view, I think because the education system, and I know which was quite a while ago, It was so much around learning by role. It was about having the right answer and that's really dangerous at this particular point. It made me I think very small to speak book.
It made me nervous about getting the answer wrong, and I believe that a lot of the problems that we're seeing with big organizations Can have their roots in that whole idea about you can't be seen to have to do something wrong. I mean, we learn through our mistakes and we should almost celebrate mistakes, but instead we've come from an HR system and education system that does not value mistakes.
So people are going to hate us. And then what happens? I mean, certainly here in Ireland, we've seen lots of examples of big organizations, wrecking havoc And I think if you were to dig deeper, you'd probably see a culture of covering up mistakes. So that's certainly a piece. I think the, the not having a voice is really important.
What I've seen in students. Generally I'm saw with the younger students that I'm dealing with at the moment. Say around the 17, 18 year olds, I'd be really, really concerned about their, the level of work that they do which has limited effect. I think I'm really concerned about their tendency to conform and not to ask any questions.
So for example some people that I've seen recently, a parent might mention this. Their son or daughter is suffering from anxiety. And then I just ask a few questions maybe around what their schedule is like. And I see that they're leaving home, like maybe six 30 in the morning. They're getting back.
Home at about nine o'clock at nighttime. I mean, there aren't that many adults who work like that and if they do, they choose to do so. So again, they're just, all their time is jam packed. And of course the whole emphasis is on study and getting, leaving certain points to get you whatever it is that you're wanting in college.
But of course the mad thing about it is that. If you're not prepared to have figured out what it is that you want to do and what's out there and what your options are and how to make decisions, then all that work is for what? So Yeah.
but the kind of pharmacy I think is, is a problem. And I think that's where you might see issues coming up in the workplace. Because again, they're used to. Not having any, any power and maybe not having as much respect as their ado. So where's that going to end? I'd be really concerned about that. And the second part of your question. I think maybe I'm kind of leading into that a little bit about the workplace. I'm, I'm not probably the best person we need to talk about the workplace because I've spent almost my entire work life.
Self-employed so I have avoided the workplace. I could plague because I. I like to be able to do things the way I want to do them books from clash. I'm again, observing from my own family. I've got four grown up children who are in very, very different areas. What I'm seeing is. Certainly very hard work.
But I'm also seeing fantastic opportunities that may not have been there in the past. And with the change, I suppose, the gig economy, which has a lot of negative things about it. There are definitely advantages where. Okay. I need to get my thoughts straight around this. What am I actually seeing here? Yeah.
I think more people have more opportunities than ever before opportunities. If they start off by seeing themselves and their work almost as one and they. Learn from their mistakes and they follow their interests, which is a key thing. I think they have just amazing opportunities. Whether it's moving sidewards are upwards or whatever it is that they want they, they can follow their, their interests.
Lech: [00:20:36] The, I think the point that you make actually about the choice that is available. That's in a, in a, in a, in a big sense is also part of the difficulty I would say, because you can choose anything and you seemingly the choices. You can go endless. You can choose whatever you feel like it there's there's so not unless limitless.
That's the word I'm looking for? And that can be very anxiety inducing in itself as well, especially at such a young age where you are 16, 17, sometimes even a little bit, Le a liberal, a little bit young older when you just graduated from university. And you actually realize that the past three years that you've invested in educating yourself in a certain area is not what you want to do, but you're still not sure what you want to do.
And. I guess it's how, how do we deal with that? How do we prepare young people for, for that I've recently been talking to. A, a colleague of mine and we were discussing that actually people continued at the lessons into their mid to late twenties, kind of that becoming an adult, that process, which is, which is a very interesting point of looking at it.
So you figure out your life, I guess, your learning or your life that's there. There's no doubt about that, but that growing up period is not just until you're 18 or 19. And that goes a little bit further. Yeah, so it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting way of of of, of looking at it, but I guess.
In all of that, to be able to, to figure out, cause you know, you, you, people in their forties and fifties still haven't figured it out about what they want to do. But self awareness is obviously a massive part in, in that. Where does the educational system fall short or educational systems fall short in developing that that skill, that ability in young, but young people.
Anne Mangan: [00:22:32] I think it falls very far Shar to be quite honest. I think it is Not when talked through, it's probably very badly resourced. Most of wash is covered and again, I'm talking about covered and I equate some learning, being covered as just being trotted out there as opposed to being able to internalize the information it's done in large classrooms.
And there is part of this needs to be one-to-one. And part of it can be small groups. Part of it can be in a bigger classroom situation, which it's actually not rocket science at all. It just needs kind of a structured approach and they all need, they need that level of information that will take them to the next phase.
And to be honest, there, there really is a huge, and there has been for a very long time, there has been a huge emphasis on peoples young people's aptitudes for something. And to be honest, I believe that that has grown its usefulness. Yes, it could be useful as part of a process, but not, not on its own.
What I've discovered is probably the most useful starting point for anybody at that age is for them, is to help them, as you say, get to know themselves and primarily get to know what their interests are, because, you know, when you ask somebody a question you're interested straight away, they'll probably start thinking I don't have any interests.
You know, I'm only interested in football or whatever, but actually when you do a little bit of probing, You discover actually they've quite a lot of interest. And then once they realize actually that they do have interest, then they're in a better position to start exploring possibilities. And then you can start digging down into how you can, how you can train our be educators in, at, in an area that's of interest here.
And that's when they start to get really excited and like. Their intuitive wisdom and motivation increases to the point that they have absolutely no problem going off and researching. And one again, once I taught how to do it. So I think it's about taking the two pieces, the little chunks and. You know that saying what is it again to sort of Stephen Corvias thing, start with the end in mind.
So what's the end point for them in the next phase of their lives? The end point for most of them is to. Train or be education and north pole into a field that is of interest to them in the workplace. So if you just kind of work back from there, it's not, it's not a huge project, but it's one that needs to be structured.
And I suppose the other side of it is there are novices. Like we were all novices when we're, when it comes to learning something new, they are absolute novices when it comes to. Their career development. It's the very first step. They've never done it before. They have to make a big decision and they should be making it on their own.
Having had support along the way, but they're not getting that. How to piece, you know, when you think about learning, how to drive and how structured it is. And they're very clear guidelines. And once there are those guidelines and you practice it, you can then move up to the advanced beginner stage. But if you don't have those clear guidelines to get you off true, in-office part, then you're floundering.
And I think it's pretty simple actually. Yeah, not rocket science, but unfortunately Hmm. It's not necessarily that well thought through or logical.
Lech: [00:26:10] Just thinking about how me being in my mid thirties and haven't been for. The traditional educational systems primary, secondary, and Poland actually higher education in Poland as well, but then additional higher education in the UK. I'm currently learning Italian and it is so uncomfortable to deal with the fact that the, you just have to recognize the you're you're, you're basically a two-year-old old, you, you build in where you're learning words, you're building sentences and so on and so forth.
And. It is, it's so difficult and I've done a lot of work in, in personally on kind of what makes me take what I'm afraid of, what I like, what I enjoy doing my passions, my values, and so on and so forth. And this still. Is very, very difficult. Cause I literally started soundly learning Italian properly in the last month or so.
And it's still very uncomfortable, very difficult to do. And I'm wondering how, and I've done other projects in the past. I've done other learning in kind of projects in the past. I've learned different things, different frameworks, different tools and skills acquired different skills. Again, knowing that being a beginner again, and it can be really exciting by can be very, very stressful.
And de-motivating, and even with that, with all that knowledge armed with that knowledge, now that I'm doing yet, another thing that I'm learning yet, another thing, a complicated one, probably one of the most complicated ones that have done in a long while. I'm still in that stage. I'm still in that state of, you know, being, being comfortable with being difficult and sometimes tricky to deal with.
And then I'm thinking of, of the youngsters coming in out of secondary systems and universities going to workplace and all sorts of things when they haven't had this experience that, you know, they've learned and they failed and they failed and they've learned and so on and so forth and they can, they can take that forward.
I can't, I find it very difficult to actually get my head round it about how. Uncomfortable how stressful it must be for them to, to deal with these situations. And I guess this is. I've been trying to think about what organizations can, can, can do with that. I was actually thinking of asking you that question of, is there any advice you would give to to organizations and I guess probably the initial thing is that organizations listened to this individual leaders, listen to this.
The benefit in it is just having that awareness of what's going on for them for the, for the, for the youngest youngest, the youngest youngsters coming out of the educational systems into their first career jobs or careers. And just being aware that this is a problem that they might not be paying.
I think that's, that's, that's a big piece. Just being aware of that. And trying to figure out ways of supporting them. It's not that they're just being awkward. It's not that they're just being lazy. They are just lost and confused. They don't know what to do. But other, any other things, any other areas you would suggest they consider exploring?
I know I appreciate that. You're not necessarily. On that workplace side, but again, from your experience working with others, what would you kind of, what notes would you give to the team leaders? And they're the managers that kind of take them on to their teams.
Anne Mangan: [00:29:19] okay. I think maybe there's a couple of things here, I guess, in a way we were talking about secondary school and A lot of students, certainly in Ireland, I know that about 70% of secondary school students progressing to higher education now their dropout rates and fact close to two thirds admit to having chosen the wrong course.
But nevertheless there has been. Quite radical reform within higher education that does actually prepare them much better for the workplace then coming out of secondary school, your jobs. So are you familiar with what's been happening? You would probably know, has been happening in Ireland, but actually what's been happening in Ireland is being merged very much all over Europe and elsewhere.
In terms of the radical reform that's been occurring. Like literally it's been going on now for about 20 years. This radical reform or the higher education system goes back probably about 20 years where the ministers of education within the European countries would have gotten together. And it was initially around setting up a European framework of qualifications. And I think part of the reason.
Big parts of the reason for doing that was to have greater mobility for students and for educators throughout Europe. But it's really taken off from the point of view of it's it's more than, than just a framework it's been. Again, it's been part of a very much a radical reform. Now how radical can reform be and how much will the system be able to manage?
Widespread reform is kind of difficult one, but the things that have been happening really within us are a big focus on the whole area of teaching and learning. And that focus had not been there in the past. And and where that's leading to is this move away from the teacher centered approach to the student centered approach.
So the more people, the more higher education educators that become trained in the system or who go through the system, the more it will get embedded. So that's, that's a really good thing. Part of the reform has also been around again, preparing students for the workplace. So it is about helping them to develop those skills, those lifelong learning skills.
You'd see that there's a lot more group projects now than what there used to be. In the past, you'd have been brought up before plagiarism. Now you still could, but there is a lot more emphasis as the say on being able to work as part of a group and the integrity that, that. Surrounds that more emphasis on being a reflective practitioner.
So whether you're an engineer or an architect or a doctor or a nurse or whatever it is that you can learn to stand back and think about a particular situation, usually it's a situation that maybe didn't go as well as you'd like it to go, but to stand back and look at. You know, Fox actually happened to what is it that I could do.
better in the future, go off and do some reading around it, some research around and look at how we can improve.
So, so work is happening and I would expect that that's bringing students a lot closer to factually. Required into workplace. I think the problem, biggest part of the problem maybe is for those that don't get off to a good start. Maybe drop out of college early and open the workplace, majority of them, what they would have expected and just aren't prepared for the workplace. So now I don't think I'm answering your question for you when he, or she might have to come. Maybe reframe that question for me. If you don't mind.
Lech: [00:33:04] I think answering pretty, pretty well, because the whole point is for, for this to be a discussion and actually getting your. Point of view on the matter, that's how I like to run these conversations and the, you have raised a number of interests me. So was, I was going to ask you if obviously you, because I know that you're in favor of radical reform that needs to happen in the educational systems.
And I, I guess the, the, the, the previous question I had is what can, what should. Business leaders managers taken on individuals into their organizations, coming from the systems that we know are not ideal that they have been developed, you know, in different times for different, different times for different organizations, for different industries, with different needs and you, the, the education is needed to produce different.
People at the end of it, they were supposed to go into a job. Most cases, a job for life. Now people go into jobs for two, three years. They go into a different one and sparse the discovery process of what they want to do, what they enjoy, but also parts of just finding the right fit, the right organization.
And it's, it's different. So again, I think the organizational leaders need a bit of help in terms of. Being aware of what's going on for the individuals, but also what else can they do to make them more welcome more at home, I guess, in terms of creating that initial environment for them to be able to, to, to flourish.
Anne Mangan: [00:34:30] Yeah. I think that the. Atmosphere within the organization is really in parking and that atmosphere of helpfulness and respect. I think that's, that's one important thing. Treating them as novices sorts. They were to look at each of the roles. I think charity around what's expected of this new worker like clear. Tasks that they have to do. And I think. Probably taking quite maybe a somewhat mechanical approach initially in terms of this is how we'd expect you to do this particular thing. So it's almost back to like the old QA manuals mind you, they're still, they're still there and had to have that purpose, but learning, being shown the ropes, being shown how to do something well, and I think what links would that read is the 3d apartment is.
Getting feedback not being left to your own devices. And I do hear from say the more recent graduates, people who have maybe 25, 26, 27 year olds having, maybe been through a couple of different work situations at this point, I think being left to flounder is really soul destroying. And I think it tends to make people want to move on and to find someplace else.
So. So back to being shown the ropes somebody overseeing us in a nice way in a helpful way, able to give them feedback about, yes, look, you know, you did this really well, but it would be better if you, if you could do handle this in a particular way So I think, and maybe having a mentor that somebody can.
Have that chatter as at the end of the week, being able to, you know, I mentioned about being a reflective practitioner, that's something that in the workplace it's so useful. As you know, there's the, there's a new understanding about experience and the idea that somebody who has been working in an area for 10 years, that.
It's like having one year's experience multiply by 10, unless they have some kind of a system for being able to learn as they go along. So reflective practice, which could very easily be used in this kind of a situation again is just that sit down, chat about, you know, what's going well, what's not going, what's not going so well, what can we do to help you?
What can you do? You know, and I think that tends to help you move forward from my kind of observation. I think people are happy to stay in a job with their learning and once a feed respected and once the money's good enough, but I think those could be.
Lech: [00:37:12] In a way I'm not going, I'm not going to, but I could go on a tangent. But based on what you said on in terms of environment my big area of focus is of what I work on with my clients is. Company culture and creating the right environments for people of all levels of ages within organizations to be able to thrive based on their strengths, weaknesses, and, and basically create a place, create a space and an an atmosphere where people no matter.
What their fears are, what their weaknesses are, that they can still reach their potential. It's just being able to create that. And there are some organizations that do a magnificent job in that, where they develop their people and that's their sole focus there to develop their people. And they take as their responsibility that if a person is not performing as expected, there's something wrong on the organizational side.
That's how much of, of the. Let's call it burden the responsibility they take for that. They do everything they can to help that person. They move them around, send them a different programs and things like that. They are difficult companies to get into. But once you're in you know you are in safe hands.
But so I'm not going to go on a full on tangent about, about that. But I, the, the, the one thing that did come to my mind was, as you were speaking, can, was the, the readiness to accept feedback. Especially the critical feedback where you, you have to do something differently. The, the, the job that you've done, tasks that you've performed is sub par in whatever way, or maybe what, and that's not what had been expected.
And I think obviously that goes on two sides. That feedback has to be delivered correctly. In, in a creative, in a constructive way. So that's on the manager's part, but also on the individual the young person who might have been through a system where, you know, there are no wrong answers. There are only winners and no ones are losing things like that.
I think that doesn't prepare them very well for dealing with them. Caring. You've done something wrong. You need to develop units. You need to learn. But it's, I like to draw this analogy of when that feedback is delivered is that you literally sit on the same side of the table as the person that you're giving that feedback to not opposite.
This is not an inquiry. This is not a blaming session. We I'm giving you this so we can do better. Not you, but we, because we are things again. And I think that's, that's a, that's a important point too, to do, because I think a lot of young people, I mean, actually a lot of people my age and then thirties, forties, fifties, they don't know how to deal with that feedback.
They don't know how to give a most of all received it's uncomfortable and gets them the press game gets them defensive rather than looking at the state. Yeah. I've, you know, I've made mistakes. I'm going to learn from that. But again, this comes back. What we talked about at the start is no matter what happens, I can deal with that.
And having that preparedness, that readiness to be able to do
Anne Mangan: [00:40:07] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I learned a long time ago. I, for, for a very long time avoided doing appraisals with our teachers because I had a particular idea as to how it was to be conducted and I didn't think it was going to go well. And I think I was right there. And then I discovered a better way of doing a square.
My mentor. I sat in on my mentor as he did an appraisal. Auntie did an appraisal. With me and I saw it in a completely different way. It was that fireside chat. And it went well beyond. So it was encouraging the other person to think about what they, they had achieved, what they had yet to achieve and the issues that were coming up, but also their plans for the future.
And it's so good to get a heads up in terms of what somebody might be thinking about in terms of thinking about moving on, are they looking at moving sideways? And I think it could be it's part of a culture. And that.
sense of being part of something and being valued is just so important. It just leads to far greater honesty and much greater willingness to accept feedback, put that, you know, particularly when that feedback might be, might not always be positive.
Lech: [00:41:19] psychological safety is probably one of the most. Or the ones that are ignored, but unaddressed elements of, of, of a good environments of how create that psychological safety and a culture of feedback. These two, two massive, massive Addams. Obviously there are others. Visions purpose values and so on.
But those kind of obviously tackled different and different things, but in terms of creating the right environment for people now that opportunity to give and receive feedback and being ready for it and creating things and doing it in such in a safe space is so important. We could probably go and be going on about this for forever and a day.
But mindful of, of, of your time. Is there anything that you've got going on or in the near weeks and to come and net in the weeks and months that you're really excited about that you're really looking forward to any new projects that you, that you're working on that will see the light of day or anything that really makes you jump out of that bed in the morning.
Anne Mangan: [00:42:13] That's just kind of a strange answer, really. Running my week-long summer programs for senior secondary school students. And the focus of that really is to help them to develop those other skills. So to expose them to a different form of learning in preparation for what it is that they need to do.
So I'm really excited about that. I suppose, if I had a magic wand. Are, if somebody decided that they wanted to fund me, I would love to set up a senior secondary school that would be kind of have a very different focus, maybe a problem-based learning approach which I think would not own deep provide people with the skills to be really excited about their future and to be able to do fantastic things.
But would also be far more efficient in terms of people's time. So whether that happens or not now is difficult to say, but that's what I would like to see happening. I wasn't really expected to see that.
Lech: [00:43:14] Fingers crossed. It will, it will, it will happen. And somebody maybe listening to this podcast will say, ah, you know what I want to, I want to team up with you. I do have a magic wand and I can find us a pot of gold or whatever. And, and, and team up with you. So if anyone wants to do feel free to reach out.
Listen, it's been an absolute pleasure and a joy. We have a new on as a guest. I think we, we explored what I thought we might explore, which is just the elements of raising the awareness of what's going on for the young youngsters, young individuals in educational systems getting ready for for the workplace.
So thank you very much for your time.
Anne Mangan: [00:43:48] thank you.