“Wealth is made by the risk takers not the risk avoiders”

A great article in the Times on 12th october – ‘Forget number crunching. Realise the dream’ written by Roger Mavity CEO of Conran Holdings – caught my attention last week. He makes the point that we as a nation have become obsessed with analysis and numbers to support any and all our decisions, we do everything we can to avoid risk so much so that we stifle imagination and creativity. Yet we also know that the greatest achievements have come from ‘wild’ ideas and a belief in them from an individual with real belief in them. He cites the designer of the iPod, Jonathan Eve, and that Steve Jobs at Apple just recognised something great and ran with it rather than measure it to death before he did anything with it.  We are too lead by control-obsessed people (you only have to look at our current Prime Minister) lacking in big ideas and vision to see this – to grow, to develop, to innovate (and to get out of this recession fast!) we need dreamers, we need visionaries, we need risk takers and we need companies to give their people the space, freedom and trust to do exactly that.

It’s about demonstrating, not writing or talking, about skills that counts

At a recent event I attended hosted by TMP we were told,quire rightly, that companies need to give students the opportunities to experience the skills they need for the world of work and the values of an organisation “in action”, so they can really understand what is required.

For the really forward looking companies, who genuinely want to win the competition for talent, they need to find ways to see students demonstrating their skills and values far earlier than at assessment days. So we need to take this one step forward and give students the opportunity to demonstrate those skills so, as employers, we can see them. The obvious route is through internships and placements but that will never give companies exposure to enough students, hence the rise of on campus competitions and challenges, such as L’Oreals Brandstorm; Npower’s  Energy Challenge or the UBS Challenge (for 1st Years). But these are just one way, others include working with Society Committees; involvement in the curriculum, the list goes on..

And for students the message is, get involved in activities where employers can actually ’see’ your skills in action, like those mentioned above, do this and you will stand out far ahead of and in advance of the hordes of unaware students!