Coffee Connect
Promoting entrepreneurship in your professional life
A set of strategies and tools for educators and teachers
Introduction:
The current world of work is characterized by uncertainty, precariousness, absence of efficient networking opportunities, crisis of traditional career models, shortage links between formal and non-formal education and training and entrepreneurship.
As the co-founder of LinkedIn platform said, «for the last sixty or so years, the job market for educated workers operated like an escalator. If you were basically competent, put forth a good effort, and weren’t unlucky, the strong winds at your back would eventually shoot you to the top […] But now that escalator is jammed at every level […] Old premises that guided our parents have given way to new realities, and with new realities come new rules».
These new rules should be learned to start from students groups until educated workers into a scenery changed at every level.
Objectives.
The purpose of this workshop is help you to consider your professional career as a sort of start-up, and therefore acquire a “Permanent Beta” attitude, a fundamental approach in the market reality today: it’s relevant for everyone, but especially for new generations.
If you’re a teacher, a trainer or an educator, you can develop new valuable and transferrable skills, reinforcing your career and then transfer these new skills to your students as final beneficiaries.
At the end of every module you will learn how to use interesting and useful tips for your career, discovering some useful classroom-based activities, games, side projects and resources you can manage at school. You can replay these activities with your students easily.
Thanks to this course, you will in the power to enhance your competitive advantage and skills, plan your career to adapt, develop good networks, pursue breakout opportunities, take intelligence risks, and reinforce your network intelligence.
PROGRAMME
Day 1: Discovering your real competitive advantage
In this module you will learn:
- How to acquire a “Permanent Beta” attitude
- How to define the 3 elements of a competitive advantage (your assets, your aspirations and values, the market realities) and then understand how to fit the 3 pieces together
- Understand the importance of investing in yourself to upgrade your assets
In-Class Activities:
9:30 – 11:00
First impressions: Do you know how you’re seen by others? A self-evaluation exercise compared with the perception of your skills and strengths by other people. Useful to discover your competitive advantage.
Rules for Permanent Beta: Creation of a short list of tasks you applied in the past, or you could apply in the future, to train a mindset under a Permanent Beta Thinking for your career.
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break.
11:30 – 13:30
Asset Audit: An exercise to evaluate your soft assets and choose what assets you should grow to make your career more attractive.
Time Audit: A review of your free time activities, useful to discover your real aspirations and interests.
Dr. Know-It-All: An entertaining game to train your mind in terms of flexibility.
Day 2: Plan yourself to adapt
In this module you will learn:
- How to create an ABZ plan for your career
- Understand the added value of a flexible persistence
- Learn the importance of experimentation
In-Class Activities:
9:30 – 11:00
Baseline Career Plan: Production of a short essay (max. 2 pages) explaining your current Plan A and Plan Z
Side Project: Preparing a Plan B using tips of previous lesson: one participant will be chosen and others will simulate a special Plan B for his/her career
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break.
11:30 – 13:30
Side Project: Repeat of the same exercise with a new participant
Freeze Tag Theatre: An entertaining game used to demonstrate the possibilities of flexibility and constant adaptation.
Day 3: Creating good networks to pursue breakout opportunities In this module you will learn:
- Understand the added value of authentic relationships and then recognize the difference between relationships in a personal and professional context
- Discover 2 different kind of professional relationships: allies and weaker-ties
- Recognize the importance of second and third degree connections
- Develop the assumptions to increase the environment of finding breakout opportunities
In-Class Activities:
9:30 – 11:00
LinkedIn profile: Creating/updating your LinkedIn profile to synthesize your skills and competitive advantage, join relevant groups and reinforce your professional network.
Influencer Audit: Review of real influence of other people on your life and career: is good or not?
Strong allies vs weak-ties connections: Creating set of lists of your strong alliances and weaker-ties.
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break.
11:30 – 13:30
Proactive Relationships: An easy exercise to discover the importance of your network in case you need of help or advice, in case you want to turn to a Plan B or in case of failure.
Serendipity Tactics: Exploring ways and strategies to court relevant randomness.
The Marshmallow Challenge: An entertaining game useful to demonstrate the importance of teamwork.
Day 4: Take intelligent risks
In this module you will learn:
- Know how to manage risk in your career decisions
- How to see opportunities where others misperceive risk
- Recognize that short-term risk increases long-term resilience
In-Class Activities:
9:30 – 11:00
Risk Misperceptions: An exercise aims to demonstrate that certain activities are less risky than it seems, analyzing the profile of someone takes part of your network who engaged regularly in a risky activity or job.
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee Break.
11:30 – 13:30
Acceptable Risks: A review of risks you lived in your professional career. A set of list of possible risks you could accept to increase volatility in your professional life and reinforce your resilience.
Day 5: Who you know is what you know: the value of network intelligence
In this module you will learn:
- How to map your network to recognize who knows what
- Understand the added value of network intelligence
- How to synthesize information into actionable intelligence
In-Class Activities
9:30 – 11:00
Online Network Feed: An activity based on the choice of the right newsfeeds on relevant topics, people, companies you can discover on LinkedIn, useful for your career in this moment.
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee Break.
11:30 – 13:30
Network Intelligence Map: Mapping your network (online and offline) to divide it in relevant categories. An activity to train your network intelligence.
Who Am I: An entertaining game useful to demonstrate the ability to synthesize information from multiple sources.
Credits:
The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, 2012 by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha.