Founders Pledge’s Post

After having spent a significant portion of my professional career advising clients to transform to a data-driven one, I feel I should have focused more on non-technology aspects such as the importance of macro and micro-economics, public policy, cross-border trade, culture and psychology on driving successful transformations or boosting competitive advantage. In my view, all these aspects give a comprehensive view of the strategy formulation and execution. In the second half of my career, I wish I get opportunities to develop my skills in these areas. Not sure how to get started. Maybe, work with some researchers in these fields to gain knowledge or work with some universities. #careertransition

Love this article by Stephanie Bai about what Gen Z can teach us about the future of work, and about the importance of shifting norms to build healthier organizations

Among the hardest parts of entering the business world is recognizing that life & careers are non-linear. Advice from 100s of business execs for how to thrive in business & deal with ambiguity 👇 WHAT I MEAN BY 'NON-LINEAR' CAREERS When we are kids, life is linear - good grades 👉 graduate from school 👉get into college 👉 get a job. Careers are NOT built that way. ❗ It's far more common that a career takes twists and turns that cannot be predicted at the outset. 👉 WHAT YOU CAN DO TO THRIVE IN NON-LINEAR SITUATIONS: We can't predict the exact steps our careers will take, but we can take action to help create new opportunities. Here is what you can do - 1. 🌻 Bloom where you're planted ‣ The #1 predictor of a top performer is a history of being a top performer. 2. 🤓 Learn how to learn ‣ In a constantly changing world and across roles, you must learn new skills and adapt. 3. ☎ Grow your network ‣ The more people who know what you're capable of, the more opportunities will come your way. 🖼 PHOTO CRED: I would never have predicted that I'd start an art business, an exec search firm, and become an investor after the Marine Corps - life is non-linear! ------------------------------------- Let me know your thoughts on non-linear careers in the comments below! What advice do you have for the thousands of transitioning veterans and MBAs who will read this post about thriving in ambiguity? PS - If you like this post, you'll love the recent 2 part series on how to make big life and career decisions on my substack. Check it out at brendanaronson [dot] substack [dot] com

Tear down the walls! It's time to embrace the power of interdisciplinary learning and unlock the full potential of innovation. For centuries, our education systems have confined knowledge within rigid boundaries, separating subjects like history, science, and literature into neat boxes. While this approach may have facilitated organization and scheduling, it fails to mirror the interconnectedness of the real world and leaves us ill-equipped with the versatile skillsets that employers crave. But it doesn't stop at education. The call for change extends to individuals, teams, organizations, and institutions alike. By adopting interdisciplinary thinking as both a mindset and a way of working, we tap into exponential creativity and discover groundbreaking solutions to the most complex challenges we face. Interdisciplinary learning is the catalyst that propels us towards an innovative, collaborative, and sustainable future. #InterdisciplinaryLearning #Innovation #BreakTheWalls #LimitlessPossibilities

So many researchers struggle with the question of whether they are satisfied with their careers. We're good at using our excellent analytic skills to look at data, but self-analysis is much more complex. We are biased. We are blinded by our pre-assumptions. That's just how it is to be human. What's more, it's hard to prioritise the time to reflect on the big issues and easy to get lost in your to-do list of jobs that need to be delivered by tomorrow. But it's actually important to be aligned with 'why' you are doing what you're doing, or you can end up tired, frustrated and dissatisfied. What we all want is to free up energy for doing our passion projects, and simultaneously accept that there are administrative duties that enable those projects. But seeing things in context can help us make insightful decisions about what you can say 'Yes!' to and what you can say, 'no' to. If you can bring yourself to prioritise 1 hour a week for 4 weeks in order to reconnect with your aspirations and gain clarity about navigating your research career - and you are a University of Melbourne staff member with a research agenda - join us. We begin next Friday the 30th of August at 10AM. I think you could at least explore the first hour and see if it's for you. Lots of folks have found it useful. You might too. There will be music. There will be self-reflection. There will be creative opportunities for personal development. Just so you know :) https://lnkd.in/gdsVNDUZ

🗂 As a pretty organized, intentional, Type A kind of person, finding strategic ways to help people make sense of all the noise is deeply satisfying, which is why my role with the UW-Madison Office of Business Engagement is so dang much fun. 💡 As I've gotten a chance to really dig into my role here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there is SO MUCH incredible work being done all across campus in SO MANY places, which can be super overwhelming sometimes for industry partners. 🗺 But there is a huge upside to tapping into what is happening, so how best to navigate it? 🔎 The role of our office is to help companies navigate all the good stuff happening here so you can access the #talent, #research, #technology and #professionaldevelopment with one point of contact and someone inside advocating for mutually beneficial partnerships between industry and academia. 💫 So if that sounds like something you want to take advantage of, we're your people!

#BuildingWithThePublic … Day 10 For the first 10 days of this 100-day countdown to the election - slash our emergence from beta - we’ve been introducing our team members. The last addition to our core team is Martin Bech, who will be driving our user outreach activities and analytics. After making these posts to introduce the people behind our venture, this question came up: How do you define a “core team” in the first place? Do you use this concept? Where do you draw the line? How do you build a core team? Let us know!

🌟 Late post alert - Relocation to Austin, Texas 🌟 After 16 incredible years in Southern California, a place that has offered me unparalleled growth, opportunities, and memories... I am thrilled to announce that my family and I relocated to Austin, Texas in 2023! I've embarked on an exciting opportunity to establish innovation, tech build, design capabilities by setting up BCG X's presence in Austin and support the growth in the Southwest region. As part of BCG X, bringing the best of tech and design capabilities, bold creativity, business building rigor, coupled with the unparalleled strategic thinking of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to partner with world's most influential companies and organizations aspiring to do bleeding edge work...fuels my passions.  Deepest gratitude to my professional community,and colleagues in California 🙏🏽. Your support, friendship and mentorship have been instrumental in my growth. Why Austin and why now? Austin is quickly becoming a booming economic powerhouse, with a vibrant tech scene, growing diversity, a thriving culture of innovation, creativity, and an amazing talent pool. If you are passionate about disruptive innovation, digital, design, climate & sustainability, let's chat and explore how we can drive transformative change together! #MovingForward #BCGX #BCG #BCGATX #Austin #Texas #Innovation #Tech #Design #Digital #Climate #Sustainability #NewBeginnings #Gratitude More in the video below - created with artificial intelligence + human creativity. #genai tools used are ChatGPT 4.0, Pictory.ai.

Dan Sullivan, co-founder of Strategic Coach and consultant extraordinaire, advises that there are three things in life that cannot be commoditized [or replaced by A.I.] – relationship, creativity, and leadership. Those are the qualities that the best advisors bring to the table.   Raman and Flynn write the following in a NY Times essay at https://lnkd.in/gyXGCHWA   -Technical and data skills that have been highly sought after for decades appear to be among the most exposed to advances in artificial intelligence. But other skills, particularly the people skills that we have long undervalued as soft, will very likely remain the most durable…. Our abilities to effectively communicate, develop empathy and think critically have allowed humans to collaborate, innovate and adapt for millenniums. Those skills are ones we all possess and can improve, yet they have never been properly valued in our economy or prioritized in our education and training. That needs to change. - Communication is already the most in-demand skill across jobs on LinkedIn today. Over 70 percent of executives surveyed by LinkedIn last year said soft skills were more important to their organizations than highly technical A.I. skills. - Almost anticipating this moment a few years ago, Minouche Shafik, who is now the president of Columbia University, said: “In the past, jobs were about muscles. Now they’re about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the heart.” - Today the knowledge economy is giving way to a relationship economy, in which people skills and social abilities are going to become even more core to success than ever before.   Several years ago I had a most enjoyable lunch in Toronto with attorney Wolfe Goodman, a recognized expert in Canadian tax. I asked him the relative importance of hard skills vs. soft skills in estate planning. His full-throated response was immediate and concise – soft skills are, by far, the more important of the two. One can always hire the hard skills, the technical expertise. Daniel Pink writes in A Whole New Mind that right-brain thinkers will overtake the world, “The future now belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of ‘left-brain’ abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind.” Pink’s book was published in 2005.