Education – Page 9 – STIMS Institute

The three legs of Work force skills development promoted by STIMS Institute, quoted in a recent article in Lexington Minuteman

Lexington Minuteman, a newspaper well known in the New England area recently carried an article on November 28, 2013 in their ECONOMY section titled, “Skills gap has a high cost” authored by Spencer Buell and Caitlyn Kelleher Lexington@wickedlocal.com

An abstract from this article is cited below:
Three-legged approach for high-tech
……………….
In Lexington, K. “Subbu” Subramanian, a mechanical engineer and President of STIMS Institute Inc., said closing the skills gap to foster a more vibrant economy in the future is going to require building a triangle: Education and training are its two legs, with motivation to create and implement new solutions – the Transformational Skills serving as the base.

The STIMS Institute, according to Dr. Subramanian is focused on developing physical, science-based technology innovation and management solutions. “There is a need to combine academic education and training application educations with a passion to create new solutions, Subramanian said. “This
triangle has to be created no matter what level we are going to. We are not thinking of the triangle. Nobody wants to come together to create a triangle.” The triangle needs to include educational institutions and businesses, he said, adding academic schools should take a lesson from vocational schools and encourage internships.

This year, Subramanian wrote the book “Thriving in the 21st Century Economy: Transformational Skills for Technical Professionals,” which focuses on the changing economy and the need for a new model for workers because of an increasing demand for high-tech skills.

“The parents have to push because their kids need the Transformational skills,’ Subramanian said. “The schools have a need because they have a social obligation. They can’t say we have high scores and we are good with that. They need to give kids the Transformational skills to get a job.” Businesses are not hiring, he said, because they want people with practical experience and Transformational skills.

Indeed, a National Manufacturing Institute study estimates that failure to fill 600,00O jobs due to a lack of qualified workers would cost the economy $67.8 billion in exports, $47.4 billion in foreign investment and $8.5 billion in lost research and development investment. Add that to that the $17.6 billion in unemployment insurance claims, $17.6 billion in lost income taxes and $6.6 billion in lost corporate taxes.

……………………….

Dr. Subramanian, President, STIMS Institute presented the key note lecture at the international seminar on Innovation and Higher Education

Key note lecture BBDIT 10 26 13 (FINAL)(1)

The international seminar on Innovation and Higher Education held on Oct. 26^th at BBDIT highlighted the following points. Every speaker seemed to converge on similar themes:

Education must promote skills for thinking (i.e.) challenge the status quo and ask the question “Why?” relentlessly.
Any education has to also promote an ability to apply the knowledge acquired to some useful end purpose.
Education has to be linked to some target industry or user. This makes the students work force ready.
Education has to be project oriented. Such project and their execution is a measure of the problem solving skills of the students.

The Key Note lecture also acknowledged the above points. In addition the following additional points were offered for Innovation and Higher Education.

At this time – in the 21^st century – we live in a Binary Economy: A high skills work force creating and exploiting a stream of New Solutions (Economy1) as a parallel and distinct from a low skills – low wage work force (in larger numbers) employed to carry out well defined tasks to Replicate known solutions (Economy 2).

https://stimsinstitute.com/2013/07/17/learn-to-swim-against-the-tide-of-binary-economy/

All educational efforts to meet the work force needs of Economy 1, have to make the student (and later the engineer) more comprehensive in his/her outlook as a professional, who can identify, develop and deploy/implement a stream of New Solutions. This requires System Thinking and Transformational Skills.
Such education on ST and TS has to be formal, structured and results oriented. Such formal education on ST and TS is a MUST, in order for all the academic education and industry oriented training to become effective and useful and achieve the end result of value to all: the students, the company and the industry.
Such education for students with effectiveness will also be the differentiating advantage for the colleges (academic institutions) in the long run.

Every one of us needs a strong dose of “System Thinking”. Do you agree?

Every one of us needs a strong dose of “System Thinking”. This includes all of us – those in the Government, business, professionals, academics, fellow citizens, …. Do you agree?

Recently I posted the two comments in the LinkedIn as noted in this message. I wrote them as a response to two blog essays. These essays suggest a need for a strong dose of System Thinking – looking at the big picture, as a whole and not in bits and pieces.

One of the blog essays suggested that Government and political leaders must act like the way businesses are managed:

We agree with this need for a focus on long-term sustainability and not on the short term gains. We also need to recognize complexities of Democracy and each of us need to do our part.

If you hired 500 workers and about thirty among them said “we want to bring down the President of the company no matter what”, then what will you do? Suppose these thirty employees are also guaranteed that they cannot be fired from their job – thanks to “safe seats” – then what will you do? Suppose the “supervisor” – the speaker in this case, does not want to take any action and side line these 30 workers, then what will you do? You cannot fire the supervisor ad-hoc and you need a rigorous process – next election ? – Then what will you do? It is time the CEOs and journalists and those who fund these non-performing employees and their elections speak up and say “enough is enough” and call the spade a spade! The political correctness and being superficially equal to all sides can be very harmful. The poor who are affected by sequestration and the un-insured who are poor do not have any voice. The rest of us who are fortunate not to be poor or be already insured also need to speak up. Beyond that, ballot box is the loudest voice available. That is the price and privilege of democracy. Other than that, we can call upon the national pride and plead with those who are driven by ideology to think of the nation at large, her economic needs and avoid the deep self-inflicted wounds.

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131003131039-73785410-we-are-still-waiting?anchorTime=1380814227134&deepLinkCommentId=5791554636129079296&trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_LIKE_TOP_LEVEL_COMMENT

System thinking also requires attention to details and avoid pithy phrases and cliché. Commenting on the current crisis in Washington, one blogger wrote: “Don’t hate the players, hate the game”. What does it really mean? Drop the rules and principles of a democratic process (the game), because few politicians want to impose their will ad-hoc?

At the end of the day, any system or organization works only to the extent the people play by the rules. If required, rules can be changed again through a set of rules established for such change. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game” means nothing when the game is not played by the rules! You can not play basketball with those who want to spill water on the court to deliberately injure some players! This will happen when people coming to the basketball court not to play ball but cause havoc to those who want to play. President Obama was elected twice and the ACA was passed by the congress, upheld by SCOTUS and was re-affirmed through a national election. Now 30+ congressman from districts where Obama was defeated by 20% or more, do not want to play ball. This is like a few players from a team who lost the game don’t want to leave the court, instead want to rip and tear the court. Sadly there is no security force that can be called upon for this unruly behavior! The only people who can fix this are those voters in these “safe districts” who need to talk sense into their elected representatives. Otherwise those fellow citizens will be the laughing stock of the nation. Are they listening?

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131002122233-201849-who-caused-the-government-shutdown?anchorTime=1380822830677&deepLinkCommentId=5791590722003955712&trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_LIKE_TOP_LEVEL_COMMENT

Transformational Skills: What do you need after a degree from MIT?

2016 MIT Community talk

K. Subramanian

Merely working harder in your job after getting your college degrees (along with lots of student loans) may not be enough for thriving in the 21^st century economy. Instead everyone has to constantly seek ways to identify new high value added opportunities, develop them into new solutions and also implement them to be sure that the value is realized and in the end the work is rewarded as well. It is a lot more than simply doing the job you are asked to do. This combined set of skills to Discover, Develop and Deploy a stream of new solutions are the Transformational Skills.

Transformational skills go beyond mere academic education in science, engineering, or management. In fact, it requires a judicious blend of all these three pathways and not treating them as isolated silos. It requires diving deep into the problem or spanning wide as required. Workers with such skills are called as the “T-shaped thinkers”. It also requires a comprehensive view of the problem on hand – as a system – and not mere piece of a puzzle. It is imperative that workers at all levels learn the Transformational Skills and integrate them in their arsenal to frame their own jobs and careers.

Dr. K. (Subbu) Subramanian, President, WWW.STIMSInstitute.com, obtained his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. Following his successful career than spans over 35 years working in the industry and across the globe, he has captured the lessons learned on Transformational Skills in a recent book co-authored by Prof. Srinivasa Rangan. https://www.asme.org/products/books/thriving-21st-century-economy-transformational

Nirmala at Lokvani interviews Dr. Subramanian

http://www.lokvani.com/lokvani/article.php?article_id=9233

1. How did you get the idea of writing this book?
2. Why is it relevant in today’s world? What ideas does it emphasize?
3. What is the salient concept of a the binary economy?
4. Why is it important for students to be aware of this?
5. How does the STIMS institute prepare students?
STIMS Institute has developed courses on Transformational Skills and System Approach for Knowledge Integration. We are implementing these courses in some colleges. We also teach/train mid-career professionals in companies. We offer one-on-one training/mentoring for students and professionals. We have written the book to promote the ideas on Binary Economy and the Transformational Skills for broader dissemination od these ideas.
6. The back cover says that this is more a self-help book? Can you explain that?
7. Finally where can readers find this book?
The book is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Thriving-Transformational-Technical-Professionals-Managers/dp/0791860167/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375275381&sr=1-1&keywords=transformational+skills+subramanian+asme+press

At Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thriving-in-the-21st-century-economy-k-subramanian/1115191210?ean=9780791860168

And also at the publisher, ASME Press: https://www.asme.org/products/books/thriving-21st-century-economy-transformational