THE PROBLEM OF A PERSPECTIVE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: JOB SEEKING v. VALUE CREATION

Yesterday I was at dinner with some church members, a family and some young boys and girls. One of them – let's call her Cecilia – expressed her intentions to study Phsycology at university. She said that her introverted disposition and her ability and patience to listen to people would make her a good phsyc. I agree with her. Then she said she loves everything related to the human behaviour, the mind and social interactions studies. So she'd like to study Freud and friends next autumn. But there is a problem: she is afraid to study this subject for fear not to find a job after she'd graduate.

The change of perspective - non-linear thinking - could help to solve problems. Like in this image where you cannot state whether monks are descending or ascending, there is no right answer, just different point of views. (M C Escher, Ascending and descending, 1960)

Now, I want to help her. First, I think her fear it is a legitimate and honest issue: unemployment rate is high and the job market is very unstable. But I also believe that more important than to have a job, is our intention and ability to create value for others. If we start with this perspective we might end up in another place. So I'll design a question trail – just invented this name – in order to reframe the problem.

From a job- to a value-creation-approach to pick a university course

1. Why does Cecilia want to study Phsycology?
    1. What kind of people does she want to help?
    2. What kind of phsycological problems does she want to solve?
    3. What past experiences do lead her to be a phsycologyst?

These questions should lead Cecilia to understand her own drivers.

2. What value will her help bring to people?
    1. How to measure it?

This is a crucial question. Let's think about the kind of values a phsyc bring to people. They can be more happiness, a sense of lightness and understanding of his own self, a plan of reaction to adversity, more productivity, easier and more stable social relationships, a clear mind to look at new opportunities and achieve new goals. The higher the expected reward the higher the price she would be able to charge. (I don't mean the only option for Cecilia is to start a private practice after she'll graduate from University. These questions are designed to understand whether there is a demand for the services she'd offer. Once graduated she could still look at employers that meet that demand.)

3. How many potential people in need of her help are there?

The answer to this question really depends on where she live and how she will promote her work – this is the branding and marketing side of her job.

4. Will people helped aknowledge her help?

This is a tricky question. In latin countries – i.e. Italy – there is a general skepticism about intellectual professions – lawyers, consultants, phsycologists, software developers, designers, journalists – since people usually think they can do the same job by themselves. I think in order to aknowledge the job a phsyc does and the value she bring to his patients, Cecilia should choose a very specific field very hard to practice.

5. How much will those people willing to pay her?

Here there are two way to approach demand: the value-based side and the competition-based side. With a value-based approach the price should be a fair share of the economic value Cecilia would create to her patients. With a competition-based approach the price should be a slightly lower price that his competitors charge. (Competitors should be a very selected number of players, since phsycological assistance is very much based on personal preferences and so it's hard to compare two different phsycs. It has to be kept in mind that the default mode – doing nothing – is also a non-player competitor.)

What do you think? Are these questions a good way to tackle Cecilia's problem? What other ways do you think of?

STRATEGY: HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Last week I came across an article on Edward Luttwak's life and thinking. He is a septuagenarian resident of a suburb of Washington DC, living a ordinary retired age life, and earning his living by giving advices to governments about strategy, military actions and all other kinds of group conflicts - including marital disputes.

His competitive advantages are the huge knowledge of human flaws ("Most people cannot master their emotions"), historic facts and understanding of conflicting interests, the feeling that he is in connection with a deeper and hidden sense of reality and a counter-intuitive approach to strategy ("I never gave George Bush enough credit for what he’s done in the Middle East. He
ignited a religious war between Shi’ites and Sunnis that will occupy
the region for the next 1,000 years").

WHAT IS STRATEGY?

This made me thinking about what is Strategy. Big W defines it as the "high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty". Von Clausewitz, a 18th century Prussian military thinker, says it is "the combination of individual engagements to attain the goal of the campaign or war" (Principles of war). According to Von Clausewitz, the main purposes of war are to conquer and destroy the armed power of the enemy and to gain public opinion. So destruction of other's power and recognition of it are the goals of war.

I agree with that, but I think the ultimate goal, or aim, of strategy is to gain power. Strategy is strictly related to war and military actions, but the art to achieve goals encompass all areas of life, from to get a degree, to conquer a girl's heart, to build a business, to start a polar expedition. Nonetheless there are two areas where strategy is better studied and applied: military and business. Here the means to measure success - the achievement of goals - are visible and palpable: the capture of a city and the return of investment.

A BUSINESS STRATEGIST

On this second field I found a very interesting piece of advice by a hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio. He founded Bridgewater Associates to provide investment advices over securities and government bonds and now manage over 150B dollars. He designed the firm around the principle of seeking truth without regard to position or authority, but based only on soundness of reasoning and merit.

The reason I introduced Dalio is to reproduce the "Process to Getting What You Want Out of Life". In other words is Strategy applied to real life. He says that "failure is by and large due to not accepting and successfully dealing with the realities of life, and that achieving success is simply a matter of accepting and successfully dealing with all my realities" and that without facing pain and reflecting upon it a person cannot evolve to fulfil his potential. We are all faced virtually every moment with choices to make: whether or not to study, progress, make our job done, pursue goals, girls, lay down on the couch, investigate, fight or run, win or accept defeat, step back or push back.

The choice we face every moment to be blocked by pain or to endure through it and progress (c. Ray Dalio, Principles)

THE PLAN

1) Set Your Goals.
You can have virtually anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want, so you have to make a decision about what you want to achieve and to kill what you would like to have but is not really meaningful or important to you.
Avoid setting goals based on what you think you can achieve.

2) Identifying and Not Tolerating Problems.
Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you.
Be very precise in specifying your problems.
Once you identify your problems, you must not tolerate them.

3) Diagnosing the Problems
You will be much more effective if you focus on diagnosis and design rather than jumping to solutions.
You must get at the root causes.
More than anything else, what differentiates people who live up to their potential from those who don’t is a willingness to look at themselves and others objectively.

4) Designing the Plan (Determining the Solutions)
Creating a design is like writing a movie script in that you visualize who will do what through time in order to achieve the goal.

5) Doing the Tasks
What is needed here is good work habits, self-discipline, being proactive and result-oriented.

In order to complete all these 5 steps different qualities are needed. To set goals requires high-level thinking and personal honesty, to identify problems needs perception and intolerance of badness, to diagnose needs hyper-logic, to design plan needs creativity, to do the task needs self-discipline. All these task can be completed by different people with various qualities.

This was Ray Dalio Plan to Achieve Goals in Life. This is what I think is Strategy.

"I believe that you can probably get what you want out of life if you can suspend your ego and take a no-excuses approach to achieving your goals with open-mindedness, determination, and courage, especially if you rely on the help of people who are strong in areas that you are weak." (Ray Dalio)