Season 2 Recap and Exciting Announcement!

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Kelly: .  Welcome back to Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby, the podcast where we discover what skills can help you live your best life. I am your host Kelly Ryan Bailey, and each week I chat with inspiring visionaries about the skills that make them successful. You’ll get a firsthand account of how they develop those skills, as well as their innovative approaches to improving skills-based hiring and learning around the world. Now let’s talk about skills, baby.

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Season Two Bonus Episode. Season two of Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby featured guests from all around the world who are all making an impact on the future of skills.

On this bonus episode, we are going to discuss the reoccurring themes throughout the season and share some exciting announcements. [00:01:00] The most prominent themes across the 19 interviews we did this season, were social emotional learning, transferable skills across industries, re-imagining education systems, and achieving equity through skills based hiring.

My guest today is Sari Wienerman. She is a producer for Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby and we’re gonna tackle recapping the themes from season two.

Hey Sari, thanks for joining us today.

Sari: Hi Kelly. Thanks for having me. It’s so fun to be on this side of the mic for this recording. 

Kelly: I’m really excited to have you here too. I laugh because this all started with you and me being on a podcast together.

Sari: It did. How special is that?

Kelly: Right. So like we started and we ended there, although is a continuation from here on out.

Sari: This is just a continuation, and I’m really excited to be recapping some of the themes because season [00:02:00] two had so much amazing content. And as you mentioned, one of those themes that we saw throughout several of the episodes was about social emotional learning, or as the industry likes to call it SEL.

And you got to talk about that with several people, but most notably on Episode 8 with Danielle De La Fuente and on Episode 10 with Mark Sparvell.

And I really want to focus on your conversation with Danielle. You discussed that one of the most devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is that social distancing has made learning extra challenging, and in particular, social emotional learning. The skills such as confidence and self-awareness that are developed through social emotional collaboration with others are essential, not only for students in school, but adults in any walk of life.

This is such an important conversation, and I would love for you to give us a little bit more information about why it was so disrupted [00:03:00] and what we can see that people are doing to help reverse the effects and the ways that people are getting out ahead of this to really center social emotional learning in school.

Kelly: Definitely. First off, this particular topic was almost the exact reason why I even decided to start this podcast. Because these were these skills, what I learned throughout this process, called SEL social emotional learning, that really was the foundation of how we handle crisis.

And COVID-19 just happened to be the first time that our entire world handled collectively, a crisis, a major crisis situation. Something that completely upended the way we live our everyday life. And for those of us who really didn’t have these foundational skills, these super important life skills, it was super challenging.

And I think even for us that did have some foundation of these skills, it was still super challenging. And we learned so much [00:04:00] through this period of time for anyone who didn’t think that these were important skillsets to have, they’re all very aware of it right now. So funny enough, this is just the starting of this discussion.

I feel like this moment, COVID-19, being this catalyst to continue this discussion and for this area to really see some traction. So I’m super excited for that to be a hot topic now.

Sari: A lot of what you had discussed with Danielle made distinctions between the K through 12 version of SEL, and then the fact that social emotional learning is happening lifelong. And what is so upsetting about the disruption of education during the pandemic is that without students being able to go into their classrooms, the SEL is what they lost out on most, right?

At home, mom or dad can try to help you with your math problems and your algebra or your history or whatever that is. They can try their best to kind of step [00:05:00] in for those lessons. But nothing really replaces that type of collaboration and needing to be around other people and reflecting and checking in with your own emotions and all of that that comes with this SEL discussion.

And I think what is important is that once we can uncover that, that is something perhaps missing from an education that not a teacher can put in, then that gives parents a really specific focus for this at-home schooling that they can do. And I think what’s better than that is it makes us realize how much learning we can facilitate in our homes, even when we’re back in school.

Kelly: I feel like that last point you mentioned is such an important point because learning happens all the time in every interaction that you have. The great thing about this moment, again, I try to think of silver linings, so I realize that it’s not ideal what happened. But this type [00:06:00] of learning what you just described, even in a K through 12 environment was not the norm.

Even if you were attending school prior to, or during this timeframe, focusing on these types of skills was not common. And so I feel like this moment, yes, not only will it teach parents that learning is happening all the time and you can focus on any interaction that you have and that can change.

But the idea that we can now start checking in with students emotions. And that concept, and I saw it happening virtually even with my own children in my own home for virtual learning, that they were actually having this dialogue.

It wasn’t only about the learning because you’re not ready to learn if your mind is not in the right place. And that’s really where that SEL comes in. And again, this is just something that this moment in time has really made it prevalent to any school out [00:07:00] there that “wow, we really need to figure this out for our students”, because this is not the only crisis situation that we’ll face.

Hopefully not huge global pandemic again. But there will still be crisis situations throughout all of our lives.

Sari: Absolutely. And so continuing on that right throughout all of our lives, that kind of brings us to the next main prominent theme from the season, which is applying your skills across industries. And several conversations that you had with a lot of these experts talked about how across industries, especially with the pandemic as a catalyst, you might realize that there is entire ways you can rescale the exact same population of employees to be able to do different tasks, but use their skills that they already have.

And so you spoke about that a bit on Episode 1 with Eva Sage Gavin, and then you got into it a little bit more on Episode 9 with Riccarda Zezza. And I love that we can put this back to back with that last episode with [00:08:00] Danielle, because with Riccarda, you discussed that there’s an incredible power that is gained from the responsibility of caregiving, that is an asset to any business organization or institution.

So you really dove deep into Riccarda’s work, where she discusses how the behaviors that you indulge in when you are caretaking in any way, it may be parenting, maybe taking care of a loved one, a parent even. The caretaking skills that you hone while doing that, are really transferrable to work. Mostly because of the way that they work through your emotions. There’s this aspect of emotional literacy that you and Riccarda unpack in that episode.

And we can see how this emotional literacy is something we’re trying to teach in K through 12. And it’s something that we’re really saying is one of your most valuable skills as an adult, right?

Kelly: It is so true. I actually loved that episode for so [00:09:00] many reasons. Riccarda is such an amazing person that brings her true life experience and passion into her work, which of course almost all of the guests do, but it she’s written a book about it. And that this idea that the skills that you’re gaining through all of these experiences, how they can go back and forth, is just an amazing concept.

And it, again, really speaks to this situation that has happened this moment, collectively, that we’re all seeing. If you are not a parent in any of this, or caregiving  for anyone whether it is a child or an adult, you may not have recognized what people are learning in those experiences. Again, in some ways, crisis situations, because you’re constantly going through a journey of up and down.

Definitely as a parent, I can say that, but I have also been a caregiver for other adults as well. And this moment that [00:10:00] we had was a beautiful moment in that now everyone really understood what that was all about. Because they all felt it, whether or not they had someone in their home with them, they truly saw it on all of the virtual zoom teams, whatever it is that you use.

We have not really been able to talk a lot about the skills that we’re gaining or really understand them. When they are truly strong and powerful skills, not only as parents to help us understand how to be successful in our professional life, but from an employer standpoint, to not understand your most valuable assets, which are the people that run your organization.

Looking at them in a completely new and different lens, as opposed to saying, I’m going to just look at this person with this Ivy League degree, with this background and realizing that someone who may not look like who you typically thought was going to be successful in your role, in fact could be even more wildly [00:11:00] successful because they’ve lived those experiences.

Like you talked about earlier, the learning through everyday life, skills are something that you don’t just pick up one time and you know it forever. I tend to use the analogy of either parenting or playing sports, whatever works for you as a listener. But if I’m thinking of it from a sports perspective, I didn’t just pick up a basketball and become amazing at basketball that day, I worked at it every day for years.

And it’s the only way. And as a parent, the thing is you’re working at those skills every day, all the time at home and at work.

Sari: Absolutely. That was so well said. Are you a fantastic basketball player?

Kelly: Well, maybe not so much now, but basketball was my sport as a young person.

Sari: I love that. Fun facts about Kelly Ryan Bailey. So this actually leads pretty well into the next major theme, which is my favorite I will [00:12:00] add. And that’s re-imagining education systems. And I have to say it is such a privilege to get to work on these episodes and learn about the amazing revolutionary things people are out there doing to really change this pretty old system that we’re just kind of going off of.

So Episode 2 with Omar Samra was a great one. As was Episode 7 with Erin Huizenga, Episode 12 with Sebastian Turbot, and Episode 14 with Leonor Stjepic. And with Leonor, she is the current CEO of the Montessori Group.

And so you were able to talk about the Montessori Method and why it’s so relevant and valuable today. Even for adults, we can employ Montessori teachings to strengthen our life skills, not just what we’re learning in K through 12. Leonor believes that human skills should be called essential life skills, which is something that you echo all the time.

 [00:13:00] This idea of soft skills doesn’t really accurately describe how important they are. What were some of the key takeaways from that episode that you felt were most important and are still sticking with you today?

Kelly: Also another great episode.

The thing that really stuck with me was that most people, again, COVID pandemic happens and we’re all like “what? Life skills? SEL? This is amazing. We all need to talk about this.”

Someone like myself, who’s been doing my line of work for over 17 years to hear when the Montessori method was developed, was not in today’s time. This was a long time ago. I actually forget even from the episode, but I do think we talked about the year in which Maria Montessori created the method. And I mean, we go back into that and it’s just fascinating to me that in her experience in her life, again, remember this was a life experience that led to her describing this method.

She was [00:14:00] working with young children that were underprivileged and trying to figure out how to get their mindset into a place to be able to learn, and that’s where this method came from. And so I just find it fascinating that this was not something that happened today, although we want to say that it’s super popular, everyone’s talking about it.

This is the hottest topic, I get it. It really does go back quite a long time. And in a global nature, this didn’t originate just anywhere, originated in many, many places in the Montessori Group and the Montessori Method is just one example of how this conversation started a long time ago.

Sari: There was a hidden key all those years ago that could have change these centuries of learning and they will.

Kelly: They Well, and they are right because Montessori schools are, and I laugh too because over even my lifetime and I think of it in terms of short, [00:15:00] although in some cases, a listener might think it’s long, but even in my own lifetime, we’ve gone through just the perception of Montessori Schools being like, oh, we’re just going to set them over here.

That’s sort of a different method. We don’t really do that. Let’s keep our kids in regular traditional public schools. Whereas now, interestingly  enough, people can’t get enough of the method. They want to get their kids into these Montessori schools because the regular school system wasn’t set up to teach young people in this way.

Sari: Yeah.

I mean, I think this really goes deep into a lot of the other challenges that our society is facing even outside of education. There’s this split. There’s a lot of people wanting to uphold the traditional way of doing things that kept certain people safe and thriving. And that’s why other types of new systems like the [00:16:00] Montessori Education is harder for some people to latch onto because it does represent change.

It represents difference. It represents really putting a wrench in what we value in terms of the education that we have. That’s why it’s so important because it can help us really reframe what are the things that we’re making important in the long scheme of your career? Right? We’re saying you have to have a degree in order to get looked at by a certain person for a certain job that pays a certain wage, when really getting that degree has nothing to do with the actual success you could have on that job.

The more that we can embrace these types of things that are different, the more we can make steps towards actually having even more equity.

And so that brings us to the fourth major theme from season two, which is achieving better equity with skills-based hiring. I know this is something we could get like Kelly on her soapbox and it would be amazing just to hear all of those things that you’d have to say about this, [00:17:00] but please definitely check out Episode 3 with Diane  Flynn, Episode 5 with Omer Molad and Episode 15 with Jay Latta. All of them have amazing gems about how skills-based hiring truly is and should be the future.

But specifically with Omer, you had discussed how in order to center people in hiring practices, we have to change the way that we assess their skills. Omer, he is the co-founder and the CEO of Vervoe, which is a recruitment platform that helps companies hire the best by focusing on who can do the job and not just who looks good on paper.

Vervoe predicts job performance using skills assessments that showcase the talent of every candidate. And I would love for you to take a little bit of a deeper dive into this, to really paint a picture that feels tangible because this I think is so, so, so important. And being able to articulate like the [00:18:00] conversations you had with Omer to a way that everyone can really understand, I think is super helpful.

Kelly: I’m happy to, and this is such an important innovation that’s happening right now, because remember in a hiring process. So let’s think of this from the aspect of a person applying for a job for a moment. And then we can flip it maybe to talk of it from like an employer lens, but for a person applying to a job right now, remember that the systems are set up to read maybe some basic skill information from your CV or resume, but you are identified as typically a one page, maybe some people have a two page, CV or resume.

And on there are your basics, it’s your education, it’s the last jobs you held. Is that really a true picture of what you’re capable of?

No is the answer. It’s not a good picture. And the system that is set up this way and the people that are there handling the process, like the recruiter that you might talk to in HR, all of those processes sort of set you [00:19:00] up, if you’re not the person with that degree that you so eloquently said earlier, set you up to not be successful.

And that’s such a shame. And so when I spoke with Omer and we talked about the innovation that Vervoe is embarking upon, which is to actually see how someone might interact in doing actual tasks and how they could then describe that to an employer, so you as a person, you’re not defined by that one or two page document with just your titles with just the couple things that you have done.

You’re described in how you’ve undertaken an actual project. I think it’s fascinating. I think they’re doing wonderful things.

And I think anyone trying to create innovative processes around how employers look at hiring people is just fantastic for us. For anyone out there looking for a job. And to [00:20:00] flip it on the employer side, because a lot of times employers think “oh, it’s going to make my job harder. How am I going to know?”

I can understand. Because change is difficult sometimes at the beginning, that doesn’t mean more work, but here’s the thing. The research shows that the talent market has already been drying up. There are so many countries where the population is aging. it means that essentially we’re creating a bubble in our talent.

So our talent, as it gets older and they retire, we don’t have enough people in the younger ages to fill the roles that our older talent is leaving. And so this deficit is going to be real for a lot of companies, and if they don’t start to think outside of the box, when they’re thinking of who they want to hire, if they don’t start thinking through this lens of maybe you’re not just your degree, maybe you’re not just your job title, maybe you’re [00:21:00] these skills, maybe you’re these things that you can do and understand how to find that information about a person. These companies are not going to be able to grow.  I cannot stress how important this is from either angle.

Sari: Yeah.

I mean, when you look at it from the employer side, you can definitely see that these traditional models of using an applicant tracking system and really reducing people down to keywords is a time-saver and that is it. There is no other benefit at all in terms of the hiring process, other than this saving time and helping them weed through candidates more quickly.

 If that’s your goal, how thorough can that process really be? It’s impossible for people not to be slipping through the cracks when the system was designed to basically cut down on the volume of people in the easiest way possible.

And so I couldn’t agree more that [00:22:00] anybody doing work in this innovative space to help skills-based hiring really come to the forefront. It’s so important. We thank you. We can’t wait to see what else is coming on that front. And it’s because people all stages of their career are having to constantly work on their skills. Even if they’re staying in the same position for tons of years, they still have to be working and getting stronger at certain things.

They have to be on a trajectory in some way. Or often people work in one job for a few years and then they have to find another, maybe the nature of their industry is that you sort of bounce around. And so whether you’re just out of school and you’re looking for your first job or you’re looking for your 20th job, being able to lead with your skills is so incredibly valuable.

And so that leads us to a special announcement that I would love for you to introduce.

[00:23:00] Kelly: I’m so excited to say this, although I really do want you to expand upon this. We would love to share the exciting news. The future with Skills Baby as an organization, we are starting a second podcast called Got Skills? Sari will be the co-host and producer of this new exciting podcast geared more towards individuals moving throughout their lifelong education and career journey. Can you tell us a little bit more about this, Sari?

Sari: Absolutely. So we all know that skills talk is hard. Being able to talk about what you do and why you’re good at it, is a challenge for anybody at any stage of their career. So that’s why we’re creating Got Skills? a weekly podcast to explore how to understand the skills that you’ve got and how to talk about them with other people.

Every episode is going to be under 10 minutes to provide [00:24:00] quick on the go tips and lessons with prompts for exercises that you can do to improve your skills language, and just ways that you can reframe your thoughts about the experiences that you’ve already had.

So we’re going to be taking conversations from episodes of Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby, all of these amazing experts and each one we’re going to break down one specific episode and really one specific takeaway so that we can apply it to somebody who is looking to skill up in that moment.

Got Skills?, like Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby is a Growth Network Podcasts production, and together they’re going to be rotating seasons so that we can incorporate all the amazing industry guests talking on Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby with Kelly, into these Got Skills? shorter episodes that are really breaking it down.

Our goal is to help you breeze through the next family reunion or interview or mentorship opportunity, anywhere [00:25:00] that you’re trying to tell the story of your skills by better understanding them and how to talk about them.

Kelly: I am so excited to hear this first episode. I have already gotten a sneak peek from behind the scenes, and I can say that I think anyone at any age, because this is a lifelong journey, we’ll find this information so helpful. And again, this is how Sari and I first talked  about this. we talk about this a little bit, Sari? Your acting class?

Sari: Sure.

Kelly: Okay. Great. Because it’s such a fun story. So we were talking about, again, pandemic, a lot of people were finding themselves without a job, and both of us were sort of in a similar situation, thankfully, not personally, but Sari was working with her acting class. A lot of these working actors had jobs in the food and beverage or service industry and [00:26:00] so a lot of these restaurants were closed. 

And my brother and my family actually have restaurant and a bar in New York city also closed. And I was finding that we were trying to scramble and help these folks also transition into other jobs. And so we got to talking about the skills that these people have, that were again in sort of a customer service related field, and in most cases could not find work because these businesses didn’t understand that just because they didn’t have a degree, it meant that man, they’ve never done this work before.

Elaborate a little bit because it was such a fun discussion and this is really what got us moving along this journey. And to me now where we’ve landed with Got Skills?, obviously makes complete sense.

Sari: Yeah.

All of these people, like you said, that I was surrounded by, they all knew that they had valuable work experience. But because of the way that they were [00:27:00] conditioned to talk about their experience and let’s use the example of serving at restaurants, they weren’t able to find the right words to put on their professional resume that would highlight why their skills were transferable.

We can just say flat out, every skill is inherently transferable. There is not one skill that is only useful in one place. And so that was the biggest challenge from the side of people actually looking for work, being able to talk about what they can do and why they would make good candidates for these other jobs that were available at the time when the ones they were used to weren’t.

And so Kelly and I got to discuss all of these resources that we can share with them and reframes that we can give them, and exercises that they can do, to really figure out what are the skills that I have. What am I good at? And how can I talk about them so that I can get employed in a different industry? [00:28:00] And you’re right. That’s completely where Got Skills? is picking up and I’m really excited.

Kelly: I’m excited too well. And it has been such an amazing pleasure  for our journeys to have come to that connection point and now intertwined along the way. I’m just so happy that you will be able to be out there co-hosting this, because I knew already that you had so much wonderful information to share from when we first met.

And as you’ve gone along in this, I can already tell everything you’re even sharing here on this particular episode, it’s amazing.

Sari: Thanks Kelly.

Kelly: Oh, it’s my pleasure.  Don’t forget, just like Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby, Got Skills? will also be available on skillsbaby.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

Season 2 episodes for Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby will be [00:29:00] also available everywhere. We encourage you to go back, especially to those episodes that we recap today, but anything throughout the season to relisten. Just some wonderful nuggets out there for you to learn.

Thank you so much for joining us today in this super exciting news and this wonderful recap for season two. It’s been fantastic.

I want to thank you all also for listening to you. Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby is a Growth Network Podcast production. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to subscribe to the podcast and share it with your community. Ratings, reviews and suggestions are great sources of feedback and always appreciated.

And please reach out to me and connect on social at Kelly Ryan Bailey. We love to meet you and continue the conversation, and we’ll be back soon with a new episode. So until then keep growing your skills and have a great day. [00:30:00]