Construction Innovation
Gamechanger — Rhodes Scholars Meets Street Smarts
In the world of business, the age-old debate of “street smarts versus book smarts” has been a topic of discussion among industry leaders, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, college students across North America, and even global television audiences. The question often arises: “Should I drop out and follow in the footsteps of Jobs, Ellison, Gates, and now Zuckerberg?”
Start-up statistics paint a grim picture, with 90% of start-ups failing or pivoting and 50% shutting down within five years. However, The Next36, a Canadian initiative, is stepping up to challenge these statistics. The goal is to reduce the failure rate by just one in ten companies, which could significantly improve portfolio management’s ROI performance. The Next36 equips teams with knowledge derived from experience in a collaborative manner.
In the corporate world, power struggles and battles for promotion, resources, and compensation are commonplace. The central themes of the “Street vs. Books Smarts” debate boil down to hard work, emotional intelligence, creativity, and team leadership.
Jon French, Director of Marketing for The Next 36, shared the group’s vision, stating, “We are looking at developing high impact entrepreneurs as well as start-ups and the vision is a long term play. We expect our alumni to be behind some of Canada’s most successful companies when we scan the business landscape in 10–15 years.”
The Next 36, with its integrative thinking and prestigious university network, is poised to change the game for Canada. It aims to drive innovation and potentially leapfrog past US venture capital and acceleration systems. The program pushes its cohorts hard, teaching students how to think with top professors and leading entrepreneurs.
Brendan Calder, a Next 36 Faculty Adjunct Professor & Entrepreneur in Residence, runs an award-winning course called “Getting It Done.” The course focuses on delivering global best practices in performance management and continuous improvement, with a street-smart curriculum on passion, courage, and goal-setting performance, all with a focus on bottom-line results.
The vision of The Next 36 is to increase Canadian prosperity. It is a competition-based hybrid educational EMBA program combined with acceleration. The program has an impressive list of academic and investment partners, sponsors, and national partners.
The Next 36, and its sister program, The Next Founders, welcome collaboration from traditional VCs and angel investors. The programs work with top-ranked institutions and incubators, ensuring that ideas come from the students to guarantee their passion.
The Next Founders, designed for more experienced entrepreneurs, accepts a variety of applicants. French stated, “We do not discriminate based on the applicants’ educational background. They demonstrated early success and early traction in some cases with venture capital and have potential to build high impact businesses.”
One of the program’s success stories is Mallorie Brodie, a co-founder of Bridgit, a start-up focused on mobile technology serving the construction firms. Bridgit deploys mobile technology to expedite and automate a paper-based deficiency repair process for the construction industry. The application allows inspectors to identify, photograph, and highlight defects, improving response time, workflow, and lowering costs.
Brodie praised the program, stating, “We were forced to meet certain milestones. When you have a bad day, week or a month, it’s really easy to give up on the idea. But, when you’re part of a program and they push, you have to continue to set more aggressive milestones for yourself.”
She continued, “It’s really important — the overall guidance in the early days of the company; the network of the N36 — investors, adviceand exposure to top business leaders.”
Brodie saw N36 bridging an experiential gap between entrepreneurialism and management, “Getting things done and hitting milestones.” She found value in learning to answer questions of ‘What’ (needs to be done) and by “When” and not stopping at business analysis.
When asked about leadership training received in the program, she described, “There’s no way not to grow when the bar is pushed so high — you just lead. You don’t have time to think about leadership.” She added, “By the end of it, you look back,” she reflected. “And, I know a lot more than I did 9 months ago.”
She continued, “One of the founders — he’d bring in a top business leaders every week — CEOs from Canada.” She received advice, asked questions and commented, “They’re still regular people. That motivated us. It’s important to be exposed to someone we can relate to.”
Geoff Smith, President of EllisDon, won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Canada in November 2013. He has advice for improving innovation in Canada, and simultaneously addresses the “D” grade given by the Conference Board of Canada for innovation in 2013. His advice emphasizes the importance of autonomy, accountability, and transparency within a company, fostering an open, entrepreneurial culture. He believes that effective leadership means getting out of the way and demonstrating confidence in people, creating a company of leaders.
Smith stated, “So, two things. We’ve worked very hard ever since to push autonomy and accountability (freedom and trust) down absolutely as far as possible throughout the company and to run it very openly — everyone should be getting every bit of knowledge about their project and the company — and with a minimum of bureaucracy. We are crystal clear on our values and try to be equally clear on expectations and accountabilities, but then we strive to just let people do their jobs. Our systems must support this trust, not undermine it. It’s a wide open, entrepreneurial culture, and it’s not for everyone, but it works for us.
More importantly: To a very significant extent, I understand now that effective leadership means getting out of the way. And then — this is key — ensuring that our other leaders are also getting out of the way. Demonstrate confidence in people — top to bottom — and you will have a company of leaders. And, if everyone’s a leader, everyone has to get out of the way.”
In conclusion, The Next 36 and The Next Founders are making strides in changing the landscape of entrepreneurship and innovation in Canada. By bridging the gap between academic knowledge and practical experience, they are nurturing a new generation of leaders who are ready to take on the challenges of the business world and drive Canadian prosperity.
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Al Leong is formerly a writer for TechVibes. He earned an MBA from the University of Toronto in Global Management, Strategy Consulting and Innovation. And, a certificate in Product Management from MIT/Sloan. If you found this article useful, go ahead and “recommend” or share it. And, feel free to view some other articles in this collection.
Contacts:
· Mallorie Brodie: mallorie@Bridgit.com
· Jon French, The Next 36: jon@thenext36.ca
The Next 36 130 Bloor Street West, Suite 702 Toronto, ON, M5S 1N5 | phone: 647-259-8943
