Life after school a

Presentation to Students of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife

50TH Anniversary Celebration of the Training of Graduate Pharmacists

Life after School: Learning, Adaptation

and Employability

Olu Akanmu

Senior Vice President/ Divisional Head

Retail Banking, First City Monument Bank Plc

February, 2014

Thank you to our wonderful teachers for

the seeds they sowed …….

Olu Akanmu, Presentation to Faculty of

Pharmacy, Ife, February

2014, http://olusfile.blogspot.com

Learning from my personal odyssey

What you study in school may not necessarily be what you will do in life

Life opportunities may not necessarily present itself the way you expect

Life is a journey of continuous learning




We will be discussing today

Continuous life learning

Adaptation to life opportunities

Life skills

Employability




You don’t have a choice than to be in the school

You can however decide to learn, pass and do well in the school of life or otherwise

You have always been in the school of life unconsciously

Become a conscious learner of life lessons as you follow your own Odyssey

Life is a Continuous School even after

School




You are a unique individual, a special creation of GOD

You have some special gift or talents that defines who

you are and makes you unique

Life will chart a special course for you, a unique

experience that will define who you are

Discover your Life Purpose




Discover your life Purpose




Who you are (intrinsically by your talent and

extrinsically by life experience) defines the unique

assignment and purpose that you are meant to fulfill

You can only understand yourself by connecting the

dots of life backwards (Steve Jobs)

Everyone has a unique chart or pattern of life dots

on his/her life graph

As you begin to make a sense of the life’s dots, you should begin

to make choices that supports your life’s calling, your purpose

As you graduate and you journey through life, pay attention to

the things you do effortlessly compared to others, the things you

love to do, the things you get angry about if they are not

right, the problems people bring to you to solve.

Life success is about discovering yourself, your life purpose and

making choices that supports the fulfillment of that purpose in

life

Discover your Life Purpose




To succeed in life, you must constantly develop yourself

Life is a journey of mountains, valleys, straight and sometimes

crooked roads

Learn and get better with every life challenge

Your life learning is the asset and the weapon that will help in

your next challenge

David fought a lion as a Shepherd boy before he fought

Goliath

Develop Personal Mastery in subject of your calling

Continuous Learning




Knowledge and meta knowledge

Know what you know

Real knowledge is however knowing what you don’t know

And taking action to find and learn what you don’t know

If you don’t know, what you don’t know, you will not grow

in learning

You will never have Personal Mastery

An outsider in an unfamiliar environment My Public Health, Telecommunications and Banking Experience

Continuous Learning




Life Learning, Self and Environment

Awareness

To continue to learn, you must know yourself

Self awareness is critical. What do you know and how

is it relevant to your environment?

Do you understand your environment, what is

happening, how it is changing?

What is your level of self and environmental awareness?




Life Learning, Self and Environmental

Awareness




Are you cocooned, living in your own world? In your

own fantasy?

Your ability to maximize and exploit the life

opportunities in your environment is a function of

your combined self and environmental awareness

The Cocooned Pharmacy Student and

the Cocooned Pharmacist

The Pharmacy student is cocooned to the Faculty of Pharmacy from 8am to 6pm

Relative to other students, his connection with the wider environment in the University tend to decline with the intensity of his professional training

He is brilliant but he is more self aware of pharmacy than the wider learning opportunities in the University.

His learning is essentially cocooned




The Cocooned Pharmacy Student and

the Cocooned Pharmacist contd.




He graduates and continues to practice pharmacy in that

cocooned rhythm

Very low environmental awareness

Very low awareness of his strong intellectual depth relative to others

in the wider society

His horizon of life is defined from Glaxo to Pfizer

His friends are pharmacists, his enemies are pharmacists or doctors

He does not have an abundant view of life opportunities. If the

doctor takes it, then the pharmacist lose it

His teachers frown at his opportunities to connect to the broader

environment as unserious, untypical of the pharmacy student

Correlation between environmental

awareness and connecting to broader

life opportunities

Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi

Sam Ndah Isaiah ( Publisher of Leadership Newspaper)

Victor Gbolagade Osibodu ( Vigeo- Banking, Shipping, Power)

Bunmi Olaopa/ Jimi Agbaje

Francis Ekeng/ Calixthus Okoruwa




How big or wide is your horizon?

Define a wider horizon of life opportunities for yourself

Abraham’s Canaan was defined by how far he could see?

You cannot be bigger than your industry. You cannot be

bigger than the space you have defined for yourself.

Break down boundaries, expand to new frontiers




How big or wide is your life horizon?




The pharmaceutical industry shrunk in the early 1990s when Western pharmaceutical companies sold their interests because Nigeria market due to massive devaluation of the naira, massively shrunk

Careers also shrunk with the shrinking of the pharmaceutical industry.

Some pharmacists broke out as the opportunities became smaller. They found new avenues to use their training and experience in the pharmaceutical industry Breaking into bigger spaces

Adaptation




Why did the Dinosaur die?

Life dynamics are constantly changing? The successful

woman is she, who can adapt to these changes and even

use them to fulfill her life objective

Life opportunities may not present themselves to you in

the way you expect it. You will have to adapt to exploit

them

Adaptation and Environmental

Awareness




Adaptation and Environmental

Awareness




Adaptation skills will make you succeed in life and in

business

Change will be a constant, shape it if you can, adapt to

it and leverage it to fulfill our life purpose

Adaptations that are possible

Take an MBAPursue wider opportunities in business

Learn Marketing

Take a Masters in Public Health Big opportunities in not-for profit sectorsAlex Ogundipe ( Director of Policy. National Agency for

the Control of AIDS)




Adaptations that are possible




Take a Masters in Public Admin or Public Policy Pursue wider opportunities in public service and civil society

Dr Dere Awosika ( Civil Service)

Why should the farthest horizon of the pharmacist be a Chief Pharmacist or Director of

Pharmaceutical Service in the Civil Service rather than a Head of Service ( the horizon of a liberal

arts graduate)

Dr Otive Igbuzor- ex PANS Activist ( Civil Society)

Clinical Pharmacy

Be ready to evolve. If you environment is changing, how will you change will it

Other professionals or courses with far less academic rigor have thrived in public health and

civil service while the pharmacist remains cocooned to the hospital

A seeming perpetually opened gap between

pharmacy training and post graduate life

One of the first articles I read in the Pharmanews in

1982 in my Part 2 pharmacy was an essay titled

“The Gap between Pharmacy practice and training”

Three decades after, the gap seem not to have closed but

far much wider…




Whether you choose to practice pharmacy or not, there are significant gaps between the reality of practice and the training of pharmacist

Most pharmacists will end up in Community practice

They may end up using less than 70% of what they learnt in school… stereochemistry, trichomes

Pharmacy practice and or pharmacy business




Curriculum issues for Employability in

Pharmacy training

The need for strong entrepreneurial training in pharmacy. Most pharmacists will run a retail pharmacy business

Pharmacy Management curriculum needs to be made more robust to include accounting, marketing, retailing, sales management, entrepreneurship, supply chain management (importing and exporting)

Prepare the pharmacist better for the reality of his post graduate life. The mismatch between pharmacy courses and post school practice relevance needs to be corrected.




Life Skills and Employability




The need for Problem Based Learning

Method in Pharmacy training

Significant memorising tendency in the pharmacy pedagogy that may not necessarily correlate to more valuable problem-solving ability post-graduation

Problem based learning method will breed pharmacists with

Sharper critical thinking rather than memorizing and regurgitating

Ability to define problem and search for solutions ( Self directed learning)

Communication , Collaboration and Team work..very valuable life skills




Need for more Problem Based

Learning Method in Pharmacy Training

Use of Case Studies that bring the reality of post graduate life closer to academic training Business Schools, Law and Medicine have fully embraced Problem Based Learning Methods

The critical thinking benefit and life employability advantages of those courses based on their PBL training methods is obvious in post graduate life

Problem case writing in pharmacy will compel the pharmacy academia to get closer to the reality of pharmacy practice helping to bridge the gap between pharmacy training and practice.

Case writing and Problem based Learning will also foster interdisciplinary approach to pharmacy training , making the pharmacy graduate more employable




Develop problem solving skills Employers value people who can solve problems

To solve problems, you have to learn critical thinking as a skill

There is a method on how to think, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, logic.

Even if you are not being thought, Google it, learn, apply it, master it.

Critical thinking courses in Philosophy department needs to made more accessible to all students




Organizing and Leadership skills There are few things that you will have to achieve on your own

In life, work and family, you will need to organize

things, programs to achieve an objective

While you may never be thought this in your pharmacy

course, you can learn this by volunteering, given your time for the

causes you believe

Fashion, religion, culture, politics, PANS

Employers value those who have shown and learn leadership and

organizing in the extra-curricular life

Expand your network beyond pharmacy and pharmacists, expand

your eventual horizon of life opportunities




Quantitative, Numeracy and Analytics

Skills

Life issues and many business problems can be expressed in numbers

Numeracy skills is extremely valued by employers

Use of numbers to solve business or social problems, description of problem to communicate value, relationships and proffer solutions

Numeric skills will allow you to be relevant at work and make you go very far, see and articulate more clearly life opportunities and challenges




Integrity is critical to sustainable life success

Lack of Integrity, cutting corners or cheating can only give you success in the short term

It catches up sooner or later, and the short term gains are eroded in addition to heavy life sanctions

Integrity is the basis of trust, if you cannot be trusted, you will never develop enduring relationships that matter in business and personal life

Know the meaning of “honour”. What does “as men/ women of honour, we join hands mean?”

The worst way to describe an individual is to say that “there is no person in his body !”

Integrity and Character




Personal Confidence/ Your inner strength- everyone has

one..find yours

Everybody is a sales man in life, you are always selling

something, an idea, a product or your skill, talent etc

With low self esteem, you tell the world, you do not believe

in yourself, your product or your idea. Who will then buy

from you?

With low self esteem, it will be difficult to get a good job or

get promoted or get a business contract

Build your Self Esteem




Critical to continuous learning and development of personal

mastery

Give a proud man a little time, you will see him crashing

down heavily

You cannot know it all..

Humility will bring you help, it will let others who know

more than you show you the way

Humility will let others tell you when you are going into a

ditch

Humility




There will be times when things don’t go your way or

the way you expect

Would you give up?

You will sometimes need to be tough to succeed (Inner

toughnesss)

If Obama was not courageous, he could not have become

US President

Watch the new movie “12 years a slave”

Things that are worthy are rarely easy to get..

Courage, Resilience and Persistence




Communications skill will make and average man look very

competent and a competent man look very average when he

doesn’t have it

If you can’t communicate your idea, then you don’t have it !

Writing (memos etc) and speaking skills are critical to

success

Speak to the bush to develop public speaking confidence

Read literature, poetry and prose, articles to learn writing

It is never too late to learn

Develop Good Communication Skills




The skill of understanding people, their sensitivities and their

sensibilities and dealing with them as such

Emotional intelligence will help you to connect with people

to get the job done.

You are not likely to work alone. You will be part of a team at

work. Your relationship skills, your interpersonal skills will

determine if you will fit into the team or you will be thrown

out

Emotional Intelligence/ Interpersonal

skills




Criticisms are learning opportunities to improve yourself

Successful people learn to tolerate criticism even if they are

not palatable

You should however be a constructive critique

Balanced feedback

What I like about your views is xxxx but I am concerned that it

does not address yyyy

Good for building interpersonal skills necessary to work with

others

Tolerate Criticisms




How have you disciplined yourself to study, to stay focused

on your mission as a student?

Could you have done better or get a better grade if you

disciplined yourself better?

People without discipline loose focus, diffuse their resources

and make costly mistakes

Successful athletes are very disciplined with their

training, their diet

Would you be a successful life athlete?

Self Discipline and Control




Life opportunities may not necessarily be about where you are but your network can connect you to opportunities outside your personal space

To receive, you have to give

Networking is as much of the value you add to others as the value you receive from them

Do you have any value to add? Have you developed yourself? What assets can you share with your network?

Networking Skills




Understand basic economics and

politics

It is difficult to be economically illiterate and succeed in business.

You will be practicing pharmacy within the context of an

economy?

How is wealth created and distributed in society? How will it

impact on your business or practice? (Economics)

Who are the actors holding the knife and cutting the cake? That is

politics? Who influences them? How can we change them? What is

my interest? What is his interest? How will he cut the yam given

his interest ( Political Economy)

What is the economics of your community? Who are the wealthy

with money to spend? Why would they patronize my business?




The world is now truly integrated and a global village.

You will be competing for jobs with Nigerians and non-Nigerians

who schooled abroad

You might have schooled in Nigeria, nevertheless ask yourself if I

schooled in Harvard, what would I have been thought, how

would I have been thought it?

Build friendship with those who expand your horizon. Don’t

become a local champion.




Don’t let your environment determine your standards

What can I do to cover the gaps? Search the internet- a lot of

free knowledge is on the net, new

books, journals, association with those who have schooled

abroad, find out what they learnt

Keep learning and if possible, go overseas for a Masters

Even if you don’t, develop yourself and a positive self esteem

based on your continuous learning




Do not let your environment determine

your standards contd.

Wherever life locates you, would you be a spectator

or a player?

Learn and have concerns for what goes on around

you?

How could it be better? What should be different?

Be the difference that you seek working with others

Be the difference




Success is incomplete unless you also make a success of your family

Nobody on their death bed have ever said, I wish I spent more time at work, they always say I wish I had more time for my family

Live a balance of work and life

Recreation and rejuvenation

The importance of the family




A farmer may plant but there may not be rain

Grace is the water that blesses our labour

Those who do not know it call it luck

You need to find your luck, to be in the right place at the

right time

There is a divine ordering of path that leads you to your

destiny and purpose fulfillment

You need to know your GOD to find your luck, to lead you

on your life journey

Faith -Know your GOD




Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride! Make the best

of it !

Thank you




Health & Medicine

Life after school a