|
 |
|
|
|
Education: Business Week: Preparing our youth for the real world |
|
|
|
Written On: January/February 2008 |
|
|
|
Written By: by Danielle Rhéaume |
|
|
|
In the summer of 1982, 17-year-old Brenda Morris was looking forward to a career as a flight attendant, but something changed her course. She attended Washington Business Week, a hands-on workshop for high school students sponsored by AWB and local businesses, and after just a few days her entire career outlook changed. She awakened to the fact that she could be anything she wanted to be through business, "including CEO — because that's what you are for a week!" she said. Now, 25 years later, as Chief Operations Manager and Chief Financial Manager for iFloor in Tukwila, Morris is one of Washington Business Week's many success stories.
At Washington Business Week students are placed in "virtual companies" and assigned "company advisors," volunteers with extensive experience in business who mentor students as they lean to run their companies in a simulated business environment. The advisors stand ready to help as the students elect corporate officers, brainstorm ideas for business ventures, make decisions, develop leadership skills and learn how to work as a cohesive team.
Though the program is designed to benefit students, Washington Business Week is also a valuable experience for the advisors, giving them an opportunity to share their knowledge in what PEMCO President Stan McNaughton calls a "virtual leadership laboratory." During the workshop, company advisors play the role of senior professionals in a large organization. They get to "practice mentoring, team building, artful persuasion and other critical skills while learning new ones," said McNaughton.
Working with teenagers is also an excellent test of leadership abilities. "Business Week is a real-world experience — not like sitting in a class — because you basically live with the students for an entire week," said AWB President Don Brunell. While at Crown Zellerbach, Brunell was a company adviser during the late 1970s and early 1980s and watched the program grow from its beginnings at AWB in 1975.
Business Week hones an adult’s leadership skills. "If you aren't a leader, kids will really take advantage of you," said Brunell. That's why many businesses, including PEMCO and Weyerhaeuser, encourage and pay for their employees to serve as company advisors at Business Week each year. For about $300 (plus lodging), they can provide their employees with an excellent but affordable opportunity for professional and personal development.
Participating businesses can also help shape Washington's future workforce, as Business Week's experiential approach teaches students personal responsibility through hands-on, results-oriented education. In most cases, this approach resembles work life more closely than the standard lecture format offered in most high schools. It allows for the acquisition of practical skills through trial, error and opportunity. Because of this, students who may otherwise struggle at engaging academically often flourish and find their niche within business during the seven-day program.
While attending Washington Business Week, students are away from familiar faces and out of their normal routine. They are even "kept away from too much technology," according to Business Week director Stephen Hyer, "so they keep communicating with one another." By being thrust into unfamiliar surroundings and into the lives of business professionals, their minds and imaginations are challenged and expanded. As it was for Morris in 1982 and is now for many teens each year, this experience is positive and life changing. "No matter what a person chooses to do for a career, the entrepreneurial skills you learn at Business Week can work for everybody — from a mechanic to a massage therapist!" said Morris.
In recent years, Business Week expanded to include pathways in accounting and finance, health care, and construction — fields that are facing employee shortages and desperately need ambitious young professionals to fill jobs. Company advisors who volunteer in these fields help sustain and develop the integrity of their specialties — just as their own mentors did years before. "The students who attend Business Week are bright, energetic, enthusiastic, innovative and full of questions," said Mike Hudson, executive director of AWB's Institute for Workforce Development and Economic Sustainability. "When people ask me what it's like to be a company advisor, I tell them to go stick their finger in a light socket — and keep it there for a week."
"The skills you get at Business Week help you in many different areas of your life," said Morris, who has helped her nieces and nephews attend Business Week. She hopes her own daughter, now 10 years old, will attend when the time comes. "In just one week you can become a more confident and capable person. It’s really quite magical!"
AWB remains the founding sponsor of Business Week.
For more information about Washington Business Week, including how to become a company advisor, check out Washington Business Week's Web site at www.wbw.org or call (800) 686-6442.
|
|
|
|
