David Price on the Power of Us

On this week’s episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Tom is talking with author and thought leader David Price on The Power Of Us: How We Connect, Act And Innovate Together.

David is an author, educator, consultant and public speaker, based in North Yorkshire, UK. He has written two Amazon best-selling books, the latest titled: The Power Of Us: How We Connect, Act And Innovate Together. David has led innovation in education projects around the world for the past 20 years, following leadership roles in Community, Adult, Further and Higher Education. He is an advisor to the Mastery Transcript Consortium in the USA, Vega schools in India, the Canadian Educators Association, LearnLife in Spain and New York-based cultural consultancy, sparks & honey.

In 2009, he was awarded the Order of The British Empire, by the Queen for services to education.

David started his career as a touring musician, and participation in the gig economy, in many ways, has continued to inform his thinking about purpose and work. This experience, coupled with what he observed raising his sons inspired his first book, OPEN: How We’ll Work, Live And Learn In The Future. The ways in which they were learning caused him to think differently and to challenge formal education — “how can we recognize the power of informal learning and take it into the formal environment?”

“The [career] opportunity lies in the fact that you don’t have to do what we’ve historically called a job, but you can fix some of these existential problems […] Occupation is not a job, but what occupies us.”

Tom and David also discuss the difference between an Artisanal Economy and a Traditional Economy “we were sharing what we knew, but now we’re sharing what we make.” It’s like John Hegel said: “the shift in business from scalable efficiency to scalable learning.”

They also discuss the ways in which user mindset gets squeezed out of orgs and producer mindset dominates “maybe we should be thinking of CEO as lead learner of the org, the person who models learning.”

David’s thoughts on what school should be about:

• A pedagogy of agency: can we make sure these students feel in control of their lives and can make a difference in the world
• Schools and colleges can be restorers of community.

“Our young people now, they could be the greatest generation. They could take these problems have been mounting for decades and they could change the world. The time has found them.”

Thought-provoking and incisive, The Power of Us is an urgent call for leaders, teams and individuals to challenge the status quo.  It offers a practical toolkit of ideas to show us how we can foster our own cultures of co-creators to transform our lives and rebuild a better world for the future.

• “How we connect and create together.
• How we take action and why it matters.
• How we innovate together and why it matters.
• How we connect, create and take action together

Key Takeaways:

[:10] About today’s episode with David Price.
[1:02] Tom welcomes David to the podcast!
[1:10] David speaks about his early life, where he grew up, where he has traveled, life as a freelancer, and growing up as a musician.
[4:35] About seven years ago, David wrote a famous book called, Open, which previewed the new age of open source and open talent. He shares what led him to write the book and what he wanted to accomplish by writing it.
[6:58] Open both encouraged people and companies to operate in a transparent and open manner. It also outlines the new open economy and how people can lead really fulfilling and productive lives in the freelance and gig space; what John Winsor would call the open talent space. Would David agree that for everyone to be able to step into this space that it would require a new social contract?
[9:25] Tom congratulates David on his new book, The Power of Us: How We Connect, Act, and Innovate Together, and reads an excerpt from the introduction.
[10:44] David tells the story of his update to The Power of Us and how he came to a conclusion that felt more true than ever.
[13:55] A summary of Chapter 2 of David’s book, The Power of Us, on scalable learning.
[16:11] An explanation of chapter 3 on people-powered innovation.
[18:22] The second part of The Power of Us is on mindsets. David speaks about two mindsets he writes about in the book.
[20:12] The next section of the book talks about the operating system; a shorthand way of describing how an organization works (the culture, the structure, and the systems that either collectively inhibit or enable innovation). David elaborates on how organizations either block or promote innovation.
[21:41] Part 4 of the book talks about leadership. David argues that it requires a very different kind of leadership to enable bottom-up innovation. He describes what this leadership looks like in practice.
[24:20] Part 5 in the book is a great toolkit with sections on trust and transparency, engagement and equity, and mastery and meaning. David elaborates on these sections in the toolkit.
[28:07] David offers some advice to school heads on how they can incorporate key ideas from The Power of Us into their schools.
[30:02] Tom and David further elaborate on the importance of schools focusing on agency and community.
[31:30] Tom and David share what they love about High Tech High.
[32:15] Why the work that the Mastery Transcript Consortium does is important to David.
[35:19] Tom shares a profound excerpt from The Power of Us.
[36:37] Tom thanks David for his book, The Power of Us, and shares why you should pick it up!
[37:03] David gives a closing thought that sums up the opportunity that’s available to us right now.
[38:14] Tom thanks David for joining the podcast.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• David Price
• The Power of Us: How We Connect, Act, and Innovate Together, by David Price
• Open: How We‘ll Work, Live and Learn in the Future, by David Price
• Mastery Transcript Consortium
• Canadian Education Association
• Sparks & Honey
• Learnlife
• Getting Smart Podcast Ep. 275: “John Winsor on the Open Talent Economy”
• Garry Ridge | CEO of WD-40
• Larry Rosenstock | High Tech High
• Getting Smart Podcast Ep. 208: “Esther Wojcicki on Raising Successful People”
• Difference Making at the Heart of Learning, by Tom Vander Ark and Emily Liebtag — Enter code Smart20 to save 20% off the cover price!
  

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