Have You Got The EFactor

good afternoon

welcome to tedx cookstown everyone

my name is david gibson or as i call

myself with my fancy titles

professor david gibson ope

and and they were hard-earned mike my

question for you

is have you got the e factor

you want to know what the e factor is

want to see if it’s relevant and i’m

going to talk about it talk about its

history

and how i feel it can play a part in our

lives

and in changing the world

the e-factor is a set of competencies

that i came up with

through my work at university and out

with businesses and you

you can see it includes creativity

resilience putting yourself forward

negotiation

a range of of areas

we all have some of these skills but we

all need to work

and be competent at them all and i want

to talk about

how i come up with them the impact it’s

had

and how we can move forward together

so let’s let’s start after

uh graduating in a degree in in law and

a management postgraduate

i decided to become an accountant and

the reason why i did that was not really

a particular love of figures

but i reckon this was a good area to

start my own business in and would give

me

access to work and help entrepreneurs

develop

i did this i was successful and got

involved in various ventures and

and working with entrepreneurs and what

i did discover out in the field was

there was a set of skills you could

follow really people believe

entrepreneurs are born not made or you

just happen to come from

a certain family i didn’t believe that

and my work

made me see i would see the same skills

like creativity or

negotiation being used again and again

to save an entrepreneur’s life to

to to do a deal and yet it was difficult

to get them

to change and adapt and realize they

needed to be competent

in them all and they needed to develop

because personal development maybe in

one way

was was quite a new thing then i then

got

a really good opportunity i got a

very good offer for my business and i

got a junior job

in queens university belfast

as a teaching fellow very low paid job

no one really told me what i was going

to do i thought i was going to give the

odd

lecture and do a bit of consultancy what

i found was after a week i was in there

i was meant to embed

entrepreneurship and innovation into the

curriculum of all students in all

subject areas

there was only there was just one

problem and nobody told me this before

the interview

queens were bottom of the league in the

uk in it there were only 10 students

doing

one theoretical module and no one had

done it

in the world um so it was really sink or

swim time for me

what was i what was i going to do should

i leave or should i try and swim

and i tried and it was difficult

even though queens had had a lot of

money to to do this

uh from the government it was about to

be withdrawn they were right at the

bottom in the uk

and i and i was trying to sort this

people would avoid me

in the in the quad people wouldn’t turn

up for meetings

and i kept going until eventually i got

one chance

uh a lecture in environmental planning

let me talk to his

class in property development and

i got them to do live things i got them

to be creative i got them to look at

outside

social economic problems and apply it

and learn

and they loved it and they and they

changed things

and they did really well and and and

their work

and and so it happened and the great

thing was as a good new zen spread

it went into every subject area it went

into nursing it went into medicine it

went into drama

um it went to engineering it went into

biology

we became the first university in the

world where it was

embedded this these skills the skills of

the e-factor

they were learning to be creative they

were learning to be resilient they were

learning

to lead they were learning to

sell and persuade not just as

necessarily as a business but in

in making things happen and then

changing things

and it was incredible i i developed an

occupational questionnaire with it

where they were measured before after

two years eight years and ten years

uh with thirty thousand students and the

skills that stayed

businesses were created as ceos were

created

social change was was created on queens

one loss of awards i almost innovative

educator in the uk

queens one times higher entrepreneur

university of the year

our reputation spread but the best thing

i got out of queens really was

a day one r with some very very tough

guys

from a very rough area in belfast they

were brought into a bus they really

taught me

they came in for an hour and they’re

meant to be a room with me and i was

meant to entertain them by teaching them

creativity

something called social inclusion where

universities invite people

from tough areas to make them see what

the big university is like

so i did all my usual things let’s look

at the problems that pet owners have

because they’re all

16 year old kind of kids at home

they wouldn’t do anything they wouldn’t

listen to me it wasn’t working

it was five minutes to go before the end

of the class and i

tried something desperate what i said

was

please my boss makes me walk my dog at

five o’clock in the morning i don’t want

to do that

help me please it was just something

disruptive

something to change they all laugh they

weren’t quiet

then they laughed then they start making

some suggestions

so i won’t mention most of them but the

leader of the group

in the corner this guy said get your big

dog a doggie treadmill and laughed

and fell on the floor and the class was

over so what what a great success that

was

but in actual fact it was a great

success

because six months later i’m watching

dragon’s den program on tv

and looking um for new inventions coming

out

and new businesses which is an

investment program for entrepreneurs

and i’d love to say one of the guys out

of the class came out but no it wasn’t

one of them i i wish them well

it was a lady from england what was her

idea

doggy treadmill like a million pounds of

investment it became a multi-million

point

selling product around the world and

that taught me

that if we could learn to be creative

and learn to take ideas forward

it’s amazing what we could do it

wouldn’t matter about our education or

or our background if we could learn to

disrupt and connect

and bring creativity and resilience and

personal branding

and these skills into our life i then

went on to work in

liverpool with liverpool john murs

with the the deputy mayor of liverpool

with one and a half thousand educators

charities and all the disadvantaged

areas the local businesses

and 000 students at the helm driving the

projects

that one best in britain best in europe

best in the world

but it was fantastic to see when you get

a civic place like liverpool

irish civic place as it is bringing all

this together

how they use the e-factor to change

lives

to change businesses to change

executives lives and to change

everything else what has happened since

then is that the e factor has

gone outside the world i’m now a

professor at the university of cumbria

and it’s been used with social inclusion

it’s been used with schools

it’s been used with university it’s been

used with executives and

and with changing the entire region but

the exciting thing is

it’s been accepted as a model right all

across the the world

china have been working with it i’ve

been training

school and educators in china um

it’s been used in africa it’s been used

in in in the middle east it’s been used

as go as going out to make a difference

it’s a simple model that that

that works and and i

to give you an up-to-date example last

night

two emails one from a guy who’s running

it he’s taking it over in south africa

and he’s using it to change rural and

city entrepreneurship and drive people

poverty get them trained in these

competencies

getting them to assess where they are

and he’s beating all the national trends

during covert my view is not of course

i’m wanting to change people

into entrepreneurs or run their own

business that’s okay

that’s where the skills come and that’s

where people traditionally face

disruption

today covert 19 the world but

the global economy we all face

disruption and people need

these skills to move forward so

i i’m delighted as that it is having

impact on i’m determined to keep sharing

it and this is my

my message to you is yes

you have the e-factor already you

do have some of these skills some of

them you’re better at than others you

may be creative

maybe you need to learn to be more

resilient maybe you need to promote

yourself more

maybe you need to work in teams we all

need to be competent in all the skills

use our strengths and work with other

people so i’m asking you

out there whatever you do business

social enterprise working companies um

personal skill educator whatever you do

put on your

old mask first as the airline says learn

these skills and competencies

and then please pass them on to the

people you work with

we can make things happen we can change

lives and we can move forward thank you

very much

you