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John Waldron: The Globe & Mail Partners with Learnedly

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“Continuing education should not be a burden of industry. It should be a simple inventory of professionals being professional. This partnership brings us one step closer to that goal.”

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of 2008

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

Exciting news: The Globe & Mail Partners with Learnedly.

CEGE Connection reached out to John Waldron, MBA(FS) Class of 2008 to discuss his ongoing vision of supporting continuing education for Canadian financial professionals.

John Waldron:

Canadian financial professionals today are very educated, with many holding multiple financial designations and maintaining dual licenses with securities and insurance regulators. But those designations and licenses have ongoing continuing education (CE) requirements, which can be very time consuming and very expensive.

Annual CE requirements can range between 12 and 40 hours for one license or designation. And with very little integration between them, some industry professionals face upwards of 100 credit hours, or more, of continuing education requirements every year.

In reality, most of us spend far more than 100 hours every year educating ourselves, but in a very informal way – which means it doesn’t satisfy industry CE requirements. We search for answers to questions, research problems, stay current with rule and regulatory changes, and read information that helps us to grow, personally and professionally.

Learnedly’s partnership with The Globe and Mail was about creating a way to formally recognize informal learning. We reviewed hundreds of articles and curated them into courses accredited for continuing education, allowing financial professionals to engage with Globe content and satisfy industry requirements at the same time.

Ten curated courses are now available to Globe Advisor users and Learnedly subscribers, with more on the way. Each course focuses on relevant and meaningful topics that matter to Canadian financial professionals.

Continuing education should not be a burden of industry. It should be a simple inventory of professionals being professional. This partnership brings us one step closer to that goal.

For more information we invite you to link on Globe Advisor CE Centre.

John is a repeat contributor on CEGE Connection. We invite you to read John’s posts on CEGE Connection.

 

 

 

John Waldron: Collateral Damage of a Fragmented Securities Industry, Part I: Financial Literacy

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John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

Unlike most countries, Canada’s securities industry is provincially and territorially regulated – not federally regulated. This means that instead of having one national regulator governed by one Securities Act, there are 13 regulators governed by 13 Securities Acts. This might have made sense many years ago, before the steam engine, but in an age of information there are no benefits for maintaining such a fragmented system.

Having 13 securities regulatory authorities is not only archaic and extremely inefficient, but it actually conflicts with their common mandate of protecting investors.

Take financial literacy, for example. Many Canadians feel there is a lack of financial literacy resources available to them. And yet, all 13 regulators offer their own version of a financial literacy resource. Imagine how much better a financial resource would be if they all collaborated together, pooling their resources and created one definitive financial literacy resource instead.

To be clear, Canada does not lack financial literacy resources. There are a lot of available resources. So many, in fact, that a Canadian Financial Literacy Database was created, which currently lists 1,362 available resources for Canadians. And there is the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), which is the closest we have to a national financial literacy resource. So why then do we have so many competing resources? If the goal is to protect investors, the better option is for all Canadian securities regulators to work together and maintain one definitive financial literacy resource for all Canadians.

Discussions to create a national securities regulator have been going on for years decades. We may not see a national regulator in our lifetime, but that does not mean they cannot work together to create a unified approach to financial literacy. It not only supports their mandate to protect investors, it is also the right thing to do.

Having 13 financial literacy resource from each of Canada’s securities regulators is not nearly as good for investors as having one resource supported by all 13 regulators. This is how we can make meaningful change for Canadian investors, even if we cannot agree on modernizing the securities industry.

John Waldron MBA (FS) Class of 2008
Founder of Learnedly and purveyor of accessible education for financial professionals

John is a repeat contributor on CEGE Connection. We invite you to read John’s posts on CEGE Connection.

 

 

John Waldron: Want a Workplace Learning Culture? Create Frictionless Learning

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John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

Within four years, 42% of your core workplace skills will be obsolete, according to the Future of Jobs Report 2018, recently published by the World Economic Forum. One way to close the skills gap is to retrain existing employees, but among the 313 organizations surveyed worldwide, that solution ranked only third behind automating work tasks and hiring new permanent staff already possessing the relevant skills. This is a wakeup call to all employees for more skills training.

It is no longer necessary to make a case for learning in the workplace. But to be certain, the report estimates that an extra 101 days of training will be required in order for employees to close the skills gap by 2022. Unless organizations begin aggressively replacing staff or fully automating workflows, employers need to support a culture of learning in the workplace. The best way to do that is to make learning frictionless.

Learning in the workplace needs to be a lot of things: relevant, contextual and purposeful; but what often gets neglected is the learning experience, which is every bit as important as the content itself.

Frictionless learning means having learning that is on-demand and available for when employees need it; having content that is quick and easy to access. A learner shouldn’t have to go through extraneous steps or spend excessive amounts of time just to reach the content. This creates an unnecessary cognitive load, which only encourages the individual to look elsewhere for a solution, or not bothering to even look.

People are busy. And there is only so much mental energy to expend on work and life demands each and every day. How can someone embrace learning that creates so much extra friction and unnecessary cognitive demand?

If, instead, workplace learning is more accessible, then it becomes more immersive. Not in the “virtual reality” sense – immersive in that employees will engage more frequently with the content. When you have an immersive learning experience, education is pulled by the employee rather than pushed onto the employee. They will learn because the want to and not because they have to. Create a culture of learning in your workplace. Make it frictionless.

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of 2008
Founder of Learnedly and purveyor of accessible education for financial professionals.

CEGE Connection is delighted to advise that John Waldron has graciously agreed to be a repeat contributor on CEGE Connection.

John Waldron: Why Tenacity Matters

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John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of ‘08

“A great mentor of mine once said that tenacity is the most important attribute of an entrepreneur. So true. Tenacity is the tool you pull out when you’re destined to do amazing things and the odds are not in your favour.”

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of 2008

From the moment I found out about Dalhousie’s MBA (Financial Services) program, I knew I wanted in. And there were exactly three things I wanted to get out of it: the letters behind my name, the education, and life-long friendships. I was building a career in financial services, so to me, this program made perfect sense.

But getting into the program wasn’t quite as easy. My undergraduate grades were mediocre, and I had no senior leadership or management experience to highlight. My GMAT score was good, but not enough to get me in. My application was rejected. I reapplied with a second, stronger application, including a full supporting endorsement from my employer. That was rejected. I asked that my application be reconsidered under Dalhousie’s admissions policy for students with disabilities, accompanied by a letter from my family physician. That was rejected. I appealed with an Application for a Waiver of an Academic Regulation. Rejected. I was running out of options.

So, two days before Dalhousie closed for Christmas Break, I flew to Halifax to meet with Barb Maynard, CFAME’s Program Coordinator at the time. She believed in me but didn’t have the authority to approve my application. Instead, she set up a meeting for me with the Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies, but only to be rejected in person. I persisted. He insisted. I persisted more. He insisted to call security. So, I left his office, but on my way out he suggested I speak with Ray Klapstein – the Program’s Director. To the Dean, this was just a Maritimer’s way of tempering the coldness of rejection as I left his office. To me, it was one more lead. But my meeting with Ray had about the exact same outcome, minus the Maritime courtesy to go talk to someone else. It was over. I had no more leads. No more strategies, angles or ideas. I was rejected.

The next morning, with no meetings booked, I went back into Dal and just sat in the CFAME office. Maybe to spark an idea, or get a meeting with someone, or have someone take pity on me… The school was about to close in six hours for Christmas Break and I intended to start classes in the New Year. As I sat quietly, in walked Ray, shocked to see me, and asked “what are you doing here?”. “I have nowhere else to be,” I told him. After an unusually long stare at me, Ray showed me the folder he was holding under his arm. It had my name on it. And circled in red pen, the word “APPROVED”.

Dal’s MBA (FS) Program gave me exactly what I was looking for – the letters behind my name, a great education, and some amazing, life-long friends. It also gave me something I wasn’t expecting: a healthy reminder about tenacity.

A great mentor of mine once said that tenacity is the most important attribute of an entrepreneur. So true. Tenacity is the tool you pull out when you’re destined to do amazing things and the odds are not in your favour.

Letters behind your name, education, friends – those things matter. A lot. But tenacity is what will drive you, even when your tank is on empty. And every now and then, it’s good to be reminded of just how much tenacity lies inside of you.

John Waldron, MBA (FS) Class of 2008
Founder of Learnedly and purveyor of accessible education for financial professionals.

CFAME Connection is delighted to advise that John Waldron has graciously agreed to be a repeat contributor on CFAME Connection.