life transitions, career decisions, and the workplace career planning career strategizing hierarchy...

Life Transitions, Career Decisions, and the Workplace

Career Planning Career Strategizing

• Hierarchy

• Stable, fixed paths

• Long-term goals• Linear path

• Track progress from external career markers

• Goals are age-dependent• Organization charts career

• Network

• Fragmented paths, subject to change

• Multiple short-term goals

• Multi-dimensional path for a particular point in life

• Progress measured by degree to which career satisfies personal need

• Goals are independent of age• Individual charts career

Who’s In Control?


Career Strategist

• Environmental scanning– track broad trends for growth opportunities or potential roadblocks

• Self-understanding– have a clear picture of career and lifestyle needs– benchmark skills

• Portable skills– balance skills that are transferable with those specific to current work

• Self-management– ability to work alone, or within a self-directed work team

• Communication skills– face to face and writing skills

• Contingency plans– multiple plans to cover a range of scenarios

What Do We Mean By “Development”?

• Skill learning• Development plans• Education• Stretch assignments• Network

• Job search skills• Resume review• Interviewing coaching• Network

Job ChangeLearning Within

Current Role

Career Management Process

Looking Inward Looking Outward Looking Forward

SkillsInterests

KnowledgeMotivators

“Market”Organization TrendsDepartment Needs

ProjectsCommittees

Development PlanCareer Exploration

Looking Inward• What are my skills?• What do I enjoy doing?• What is important in a job? • What type of work environment do I want?• What are my interests?• Am I ready for a change?• What am I learning?• What am I contributing?

Why Look At Skills, Values, Interests?

Looking Inward

SKILLS

INTERESTS

VALUES

Performance

Commitment

Satisfaction

Work Motivator / Value Reflection

• Changing values?• Values met in current work situation?• Values in conflict or not being met?• Opportunity to express values in current work?• Express values outside of work?• Non-negotiable?• Alignment with future options?

Skill Types

• Job Content Skills / Knowledge

• Transferable Functional Skills

– Planning

– Project Management

– Conflict Resolution

• Self-Management Skills

– Flexibility

– Dealing with Ambiguity

Sample Transferable Skill CategoriesRELATIONSHIPCollaborateResolve ConflictServe As LiaisonAdvocateTrain / Instruct

COMMUNICATIONWritePersuadePromoteInterview Negotiate

MANAGEMENT / LEADERSHIPCoordinateBuild TeamManage ProjectsOrganize Envision

ANALYTICALResearchProblem-SolveEstimateForecast

CREATIVEConceptualizeDesignSynthesize / IntegrateCreate ImagesBrainstorm

PHYSICAL / TECHNICALRepairInspectConstructSketchInstall

Skill Sort

Highly Proficient Competent Lack Desired Skill Level

Total Delight in Using

Enjoy Using Very Much

Like Using

Prefer Not to Use

Strongly Dislike Using

Skill Sort

Highly Proficient Competent Lack Desired Skill Level

Total Delight in Using

Enjoy Using Very Much

Like Using

Prefer Not to Use

Strongly Dislike Using

Area for “Burnout”

The “Doom Loop” A model for understanding adults in career or work

transition. (Dory Hollander)

Good At

Not Good

At

Like Don’t Like SKILLS

Transferring Skills To Occupations

TransferableSkill

• Academic Services• Administrative / Management• Athletics• Communications/Marketing• Student/ Customer Service• Development• Editorial/Graphics• Environmental Compliance• External Relations• Facilities• Financial• Hospitality• Human Resources• Information Technology• Legal Compliance• Library/ Museum Collections• Medical• Secretarial/ Administrative Assistant/

Clerical• Security• Theatre Arts

Sample University Occupations

Skill Wheel Exercise

Transferable Skill is

“Interviewfor

Information”

Communication and Marketing ?

Human Resources ?

Information Technology ?

How would you apply this skill in these career fields?How would you apply this skill in these career fields?

Skill Wheel Exercise

Interviewfor

Information

Communication and Marketing

Client Satisfaction Research

Human Resources

Turnover Exit Interviews

Information Technology

Business Systems Analysis

Aligning Interests and Opportunities

from plannedhappenstance.com

Looking Outward

• Where can I apply my skills and interests?• What is changing in my department or job?• What skills will be important for the future?• What work needs to be done?• Are there project or job opportunities where I can apply my

transferable skills?• What can I learn now to prepare for the future?• Where can I strengthen my network?• What roles or departments can I research?

Looking Outward: “Market” Research

Looking Outward

Skills Needed

Challenges

Department Changes

Work Needs

Emerging Projects

What is the “market” for my skills and interests?

Strategy Changes

What Needs Doing?

“Job = Opportunity to Solve a Problem”


Sources of Career Information

• Department / business division meetings

• Special interest resource groups

• Group information sessions (panels, brown bag

lunches, networking events)

• Informational interviews

• Career networking events

• Job shadowing or rotations

• Organizational competency models (“success profiles”) for job roles

Informational Interviewing

• Organizational trends• Strategic and operational challenges• Work environment and culture• Representative skills and competencies• Specific technical or functional knowledge• Typical work roles• Success criteria• Additional contacts


Capability Formula

Reputation

X

Performance

X

Network


Networking Competencies

• Relevant Information– learning perspectives, responsibilities, personalities

– understanding points of conflict

– goals and sources of power for individuals or groups

• Working Relations– building and maintaining positive relationships

– addressing needs, being considerate and appreciative

• Track Record

– a performance record that builds credibility


Personal Board of DirectorsPersonal Board of Directors

You

Who is in your network?

What role does each

person play?

How can youexpand or

deepen your network?

From what areas of your work and life?

Network Sources

You

Supervisors

Peers

DirectReports

Committees

ProfessionalAssociations

Service Providers

Friends

Consulting orProfessional Service Firms

Community Groups


Network Purposes

• Content / skill specialists and experts• Organizational “political” information

•Advocates and allies

•Communication channel

•Feedback

•Confidante / sounding board

•Current business trends and strategies

•Opportunities, projects, new challenges

Evaluating Your Network

•Your Organization

•Your Department

•The Industry or Service Sector

•Your Profession

•Your Personal Life


Network Roles

What roles do those in your network play?

• Professional Expert (content / skill specialist)

• Organizational Consultant (cultural / “political” information

• Industry Expert (opportunities, projects, new challenges)

• Advocate (promoter, ally)

• Confidante (source of feedback)

Informal Networks

Central Connectors• Link most people together

• Aren’t usually formal leaders

• Know who can provide expertise

Boundary Spanners• Connect informal network with other parts of organization• Advise / consult with many different departments

Information Brokers

• Keep sub-groups in a network together • Communicates across sub-groups• Helps prevent the network from splintering into ineffective segments

Peripheral Specialists• Specialized expertise• Anyone in the network can contact

HBR, June 2002, The People Who Make Organizations Go – or Stop, Cross and Prusak


Critical Elements – Organizational Culture

• Social Assertiveness

• Structure and Attention to Detail

• Openness and Imagination

• Cooperation and Harmony

From Discoverying Your Career In Business

- James Waldroop, Tim Butler


Cultural Dimensions

– Pace of change

– Warmth and friendliness

– Internal competition

– Level of communication

– Achievement vs. Power orientation

– Team vs. Individual orientation

– Lifestyle

– Centralization of power

– Entrepreneurial vs. Well-defined and structured

Waldroop and Butler

Development Continuum

What’s The Focus of Your Development?

Develop Skills to Do Your Current Effective

ly

Develop Skills for Future Jobs

Explore Careers

and Profession

s

Prepare for a Job Search

Implement a Job Search

Development Within The Job

New Job Roles or Career

Looking ForwardMultiple Options for Development

EnrichmentGrowing In Place

LateralMoving Across

VerticalMoving Up

ExploratoryInvestigating Possibilities

RealignmentMoving Down

RelocateMoving On

Generating Options


Interests Professional Roles Settings


INTEREST ROLES PLACES

Biology

Teacher

Physician

Writer

Salesperson

Physical Trainer Tr

Researcher Tr

Public High School Outdoor Education School

Independent Practice Health Care Services

University Athletics Health Club

Science Magazine

Pharmaceutical

Bio-Tech Firm Hospital


Position 1

Position 2

Degree of Change

Development Activities

Looking Forward

DevelopmentPlan Job Search

LearningProjects

NetworkConnections

How Do We Develop?

A Learning Experience

Consider an activity or situation that you felt was a growth experience:

• What was involved?• Who was involved?• How did the opportunity arise?• What made the experience “developmental”?

Blended Development Activities

Experienced-Based Learning

Education-Based Learning

Relationship-Based Learning

Jobs Projects

Assignments

Courses Seminars

On-Line Learning

Managers Mentors

Colleagues Coaches

“Learn by Doing” “Learn by Training” “Learn with Others”

Planning / Decision Styles

DIVERGENCE CONVERGENCE

?

Planning?

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”

John Lennon


Beliefs About Making Choices Rationally

• Pre-existence of purpose: – values, goals, needs, objectives that precede behavior

– purpose is defined in terms of pre-existent goals

• Necessity of consistency: – “action serves a purpose”– actions should be consistent with beliefs

– organizations have hierarchies to control and coordinate

– individuals have values that generate consistent preferences

• Primacy of rationality:– “thinking precedes action”

– correct behavior is guided by an understanding of the connections between goals and the consequences of specific actions


Alternatives to Rationality and Logic

• The process of intuition in which people may do things without fully understanding why.

• The processes of tradition and faith through which people do things because that is the way they are done.

• These approaches to decision-making run counter to systems of rationality.


Models of Choice

• Two models of choice:– Childhood: choices lead to experiences that broadens awareness

and complexity; discovery

– Adulthood: choices result from our intentions, from acting on goals.

• Metaphors of “search” suggest that values pre-exist and have to be discovered:– “finding oneself”– “self-discovery”– “goal clarification


Alternative Views of Decision-Making

• Challenge the idea that goals come first, and action follows.

• Making choices is a least as much a process for discovering goals and values as for acting on them.

“ A plan can often be more effective as an interpretation of past decisions than as a program for future ones.”

• An alternative view is that values and goals are to be “constructed” rather than “discovered” and acted upon.

• A contrast between goals that justify actions and actions that help

create interesting goals


Play and Reason

“A strict insistence on purpose, consistency, and rationality limits our ability to find new purposes.”

“They are exceptionally good at maintaining consistent pictures of themselves, of relating action to purposes. They are exceptionally poor at a playful attitude toward their own beliefs, toward the logic of consistency, or toward the way they see things as being connected to the world”

• Play helps suspend the rules and allows for experimentation.• Playfulness challenges the need for consistency


Recipe for “Foolishness”

• Treat goals as hypotheses to be tested.• Treat intuition as real.

– An “intelligence” not recognized in standard, rational theories of choice

• Treat hypocrisy as transition– an inconsistency between values and behavior.

• Treat memory as an enemy.– Consistency and rationality require memory

• Treat experience as a theory– experience is open to interpretations, and revisions– histories are rewritten as a base for learning

“Test and Learn” vs. Plan & ImplementH. Ibarra, HBS

• Crafting Experiments– Test out activities and roles on small scale before commitment

– Free lance, pro bono

• Shifting Connections– Contacts in new arenas

– New reference groups and role models

• Making Sense– Be aware of catalysts for change; trigger events

– Capture moments of insight and discovery

– Rework story


Luck?

How do you define it?

Readiness

Luck:Luck:

When Preparation Meets OpportunityWhen Preparation Meets Opportunity

Ellen Wallach

life transitions, career decisions, and the workplace career planning career strategizing hierarchy...

Documents

career decisions

ambiguity slide

burnout slide

career management process

current role slide

clear picture of career

work transition

external career markers