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Passionate in ensuring systems are simple, and relationships are based on open communication, trust and mutual respect, I work to engage clients and students and to smooth their path to success. Focusing on personal development, my skills lie in career development, leadership, coaching, strategic planning, new ventures, and governance. I love learning, constantly adding new ideas and theories to my knowledge kete. A professional member of CDANZ, and a member of CATE, APCDA, NCDA, I teach on the Career Development programme at NMIT, and on the AUT Bachelor of Sport & Recreation programme.

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Friday, 9 January 2026

Viewing Apple .heic files

Ah, the joys of Apple systems. While I have encountered these conversion problems before (here), I had an interesting problem earlier this year when I was sent an email with some attached image files from an iPhone user. The image attachments were ".heic" files, and had been downsized (i.e. the images were smaller sized files so as to send easily).

The trouble was, when I downloaded these files to my Windows system, they downloaded as 'zero byte' sized files (which I didn't notice at the time). But when I headed over to the Cloud Convert website to convert the files, I got a weird message: "20250202_181443.heic is too small, please upload files larger than 1 bytes". Ohhh-kaaaay.

I went back to the files. Yep: they were indeed 0 bytes. I downloaded them again. Same deal. I tried another platform (FreeConvert): the same result. I tried to open the images directly from the email using the Microsoft Photo app, but was asked to purchase a driver for $1.50 in order to open the files. Blow that: the files may still not open after paying for the driver. There must be another way...

But there didn't seem to be. So instead I went back to the sender and asked them if others had also had problems, and did they know of another way to pass these images to me?

The next day I received another set of .heic files, but they were much larger files (3 and 4Mb). I downloaded them, and they downloaded as files of roughly the same size. Then I was able to convert them by going to https://cloudconvert.com/:

  • In the Convert box, select Images | .heic in the left-hand dropdown list
  • In the right-hand dropdown list, select "jpg" 
  • Use the red box under the header section to upload the .heic file to be converted 
  • Download the resulting file. 
So do-able once the files were appropriately sized. But still puzzling as to why this proved so awkward...


Sam


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Wednesday, 7 January 2026

Pierce's cantilever bridge

Now, how is this for a great metaphor about the careful construction of argument: in reflecting on their workplace habits and actions after the fact, a writer now understands that they were "building a bridge - Pierce’s cantilever bridge - plank by plank and each of those planks was put in place instinctively/intuitively. Pierce describes the bridge as ‘A cantilever bridge of induction, held together by scientific struts and ties. Yet every plank of its advance is first laid by retroduction alone, that is to say, by the spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reason; and neither Deduction nor Induction contributes a single new concept to the structure" (Chaffers-Jones, 2006, p. 10; citing Blaikie, 1993, p. 165, who in turn cites Pierce 1934, p. 324). What Pierce called retroduction (Hartshome & Weiss, 1960) - and at times reduction, or hypothesis - we would I think today call abduction (Chaffers-Jones, 2006). Read more on abduction here.

Like Peirce, Professor Bhaskar - initiator of the critical realist approach to research (more here) - apparently also favoured retroduction as a term to define how "we delve into underlying causal powers [...] moving from 'surface' appearances to a knowledge of 'deep' structures which cannot be obtained through sense experience'" (Chaffers-Jones, 2006, p. 11; citing Johnson & Duberley, 2000, p. 155, drawing on Bhaskar, 1979). Sense experience seems to opens up such wonderful and exotic research horizons.

I was so taken by this description that I got a copy of Peirce's collected works, to read the original author's words in full:

"Finally comes the bottom [perhaps 'ultimate' might be better?] question of logical Critic[: "]What sort of validity can be attributed to the First Stage of inquiry?["] Observe that neither Deduction nor Induction contributes the smallest positive item to the final conclusion of the inquiry. They render the indefinite definite; Deduction Explicates; Induction evaluates: that is all. Over the chasm that yawns between the ultimate goal of science and such ideas of Man’s environment as, coming over him during his primeval wanderings in the forest, while yet his very notion of error was of the vaguest, he managed to communicate to some fellow, we are building a cantilever bridge of induction, held together by scientific struts and ties. Yet every plank of its advance is first laid by Retroduction alone, that is to say, by the spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reason; and neither Deduction nor Induction contributes a single new concept to the structure (Hartshome & Weiss, 1960, p. 323-4)

Wow: I find that quite powerful (though I could do without the scatter-gun approach to capitalisation). And while I don't know enough about research design to truly say that Peirce nailed it, the word pair "Induction evaluates" (Hartshome & Weiss, 1960, p. 323) seems terrifically clear and imminently brief to me; weighing what we found in our research against some standard, theory, or idea. Though Burks suggests, "induction is an inference from a sample to a whole" (1946, p. 301) which is NOT how we see induction today: inference is not intended. Then "Deduction Explicates": what we found, in answer to our hypothesis, is explained in detail (Hartshome & Weiss, 1960, p. 323). Done. Dusting our hands together. The two main research philosophies are despatched with dispatch.

But abduction: now there seems to lie a truly philosophical approach to research inquiry. We think, and we link our thought into a meticulous scaffold using scientific rationale to pin our thinking together. Burks suggests that "abduction is an inference from a body of data to an explaining hypothesis" (1946, p. 301), but I am not sure that is helpful. Abduction seems a likely fit with action research, as well as with the more normally-associated grounded theory. It appears flexible, measured, and iterative.

So I wonder why we have fallen into the binary approach of induction and deduction only?


Sam

References:

Bhaskar, R. (1979). The Possibility of Naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences. The Harvester Press.

Blaikie, N. (1993). Approaches to Social Enquiry. Blackwell Publishers.

Burks, A. W. (1946). Peirce's Theory of Abduction. Philosophy of Science, 13(4), 301-306. https://www.jstor.org/stable/185210

Chaffers-Jones, R. (2006). Reflexivity and whole brain thinking: An exploration. [Doctoral Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University]. https://shura.shu.ac.uk/19436/1/10694317.pdf

Hartshome, S., & Weiss, P. (Eds.). (1960). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. V Pragmatism and Pramaticism; Vol. VI Scientific Metaphysics, originally published 1934). The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Juicy_fish. (2025). Dusting free icon. Flaticon. https://www.flaticon.com/free-icons/clap

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Monday, 5 January 2026

Theory of Planned Behaviour

The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) aims to explain why we decide to act in certain ways. It sets out by 'assumes' that we will behave sensibly; that we will use the information available to us, and think carefully about the implications of our actions (Ajzen, 1991, 2005).

TPB is underpinned by three factors: our personal factors, our social influences, and how controlled we are (Ajzen, 2005):

  • Our personal factors: our own feelings, which are our attitude towards a particular act. Our broad attitudes about organisations, people, or things are studied by social psychologists, but what about individual positive or negative evaluations of actions? Our behaviours are considered "overdetermined" as so, so many things combine to produce a particular action. For example, do we think of exercise as being good or bad? Helpful or harmful? Fun or a drag? And if we find exercise is enjoyable and makes us feel great, we are much more likely to keep doing it.

  • Subjective norms/social influences to perform or not perform the behavior under consideration. This is what others think about what we do, and whether the opinions of others matter to us. If our friends, family, or community approve or disapprove of our behaviour, we may be less likely to continue - a perceived 'normative prescription'. If our norm group of friends at Uni think studying hard is cool, we are much more likely to study hard ourselves.

  • Perceived behavioral control, or our sense of self-efficacy or ability to perform the behaviour. If we rate an action, and feel social pressure to do it, AND think we can deliver on it, when we "have the means and opportunities to do so" (Ajzen, 2005, p. 118). So if we think we can do something, we are much more likely to try. It might be our perception of how easy or difficult we think the act is. It might be understanding we have done an earlier version before, and this is just a bit harder. It might be that we have skills, resources, and opportunities to try something similar to a previous experience that we can translate our skills into. As a beginner cook, a family recipe, our memory, and a range of YouTube videos can enable us to make soup for the first time. We are likely to encounter difficulties, but will our mindset (Dweck, 2006) help us to overcome these or become blocked when we encounter them? Understanding the realistic constraints and how we may act is key.

These three TPB variables will help us understand what our intention is likely to be, and therefore how likely it is that we will act in an intended way. The relative weighting of the factors varies from one person to another, or from one population to another. Sometimes, only one or two of the factors are at play, while at others, all three are important. For some intentions our attitudes/personal factors feel more important than social norms, while for others, norms will provide the most influence. Perceived behavioral control is more important for some behaviours than for others, such as do our perceptions of behavioral control align to our actual sense of control? If so, we are more likely to see ourselves doing it, and actually get it done. Being able to measure each of these three factors should help us predict our intentionality

Sometimes our perceived behavioral control is not that realistic (often when we don't know much about a task!) and that is where the dotted arrow in the TPB diagram (accompanying this post) indicates that if our perceived behavioural control and our understanding of being able to deliver the act (i.e. actual behaviour; our actual control over our behaviour) do not align, we are unlikely to do behave regardless of our intention. We will be all talk and no trousers.

So TPB is where desire, norms and capability shape our intentions - our plan to act - and our intention then influences our actual behaviour. Poor intention without control leads to little to no action. Having a strong intention with a good sense of control means we are likely to act. 

So if we are in a big city and broke, we could decide to save money by walking to the next bus zone to decrease the fare (personal attitude), gaining exercise (societal norm), and saving money without it being too great a leap (perceived control). 


Sam

References:

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T

Ajzen, I. (2005). Attitudes, Personality and Behavior: Mapping social psychology (2nd ed.). Open University Press.

APCDA. (2025). Gunawan, W., Riasnugrahani, M., Budiwan, T. I., 112b Preparing for the Future: Exploring Employability and Entrepreneurship Antecedents of Uni Students [video]. APCDA Hybrid Conference 12-26 May 2025, Zheng Zhou Shi, China. https://asiapacificcda.vids.io/videos/ea91dbbf1f1de6c163/112b-preparing-for-the-future-exploring-employability-and-entrepreneurship-antecedents-of-uni-students

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Baltimore Books.

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Friday, 2 January 2026

Slideshow options for android

I have been looking for a photo slideshow to run on my phone for a while so that I can show people selected images of overseas holidays, in an order which is not the date saved or created; but rather in the order of places we visited, or separate storylines. It is surprisingly difficult to find something which does this in a seamless way.

I tried SlideShow for Google Photos, but that doesn't work with albums (why on earth NOT???). So I uninstalled it and scrapped that idea.  

However, I have found that, if I go through all my images, and saved them to an album. I set up title images, and edited the dates to show the album in a particular order. 

Once that background work is done, there is a native slideshow within Google Photos works both on a phone and on a PC (though each one is a little different, and there is a bit of a trick to getting to the Slideshow menu option. 

  1. On PC: Open the Google Photos album, then click on the first photo in the album and open it. Then, at the top-right corner, click the menu (i.e. the three dots); and select Slideshow. Use either the screen arrows or keyboard arrows to click through faster than the automatic timer (which I think is five seconds per image; Makvana, 2022). 

  2. Android phone app: Open Google Photos, go to Collections. Click on the Albums tile, and find your desired album. Again, click on the first photo in the album and open it. Then, at the top-right corner, click the menu (i.e. the three dots); and scroll across to find and select Slideshow (Makvana, 2022). Swipe to move the slideshow along faster than the automatic 5 seconds/image.

I hope you find that useful!


Sam

References:

Makvana, M. (2022 March 4). How to Make a Slideshow on Google Photos. How-To Geek. https://www.howtogeek.com/783634/how-to-make-a-slideshow-on-google-photos/

* Image made with https://app.leonardo.ai/

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Wednesday, 31 December 2025

Literally figurative

It is interesting how often we understand the meaning of a saying - i.e., an analogy or metaphor - but forget about its literal meaning. Actually, sayings are - per se - interesting, whether we call them metaphors, aphorisms, analogies, maxims, similes, adages, witticisms, axioms, clichés, saws, epigrams, one-liners, proverbs, figures of speech, or idioms. And yes, I know these all have slight nuances in definition, but most of us would see these as being largely the same. And that 'same' is nicely epigrammed as "a crystallised summary of popular wisdom or fancy" (Apperson et al., 2006, p. 5).

How do these things arise? These are things which can be more broadly "understood in other than their literal significance" (Lurie, 1968, p. iii): pithy phrases which convey rich meaning in shorthand that captures the imagination of those who hear it. They grow from the literal to the figurative (Johnson, 2016).

However, that shorthand can also lead to overuse. And that changes our tolerance for such sayings, known as 'semantic satiation'. What a great term: this is where our sayings "become less meaningful as a [result of their] function of repetition" (Black, 2003, p. 63). The act of repeat after repeat after repeat means the sayings lose impact. Think of "All roads lead to Rome" (Apperson et al., 2006, p. 17) which has been flogged like the dead horse it is.

It is not only familiarity and time which changes our perspective. Over time meaning drifts as well, allowing us to apply a saying to a band of similar experiences, rather than simply describing the original event. For example, the "All roads lead to Rome" saying no longer means anything because Rome is no longer the centre of the known world. Or the aphorism "the canary in the mineshaft" once literally meant potentially sacrificing a canary by lowering a cage down the mineshaft, so if it came up alive, the miners knew the air was sweet below. The mine was safe for workers. However, today, "the canary" is not about a dead bird to show safety, but "the canary in the mineshaft [...] is a signal of danger[, ... an early warning] signal [...] that we need to take [something in our immediate environment] seriously" (Hollnger, 2021). More modern legal usage is where lawyers may see "the jury is the canary in the mine shaft; if it goes, if our people lose their inherited right to do justice in court, other democratic institutions will lose breath too" (Burns, 2007, p. 8).

Something we say, formed over time, usually began by describing a particular event, such as the "ring, a ring o' roses" rhyming child's ring dance, where increased knowledge of the plague and conspiracy theorists linked in the 20th century linked "the pocket full of posies" to the futile herb bundles we carried to ward off the black death, and "A-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down" to the arrival of illness and the immediacy of death (Ferguson, 2018). But this is an etymological fallacy: it was always just a ring dance, and had nothing to do with the plague (Fergusson, 2018).

So sayings not only have drift due to time, saturation and fallacy, the speed of meaning drift may increase, too. It appears that our digital world may be a key driver here... and interestingly, the computer age has provided us with a great saying: "garbage in, garbage out" (Simpson, 1982, as cited by Speake, 2008).


Sam

References:

Apperson, G. L., Manser, M. H., Curtis, S. J. (2006). Dictionary of Proverbs (new ed.). Wordsworth Editions Ltd.

Black, S. R. (2004). Chapter 4: Review of Semantic Satiation. In S. P. Shohov (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research (Vol. 26, pp. 63-74). Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Burns, R. P. (2007). The Death of the American Trial. University of Chicago Press.

Gross, J. (1987). The Oxford Book of Aphorisms. Oxford University Press.

Grothe, M. (2008). I Never Met a Metaphor I Didn't Like: A Comprehensive Compilation of History's Greatest Analogies, Metaphors, and Similes. HarperCollins.

Hollnger, P. C. (2021, November 30). Why Physical Punishment Persists: Ignorance of early child development enables physical punishment. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/great-kids-great-parents/202111/why-physical-punishment-persists

Johnson, R. (2016). Understanding Sayings: Figuratively speaking. Crabtree Publishing Company.

Lurie, C. N. (1968). Everyday sayings: their meanings explained, their origins given. Gale Research Co.

Speake, J. (Ed.). (2008). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.

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Monday, 29 December 2025

Theory X and Theory Y

Maslow's work on his Hierarchy of Needs was transferred from psychology to management, where "Douglas McGregor [..] encountered it in 1944 and drew on it in developing his famous Theory X and Theory Y concept" (Bridgman et al., 2019, p. 84).

The basis of the theory is that Theory X managers takes an authoritarian approach, assuming their staff dislike work, are inherently lazy, requiring strict supervision and monitoring; while Theory Y managers are participatory, thinking their people love their work, are self-motivated and will thrive in a supportive, team environment (Daft, 2022).

  • Theory X: Staff inherently dislike of work and will avoid it if they can; because staff don’t like work, most need coercion, controlling, directing, or the threat of punishment to make them deliver what the organisation needs; and staff prefer being told, don’t want responsibility, are not ambitious, and seek security more than anything else (Daft, 2022).
  • Theory Y: Most staff like working: it’s as normal as rest or play; control and threatening punishment are not necessary to have staff work hard to meet organisational goals; staff can self-manage if they care about the goals they’re working on; most staff, if supported well, will take on, and seek responsibility; most staff are innovative and can problem-solve with imagination, ingenuity, and creativity if asked; and most staff talents “are only partially utilized” (Daft, 2022, p. 140).

This assumption - a philosophy of management, if we will - colours the approaches and decisions these managers take with their staff in a myriad of ways. A Theory X manager will manage staff with high control, low trust approach. They are likely to be more detailed about punctuality, breaks, and following the rules. A Theory Y manager is more likely operate a low control, high trust model. They will be more big picture about making the right product for the customer, and once targets are met, everyone celebrates.

We can find that a Theory X manager might be appropriate for new staff: a "telling" approach like the 1969 Hersey Blanchard life cycle theory of leadership (Blanchard & Hersey, 1996). However, once staff become more experienced, a manager who is between the X and Y types will allow more "participation" and can increase or relax control to suit the employee (Blanchard & Hersey, 1996). Then, once staff are very experienced, a manager can move to a Theory Y style: a "delegating" approach (Blanchard & Hersey, 1996). Perhaps we could think of McGregor's work less like two styles, and more like a continuum in shades of grey.

What I also find interesting is that Douglas McGregor took 16 years to formalise his thoughts from encountering Maslow's work in 1944, to formalising his theory in 1960 (Bridgman et al., 2019; Daft, 2022).


Sam

References:

Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & Ballard, J. A. (2019). Who Built Maslow’s Pyramid? A History of the Creation of Management Studies’ Most Famous Symbol and Its Implications for Management Education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2017.0351

Blanchard, K. H., & Hersey, P. (1996). Great ideas revisited. Training & Development, 50(1), 42-48.

Daft, R. L. (2022). The Leadership Experience (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.

McGregor, D. (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise (1st ed.). McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

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Friday, 26 December 2025

Searching difficult sites

There are a few websites I use regularly which have poor search functions; or hardly any search function at all. Sometimes the search on those sites may be specific to a single section of the website architecture, or the search box may appear on only a few pages, 

However, there are a couple of ways to search those sites which have - often unintentionally - made it harder for us to find their stuff. 

Firstly, if I am wanting to search the page I am on, then I simply Crtl & F to bring up the Find window, and enter my search term in that. A quick enter should take me to the first instance of my entered search term on the page. Repeated enters will tab me through each of the next occurrences.

Secondly, there are a couple of sites where I need to find particular documents or sub-pages. Here I will entering a search string - like the two examples following - into my favourite search bar (DuckDuckGo at the moment): 

site:www.cate.co.nz Code of Ethics 

site:www.cate.co.nz "Code of Ethics"

We put "site:" followed by the website itself to identify the web domain (or a longer URL) we want to be searched, and then the search term we are seeking at that address. We can use quotes marks in the search string if we are looking for an exactly search term (i.e. exactly what is inside the double quote marks, including spaces). 

And between those two methods, I usually find that which I need.


Sam

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Wednesday, 24 December 2025

A meta-theory idea

I have been thinking about the difficulties those coming into career practice from the hard sciences or engineering have in bridging their thinking into the psychology/counselling theory space; from science to social science. Suddenly in career practice, 'theories' have a different flavour: they are not the more easily evidenced, readily observable, quite measurable facts, such as E=mc2; they are less solid, increasingly vague, more contextual attributes, such as "has a tendency to not complete when...".

Not only do we have this shift from solid to vague, but there are a number of theories where the concepts or components are similar. I think this is a meta-theory - a "theory about theory", which gives us a structure so we can think about the world around us, and to consider our "assumptions about the nature of reality, and of knowledge, that stand behind specific theories and the[...] concepts" those theories relate to (Given et al., 2023, p. 121). Effectively, meta-theories help us to see what assumptions we make, and how we might go about unpicking them to see how they really work (Edwards, 2008). The idea of meta-theories may help us find connections between psychology/industrial psychology/organisational behaviour, where career development sits, and the harder sciences. The meta-theories I began thinking about are relationship versus task (Ceri-Booms et al., 2017); and rationality versus emotionality (Daft, 2008). 

In the 1940s and 50s the organisational behaviour field begins researching behaviour theories in leadership: what behaviours we show, such as the Iowa Studies (Kurt Lewin) which considered the autocratic, democratic and laissez faire attributes of leadership; the Ohio State Studies (Harris Fleishman) exploring consideration & initiating structure; the University of Michigan Studies (Renis Likert) which looked at employee-centered, and job-centered attributes; and the University of Texas Blake & Mouton Leadership Grid (1964) which focused on concern for people versus concern for results (Daft, 2008). The meta-theory of the behaviouralists is task behaviours versus relationship behaviours (Ceri-Booms et al., 2017).

We can also consider leadership styles and theories on a continuum of rationality versus emotionality; where management is at the blue end of the spectrum, and charismatic leadership is at the red end. Charismatic leadership can be hot, emotional and may lack rationality. Transformational leadership styles, which are more relational styles, but are more rational than charismatic leadership may become, sit in the middle, in the lavender zone: neither hot nor cold. And of course, when we say 'rational' we know we are not actually rational; but imagined to be possibly closer to rational than emotional – and as shown in the image accompanying this post (Daft, 2008).

We end up with these vaguely similar ideas for many different theories, and perhaps meta-theory might give us more "overall coherency" (Edwards, 2008, p. ii); maybe being to aligned to a particular theory means we become "prisoners caught in the framework of our theories", and "that these conceptual prisons are self-made and that we need to find ways to 'break out' of them" (p. 1).

It is difficult research work to do, but many of us see the glimmer of similarity, even if we are unable to undertake the research. We know someone will crack that nut one day. And by finding the commonalities, we can think about a much larger picture - not the individual theory - and break our ideas free.

Here's to jailbreaking the scientists into the social sciences :-)


Sam

References:

Ceri-Booms, M., CurÅŸeu, P. L., & Oerlemans, L. A. (2017). Task and person-focused leadership behaviors and team performance: A meta-analysis. Human Resource Management Review, 27(1), 178-192. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2016.09.010

Daft. R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Thomson South-Western.

Edwards, M. G. (2008). An Integral Metatheory for Organisational Transformation. [Doctoral thesis, University of Western Australia]. https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/3220635/Edwards_Mark_Gerard_2008.pdf

Given, L. M., Case, D. O., & Willson, R. (2023). Chapter 4: Metatheories, Theories, and Models. In Looking for Information: Examining Research on How People Engage With Information (pp. 121-178). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Tannenbaum, R. & Schmidt, W. (1973). How to Choose a Leadership Pattern. Harvard Business Review, 51(3), 162-180.

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Monday, 22 December 2025

Why Choose an Ethical Framework?

When we are new to a field, or when we need to deliberate about an unexpected dilemma which has arisen in the course of our work, using a framework guides us. Using a framework that is new to us can help us to consider - examine - issues we may not have taken the time to have considered, without having had that framework to take us on that unexpected journey. And when those dilemmas get wound up with ethical principles and values, we need to explore what has occurred and use “professionally accepted decision-making models” that fit our context (Parsons & Dickinson, 2017, p. 213; Swanson & Fouad, 2020).

We tend to repeat what we know: we are predictable beings, and we can simply 'rinse repeat' when doing familiar tasks. But when we take the time to see situations from another's perspective, our focus can shift, and we may suddenly see our field, problem, or opportunity anew. That has immense power. If there are frameworks in this post which we have used before, trying one we are unfamiliar with may help us to reach a destination at "the end of all our exploring [we] will [...] arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time" (Gardner, 1985, p. 897).

That is a very powerful aspect of reframing which gives us new insights, changes how we think of our rights and responsibilities. These shifts allow us to grow.

I have explored three ethical frameworks that we can consider, as follows: 

  • Welfel (2016) with the model detailed here
  • Bond (2005), which the 6 step model used in the CDANZ (2020) webinar (here), and which you can read more about here; and 
  • Velasquez et al. (2009), where we can explore the six lenses here, and the ten questions to ask here. Further, there is a simple set of four questions which we can ask, which was based on the very early work that Velasquez was involved in by Cavanagh et al (1981), which can be explored here.

If anyone finds other ethical frameworks, please share them with me: it is always great to collect new tools for our kete! 

The choice of which to use, though, as always, is ours.


Sam

References:

Bond, T. (2005). Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action (Counselling in Action series) (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Cavanagh, G. F., Moberg, D. J., & Velasquez, M. (1981). The Ethics of Organizational Politics. Academy of Management Review 6(3), 363-374. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1981.4285767

CDANZ. (2020, October 29). CDANZ Webinar: Ethical scenarios in career practice [video]. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f7-cmGvGxUGK9KZraXheRaR6En2N57HE/view

Parsons, R. D., & Dickinson, K. L. (2017). Ethical practice in the human services from knowing to being. SAGE Publications Inc.

Swanson, J. L., & Fouad, N. A. (2020). Career theory and practice: learning through case studies. Sage Publications

Velasquez, M., Moberg, D., Meyer, M. J., Shanks, T., McLean, M. R., DeCosse, D., André, C., Kirk, O., & Hanson, K. O. (2009). A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/

Velasquez, M., André, C., Shanks, T., & Meyer, M. J. (2015). Thinking Ethically. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/

Welfel, E. R. (2016). Ethics in counseling and psychotherapy: Standards, research, and emerging issues (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

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Friday, 19 December 2025

PowerPoint conversion from cm to pixels

This year I was helping a not for profit organisation to put a slide show together, and ran into a problem  where a facility needed images in specific dimension ratio. Not a problem: we had already decided to use PowerPoint as the background so we could set up the slide deck view in the right size, drop all the images on a black background, then export the whole slide deck in the correct image type so each would be the right size. Easy.

A 16:9 ratio was required, and we so simply set the screen size to 33.837 x 19.05, checking that this fitted with the 1920 by 1080 ratio. We scanned and loaded lots of images; cropped, straightened, faffed about and finally exported all the images in the correct file type to a folder. We asked loads of people, including the administrator, to check the resulting images. The reports came back that everything was OK.

Luckily we had factored in enough time to do a test run, to go and see the images on screen for ourselves in situ, as we arrived to find that there were two issues. Firstly, all the images needed to be rotated 90 degrees to the left as they were being shown on two widescreen landscape TVs, hung in a portrait orientation. Obviously no one had updated the TV firmware to rotate the on-board orientation, and no one had told us of that requirement (not a biggie: Ctrl & A, right-mouse menu, rotate all). 

Secondly, apparently our image ratio for the images came to 720 by 1280 pixels, and was therefore the 'wrong' size. I found this quite puzzling: if the ratio was right, why would the actual pixels matter? Because apparently the TV software is set to the actual pixel - dot - count, and if the size is smaller than the available dots on the screen, the image will be shown as a smaller image within the available space. Maybe. Or it maybe offset. Or top left. Or bottom right. But not necessarily filling the screen. Sigh.

It made me realise how cross-platform compatibility has moved on quite a bit, as we have got so used to devices being able to resize. And the big screen TVs in this facility were not PCs.

Back into PowerPoint to set the image as a pixel size instead of a centimetre size. But PowerPoint doesn't allow us to put a pixel size in. What we needed was a pixel converter. And there is a handy little site that can do just that at Unit Converters (2025). We punched in our two numbers, resized all the slides, re-saved all as the correct image type, rotated the lot and finally were able to test them.

Phew.


Sam

Reference: Unit Converters. (2025). Convert Centimeter to Pixel (X). https://www.unitconverters.net/typography/centimeter-to-pixel-x.htm

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Wednesday, 17 December 2025

Goodhart's Law, or duck-shoving

While I have talked briefly about Goodhart's Law before (here), Charles Goodhart was a chief economic advisor to the Bank of England. He looked at central banking institutions' inflation-control methods, through restricting and easing of circulating cash in the system. Goodhart's Law was an aside said in a 1975 paper that he wrote, saying "Ignoring Goodhart's law, [i.e.] that any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes", then he went on to explore the actual impacts of risk management around monetary policy (Chrystal & Mizen, 2003, p. 222).

Goodhart was apparently noting that once banks focused on a particular inflation target, they changed their behaviour - for example, creating and using new instruments not counted in the measure - making the original 'money supply' statistic useless for policy-making. Experts say that what Goodhart (1975, as cited by Chrystal & Mizen, 2003) meant by this self-proclaimed law is that we shouldn't put our blind trust in statistics once they become our goal, because all we did was observe a normal pattern of behaviour then turned our observation into a target. It is A target; but who knows if it is THE target? Or the RIGHT target?

It is a good point. Because as soon as we have a goal, we don't want to 'spoil' our ability to meet the target. So we change our behaviour... and the observation no longer holds.

There are two other very similar phrases:

  • Anthropologist Marilyn Strathern simplified Goodhart's Law to "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" (Mattson et al., 2021, p. 2), which I don't feel has quite enough sting; and
  • Social scientist researcher Donald Campbell said that "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor" (Mattson et al., 2021, p. 2). Ouch. That has sting. We could reframe this as the more we use a stat as a marker, the more we are likely to try to game it. 

How about this for a current example. Let's think about hospitals who say surgery cases are only allowed to be on a waiting list for 6 months; surgery is expected to have taken place, the case resolved. So to meet that statistic, at the end of 6 months, the surgical department sends the patients back to the specialist for reassessment. The clock resets, and the countdown to six months begins again. The statistic has been met: regardless of the surgery not having been done, the person's quality of life is still poor, but the statistics look great.

I would call this duck shoving. Rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. 

Or Goodhart's Law in action ;-)


Sam

References:

Chrystal, K. A., & Mizen, P. D. (2003). Chapter 8: Goodhart's Law: Its Origins, Meaning and Implications for Monetary Policy. In P. D. Mizen (Ed.), Central banking, monetary theory and practice: Essays in honour of Charles Goodhart (pp. 221-243). Edward Elgar.

Goodhart, C. A. (1975). Monetary relationships: A view from threadneedle street in papers in monetary economics. In Reserve Bank of Australia Conference Proceedings, Papers in Monetary Economics (Volume 1, pp 1-20). Author.

Mattson, C., Bushardt, R. L., & Artino, A. R., Jr (2021). "When a Measure Becomes a Target, It Ceases to be a Good Measure". Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 13(1), 2–5. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-20-01492.1

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Monday, 15 December 2025

Lloyd's SPARK-L framework

I was reminded recently of the SPARK-L framework (Career Voice, 2025) earlier this year - those aspects of Self-Awareness; Pathways, Action Planning, Reputation; Key Knowledge and Support; and Learning - and the benefits to the organisation of developing all staff so they stay (Career Voice, 2025; Lloyd, 2025).

While somewhat similar to DOTS (Law & Watts, 1977; read more here), this an organisational career development model, showing organisations the staff development payoff (Lloyd, 2025). Companies are unlikely to take any action unless there is going to be a payoff - and rightly so - because their first duty is to their shareholders. So what convinces an organisation that career development is worth the investment? Show the return on investment. Demonstrate how a CD programme will keep good staff in the organisation for longer. How it will boost productivity. And how it will assist to identify and grow staff skills that enable progression (Career Voice, 2025). 

Staff who are happy in their workplace and perceive a future with the organisation are less likely to leave, benefiting all participants (Kalamas & Kalamas, 2004). And a pilot programme can show an organisation what will work in their particular context (Career Voice, 2025). 

The six dimensions of SPARK-L are (Career Voice, 2025):

  1. Self Awareness; assisting "talent identification, empowering employees to understand their unique strengths and interests"
  2. Pathways; where staff member's own goals are connected "to meaningful opportunities within [the] organisation, exploring pathways in the ever-changing world of work"
  3. Action Planning; staff create tailored "action plans, empowering [them] to take ownership of their career journey"
  4. Reputation; staff work on networking and personal brand-building, positioning [them] for success in their chosen plans"
  5. Key Knowledge and Support; developing "a culture of open communication and support, encouraging employees to seek guidance as they progress through their action plans"
  6. Learning; whereby we "cultivate a culture of continuous career action planning in an ever-changing landscape"

The advice is to start small, get buy-in, and be clear about how success will be measured (Lloyd, 2025).


Sam

References:

Career Voice. (2025). The SPARK-L Framework. https://careervoice.com.au/sparkl/

Gollan, P. J., Kaufman, B. E., Taras, D., & Wilkinson, A. (2014). Voice and Involvement at Work. Routledge.

Kalamas, D., & Kalamas, J. B. (2004). Developing Employee Capital: Setting the stage for life-long learning. HRD Press.

Law, B. & Watts, A. G. (1977). Schools, Careers and Community: A study of some approaches to careers education in schools (pp. 8-10). Church Information Office.

Lloyd, N. (2025, May 20). Career Development in Organisations: It’s for Everyone (Honestly). Career Development Association of Australia. https://cdaa.org.au/CDAAWebsite/Web/Blog/Posts/Career-Development-in-Organisations--It-s-for-Everyone--Honestly-.aspx

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Friday, 12 December 2025

Even more on catchphrases

Oh no: it is time for another update on catchphrases. I have written about these before (here), and have continued recording those items I have encountered.

My Mother always had us in stitches as children with a black and white scary film she went to in London many years ago, where the whatever-it-was was running amok, then everything went silent. Meaningful looks between the lead actors. Winding up for a portentous speech: "Something's happened!". This too was adopted by our family. We still have no idea what the film was.

Then there is "There can be only one" from the film, "Highlander" (Mulcahy, 1986, 1:56:00). Why? Because it implies that as the leaders are, so shall the followers be. Good leadership will inspire good followership. A stink will create a stink throughout.

There is a "barnyard vocabulary" quote from US President Lyndon B. Johnson, where he said, while trying to fire FBI head, J. Edgar Hoover, "Well, it's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in" (Williams, 1973, p. 275). Another of my favourites.

For some reason a phrase that sticks in my mind - incorrectly, as it happens - is a couplet from Wordsworth poem, the Solitary Reaper, which I cite as in remembrance of "old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago" (Gardiner, 1985, p. 505). I find this imagery incredibly evocative. However, it should lead with "For", but I impute that "Of" ;-)

Now a local one. When kicking off his sales pitch, one of the main characters, Jack, in the 2001 film Stickmen said "Let me let you in on a little secret" (Rothwell & Ward, 2001, 13:18) about scamming the elderly into buying water filters. A madam bawling "Off you go!" at one of her girls' drivers (44:18). The writer in a cameo saying "Yeah, OK. I'm not doing anything else" when being picked up by a prostitute (45:25).

The next one is "softly, softly catchy monkey"; saying we should tai hoa (more on that one here). Actually, both were common sayings in our family: maybe due to the rip shit and bust nature of our progress through things! According to Michael Quinion (2013), a highly esteemed reader for the OED, it is derived from a Ghanaian tribal saying, first recorded in print as "softly softly catchee monkey" (Baden-Powell, 1900, p. 6); but actually a likely translation of "the Wolof proverb, Ndànk-ndànk, mooy jàpp golo ci ñaay" or "Slowly, slowly one catches a monkey in the forest" (Wiktionary, 2025).

That brings me to "rip shit and bust"! Common parlance in the 1970s and 1980s in New Zealand, this is someone who crashes through doing a task and usually buggers it up due to their unseemly haste. This is, according to McGill, a Kiwi saying (1988, p. 93).

And to end this epistle: "We're taking this car to Invercargill" from Goodbye Pork Pie (Murphy & Mune, 1981).


Sam

References:

Baden-Powell, R. S. S. (1900). Downfall of Prempeh: A diary of life with the native Levy in Ashanti. Methuen & Co.

Gardiner, H. (Ed.). (1985). The New Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford University Press.

McGill, D. (1988). A Dictionary of Kiwi Slang: Up the boohai shooting pukakas. Mills Publications.

Mulcahy, R. (Director). (1986). Highlander[motion picture]. Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment.

Murphy, G. (Director, Writer), & Mune. I. (Writer). (1981). Goodbye Pork Pie [motion picture]. Hanway Films.

Quinion, M. (2013, October 19). Softly, softly, catchee monkey. World Wide Words. https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa-sof2.html

Rothwell, H. (Director), Ward, N. (Writer) (2001). Stickmen [motion picture]. New Zealand Film Commission/Portman Entertainment

Wiktionary. (2025). softly, softly, catchee monkey. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/softly,_softly,_catchee_monkey

Williams, T. H. (1973). Huey, Lyndon, and Southern Radicalism. The Journal of American History, 60(2), 267-293. https://doi.org/10.2307/2936776

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Wednesday, 10 December 2025

The impact of AI

I have been wondering what the real risk is of artificial intelligence (AI) leaving many of us with insufficient work. AI itself is not my area of expertise, as I come from the employee end, but the increasing wailing and gnashing of teeth about AI bringing the imminent end of the our known world to me seems a bit overblown. Yet, anyway.

Earlier this year I attended a conference presentation where the presenter demonstrated using a variety of AI apps - such as Merlin, Wisecut, Pictory and Reel - to create posts to market their career development business; AI to write the straplines, hashtags and calls to action; AI to create the post images; AI to load the posts into a social media marketing scheduling app; then AI to generate interest in the posts when they went live (Aboobacker, 2025).

The presenter's aim was to create rapport with their potential customers, but I really don't think they had thought enough about the irony of bots commenting on the bots. And that is where I get stuck in thinking about the immediate utility of AI and the take-over of humankind.

The level of tosh used on media platforms is generally pretty awful. Yes, I am sure that AI will improve by leaps and bounds. Yes, I am sure the slop we are currently being served on digital media platforms will become sophisticated. Yes, I am sure we will find all sorts of little shortcuts that make our lives easier as people think of smart ways to simplify processes.

AI could be a tool to enhance work, not to replace it (Dahlin, 2024). And I too can see more AI opportunities than job losses, though that is not the perception of many: 51% of survey respondents report being somewhat or very concerned about AI job loss; and 12.6% saying they had already lost a job to AI (Dahlin, 2024). Groups facing structural inequalities in the labour market show that AI's impact may fall unfairly on those who are already facing barriers to work (Dahlin, 2024). Ouch.

Interestingly, the perceived job loss risk varies between white- and blue-collar workers, with 19% of white-collar workers having concerns compared to 26% of blue-collar (Chiarini et al., 2024). HOW we work also affects how great the AI risk appears to us: if we in more relational roles, we are less likely to feel threatened by AI (Chiarini et al., 2024). White-collar jobs have automation-vulnerable elements; such as structured tasks like coding and financial analysis. It is the 'best practice' process flow oriented nature of roles such as coding and financial analysis mean that in many instances, an app may be able to reach an appropriate decision from complex data inputs (Dahlin, 2024). But would we buy financial advice, or trust financial advice, from an app? Would an heart lung machine programming company put implicit faith in AI-generated code?

And should we be in reading people's calls for why we should go to their business that were generated by AI, promoted by AI, for a relational end? Is that the best use of our energy? 

I think we need to keep our AI aims clear and to not panic yet. 


Sam

References:

Aboobacker, A. (2025). 232 Revolutionizing Career Coaching with AI Solutions [video]. APCDA [Asia Pacific Career Development Association] Hybrid Conference 12-26 May 2025, Zheng Zhou Shi, China. https://asiapacificcda.vids.io/videos/4491dbb81b1fe7cfcd/232-revolutionizing-career-coaching-with-ai-solutions

Chiarini, A., Grando, A., Venturini, S., & Borgonovo, E. (2024). Do automation and AI impact on job reduction? A study on perceived risk of losing job among white-collars in the Italian manufacturing companies. Production Planning & Control, 35(16), 2198-2211. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2023.2244925

Dahlin, E. (2024). Who Says Artificial Intelligence Is Stealing Our Jobs?. Socius, 10, 23780231241259672, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231241259672

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Monday, 8 December 2025

Costs of recruitment

How do we work out how much recruitment costs? Well, it gets a bit complicated, because costs can be organised in different ways; in New Zealand we tend to consider direct and indirect costs; in the USA the costs tend to be grouped into external and internal (Phillips & Gully, 2015). Direct costs arise where we can point to that and say this was directly related to hiring a new staff member (such as advertising the position), and indirect costs are costs which are are part of someone's job or overhead (such as HR staff time, travel and expenses for selection and interviews, testing, reference-checking and verification of qualifications). This latter category is remarkably hard to track, even though it has been tried (Tsarenko & Krishnamurthy, 2021).

External hiring costs arise where we pay someone outside our organisation (advertising placement, recruiter fees, referral bonuses, travel costs, relocation costs), and internal hiring costs are self-evident (advertising content or co-ordination, travel/interview/referee costs, and staff time). Apparently 90% of hiring costs - "including testing, reference checking, hiring manager time, and administrative support" - are likely to be external costs (Phillips & Gully, 2015, p. 156).

Recruitment costs, or costs per hire/CPH, used to be guesstimated at something like $13k per person, which I would guesstimate to be more like $20k today. In the USA in 2016 this was considered to a little over $4100 (SHRM, 2016). This is a simplistic model, largely only including direct costs (advertising, testing, verifying, contracts), not indirect costs (screening, interviewing, reviews) or the six or so months it takes for a new staff member to become acculturated to organisational processes, procedures, and to build networks.

Those more complex recruitment costs - including training investment - for trainee accountants were calculated out to a staggering 241% of an accounting graduand's annual salary (Twiname et al., 2011). However, those accounting students require two expensive professional exams to become Chartered Accountants once they have clocked up the appropriate number of hours, which significantly inflates costs in this profession (Twiname et al., 2011). It would be interesting to know whether the percentage has shifted since the original study, and what costs doctors and lawyers rack up!

It is interesting just how pricey it is. I began making a rough list of what needs to be factored in, and came up with quite a substantial list (see the image accompanying this post). And I forgot job sizing.

It is a complex bucket of stuff!


Sam

References:

Phillips, J. M., & Gully, S. M. (2015). Strategic Staffing (3rd global ed.). Pearson Education (UK) Ltd.

SHRM. (2016, August 8). SHRM Benchmarking Report: $4,129 Average Cost-per-Hire. Society of Human Resource Management. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/shrm-benchmarking-report-4129-average-cost-per-hire

Tsarenko, A., & Krishnamurthy, D. (2021). Understanding and Improving Quality in Firm Recruitment Processes: A case study [report 2021:035]. University of Gothenburg.  https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/97248696/483817839-libre.pdf

Twiname, L. J., Samujh, H., & Rae, S. (2011). Accounting for the costs of recruiting and training [paper]. Cambridge Business and Economics Conference (CBEC), Cambridge UK, 27-29 June 2011. https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/1fc33677-9d09-4f9c-a9de-8a69368f7ab2/content

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Friday, 5 December 2025

When Outlook search stops working...

I had an interesting problem earlier this year. I went to do an Outlook search for emails from a company that I know I had received many emails from, and sent a number of emails to. I put a portion of the email into the 'global' search bar in my Outlook desktop app, and got... nothing. The result I got was "No results".

As I had just started my PC, I really couldn't understand what was going on. I had done the same search just a couple of weeks ago. But I shut the app down, and restarted. Ran the same search. And again, I got "No results".

I know there are results. I could see some. 

So I went looking for the problem online. I found a post from Tomlinson (2024) who had the same problem. Dighi, an expert moderator, suggested that the problem could be solved by rebuilding "the search index in Outlook by going to File > Options > Search > Indexing Options > Advanced > Rebuild".

OK. So I went to the File menu, and selected Options, scrolled down to the search area, selected Indexing Options, sent to Advanced in the pop up window, then, in the Advanced Options dialogue box, clicked on the Rebuild button. The process took a couple of hours.

However, re-indexing solved the problem, and I can now search as normal, once more. 

Crikey.


Sam

References:

Tomlinson, A. (2024, January 31). New Outlook search does not work. How do I fix this?. Microsoft Community. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/new-outlook-search-does-not-work-how-do-i-fix-this/232cffe1-ff03-4b3b-b6be-41b4fd47f2a9

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Wednesday, 3 December 2025

Einstein and theory

I had thought that the much revered Albert Einstein had been a lowly clerk at the Swiss Patent Office. But apparently "his work involved evaluating technical innovations, familiarizing him with cutting-edge electrical technologies, and patent law. This practical engagement with technology influenced his thinking about time, synchronization, and relativity" which placed him in the midst of a vigorous "intellectual community, philosophical reflection, and practical engagement" (Weinstein, 2025, p. 3).

Apparently Einstein described "the supreme goal of all theory [as being] to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience" (Hooley et al., 2024, p. 70, citing Einstein, 1933), so theories take complex ideas and re-present them in the simplest way possible; while not mis-representing or over-simplifying.

But theory shouldn't confine us. Einstein apparently "remarked in 1916 [that] 'Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens'" (Lucassen, 2021, p. xv, citing Feinman & Garraty, 2010). That is a good reminder that theory only remains useful as long as it doesn't become a sacred cow. We must remain able to question.

Once we put theory on the altar of worshipful holy-theoryness, we may lose our ability to have a critical discussion; and a repetitive contrary voice becomes tiresome quite quickly. It is important to keep our openness to experience and toc continue to pursue questioning and critique. How can we hone our ideas if we are not allowed to examine them rigorously?

A theory only remains useful while we can apply it; because it is simple enough to use as a rule of thumb. It is not an unquestioning sceptre to rule over us; but a light to guide us through the darkness until we can see the light for ourselves đŸ˜‰


Sam

References:

Feinman, G. M., & Garraty, C. P. (2010). Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39(1), 167–191. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.105118

Hooley, T., Alexander, R., & Frigerio, G. (2024). The Career Development Handbook: The Foundations of Professional Career Practice. Career Development Institute/Trotman Publishing.

Lucassen, J. (2021). The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind. Yale University Press.

Weinstein, G. (2025). Einstein, Free Creations, and His Worldly Cloister. arXiv. Advance online publication, 1-28. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.09530.

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Monday, 1 December 2025

Eleven Steps for Ethical Decision Making

In a previous post (here), I talked about the six ethical lenses which Velasquez et al. (2009, 2005) have explored, and mentioned that in a future post I would explore the eleven steps/questions which are outlined in the Velasquez et al. (2009) framework for Ethical Decision Making. And this time we do just that! 

We begin by first identifying the ethical issues (Velasquez et al., 2009):

  1. "Could this decision or situation be damaging to someone or to some group, or unevenly beneficial to people? Does this decision involve a choice between a good and bad alternative, or perhaps between two 'goods' or between two 'bads'?"
  2. "Is this issue about more than solely what is legal or what is most efficient? If so, how?"

Then we need to collect evidence, to track down our ethical issues:

  1. "What are the relevant facts of the case? What facts are not known? Can I learn more about the situation? Do I know enough to make a decision?"
  2. "What individuals and groups have an important stake in the outcome? Are the concerns of some of those individuals or groups more important? Why?"
  3. "What are the options for acting? Have all the relevant persons and groups been consulted? Have I identified creative options?"

Next we need to weigh up our alternative actions. We do that via the following:

  1. "Evaluate the options by asking the following questions:
    Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake?" (The Rights Lens);
    "Which option treats people fairly, giving them each what they are due?" (The Justice Lens);
    "Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm for as many stakeholders as possible?" (The Utilitarian Lens);
    "Which option best serves the community as a whole, not just some members?" (The Common Good Lens);
    "Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be?" (The Virtue Lens);
    "Which option appropriately takes into account the relationships, concerns, and feelings of all stakeholders?" (The Care Ethics Lens)

Now we need to select one idea to test and to action, by asking ourselves:

  1. "After an evaluation using all of these lenses, which option best addresses the situation?"
  2. "If I told someone I respect (or a public audience) which option I have chosen, what would they say?"
  3. "How can my decision be implemented with the greatest care and attention to the concerns of all stakeholders?"

Lastly we put our chose, tested decision into play, not forgetting to reflect upon and to measure our anticipated and actual outcomes once it is all over.

  1. "How did my decision turn out, and what have I learned from this specific situation?"
  2. "What (if any) follow-up actions should I take?"

Those of us familiar with the questions asked by Cavangh et al. (1981) will hear echoes in this work of those elements (here). However, this list of Velasquez et al. (2009) forms quite a handy list of points to work through, particularly if we are practicing ethical dilemmas. Like all these things, they can be overly long and complicated if we were trying to use them for the first time on the fly, but if we have more time to think about the ins and outs, they are great for training and rehearsal. 

However, this is not the six step process outlined in the CDANZ ethical scenarios webinar. That was definitely Bond (2005), which you can read about here


Sam

References:

Bond, T. (2005). Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action (Counselling in Action series) (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Cavanagh, G. F., Moberg, D. J., & Velasquez, M. (1981). The Ethics of Organizational Politics. Academy of Management Review 6(3), 363-374. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1981.4285767

CDANZ. (2020, October 29). CDANZ Webinar: Ethical scenarios in career practice [video]. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f7-cmGvGxUGK9KZraXheRaR6En2N57HE/view

Velasquez, M., Moberg, D., Meyer, M. J., Shanks, T., McLean, M. R., DeCosse, D., AndrĂ©, C., Kirk, O., & Hanson, K. O. (2009). A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/

Velasquez, M., André, C., Shanks, T., & Meyer, M. J. (2015). Thinking Ethically. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/

read more "Eleven Steps for Ethical Decision Making"