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 😉

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.

read more "Einstein and theory"

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:

3. "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?"
4. "What individuals and groups have an important stake in the outcome? Are the concerns of some of those individuals or groups more important? Why?"
5. "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:

6. "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:

7. "After an evaluation using all of these lenses, which option best addresses the situation?"
8. "If I told someone I respect (or a public audience) which option I have chosen, what would they say?"
9. "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.

10. "How did my decision turn out, and what have I learned from this specific situation?"
11. "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., 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/

read more "Eleven Steps for Ethical Decision Making"

Internet Archive moves to .lcpl files

If you have e recently, you may have been surprised by the file download extensions suffix on those books which can be downloaded: the download file is now has an ".lcpl" suffix. Instead of the normal .ascm file type which can be downloaded then automatically opened using Adobe Digital Editions, now we need a different app and to work with this different file download type.

Like .ascm files, the Readium LCP file type - with the .lcpl suffix - is also a digital rights protected pdf or ePub file. The LPC of the Readium file name stands for Licensed Content Protection. To open and read these file on our PCs, we can't use Digital Editions: we need to download the Thorium Reader app. We can download Thorium Reader, which is also free, from the Thorium site here: https://thorium.edrlab.org/en/

To download and open the .lcpl file in Thorium Reader, it is the same process as for Digital Editions. We simply borrow our desired book from the Internet Archive, scroll down the page and look for our desired LCP file type download link and click on the link for either a pdf or an ePub .lcpl file.

We download the file to our normal download location, open Thorium Reader, navigate to our downloaded .lcpl file and open the file just as we would normally have done in Adobe Digital Editions. Once we have opened one file, Thorium Reader should remember the location for future borrowings.

Not too dramatic, after all :-)

Sam

read more "Internet Archive moves to .lcpl files"

Financial literacy quiz

In 2012, the OECD surveyed member nations on the financial literacy of their citizens, asking eight questions covering the "basic knowledge of key financial concepts", where no concepts covered were overly complicated, nor did the answers require specialised financial skills (Atkinson & Messy, 2012). 

The most financially savvy nations in the survey proved to be Hungary and Estonia, coming in at over 75%, with Germany, Ireland and the Czech Republic coming in at 70% (Atkinson & Messy, 2012, p. 7). The original report listed the answers to each individual question, not providing an overall average, which I found surprising (and yes, I appreciate that the averages may be somewhat flawed). Regardless, I have recreated the original data table and provided that average, just for interest.

Stuff reported these OECD outcomes at the time, also running the same quiz for New Zealanders, to see how well Kiwis fitted with the mostly European participant nations. Interestingly, New Zealanders did very well, scoring an average of 78%. While the Stuff quiz has been taken down, if you are interested, you can complete the quiz I recreated from Atkinson and Messy's original 2012 survey here: https://forms.gle/tY1xncCfucCAswDL8

See how you go!

Sam

References:

Atkinson, A., & Messy, F.-A. (2012). Measuring Financial Literacy: Results of the OECD/International Network on Financial Education (INFE) Pilot Study (OECD Working Papers on Finance, Insurance and Private Pensions No. 15). OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k9csfs90fr4-en

Stuff. (2013, June 14). Biz Quiz: Test your financial literacy. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/quizzes/8791235/Biz-Quiz-Test-your-financial-literacy

read more "Financial literacy quiz"

What is a career?

I do love a good pithy definition. And so recently I was musing on how we would briefly define 'a career'. I turned to the literature to see what experts have to say. A career from the outside looking in can be defined as the "evolving sequence of a person’s work experiences over time" (Arthur et al., 1989, p. 8); or we can step into ourselves and take a multiple lens view, as "career as life process, career as individual agency, and career as meaning making" (Chen, 1998, p. 437).

Alternatively, we might consider career development, where we could consider the two sides to career development:

On one hand we have "the total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical, economic, and chance factors that combine to shape individual career behavior over the life span", or more briefly, "the development of career behavior across the life span"; as compared on the other to those "interventions or practices that are used to enhance a person's career development or to enable that person to make more effective career decisions", or in summary "how career behavior is changed by [our own] particular intentions" (Herr, 2001, p. 196).

There is a career development definition that I like, if we roll the clock back to the mid-twentieth century as being "the process of growth and learning that results in increases and modifications of a person’s repertoire for vocational behavior" (Savickas, 1994, p. 56, citing Super, 1957). I like the use of 'repertoire'; it is quite theatrical. We are an actor on our own stage: fitting well with Super.

But, while mentioning life-span in passing, these definitions don't really emphasise the long-term nature of career development. And we need to, because it "is a lifelong process, during which a person takes on different roles and deals with dynamic changes and transitions" (Chen, 1998, p. 455). Those transitions could be considered as "careers increasingly [seen as...] a succession of mini-stages" (Herr, 2001, p. 208, citing Hall & Associates, 1996, p. 33). I like the sound of that, too. We remain the producer of our own career, with all the implications of agency, meaning, and development.

Of course, to be our own producer, we need career maturity in both understanding choice, and understanding the ramifications of making a decision on our choices (Savickas, 1994). So our career development skills should improve over time. And interestingly, there is a definition of career education that I like, defined "as an effort to refocus [national] education system[s] and [...community] actions [...] to help [learners] acquire and use the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to make work a meaningful, productive, and satisfying part of their lives" (Greenhaus & Callanan, 2006, p. 100).

That's good. Could we perhaps consider career development as "a life-long process" of learning, acquiring and using roles, "knowledge, skills, and attitudes", in successive mini-stages, "necessary to make [meaningful] work a meaningful, productive, and satisfying part of [our] lives" (Chen, 1998; Greenhaus & Callanan, 2006, p. 100; Savickas, 1994)? 

While I think this needs more thinking time, I am enjoying the process of considering what is important to me in this field. I will ponder some more :-)

Sam

References:

Arthur, M., Hall, D. T., & Lawrence, B. S. (Eds.) (1989). Handbook of Career Theory (reprinted 1996, 2004 digital ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chen, C. P. (1998). Understanding career development: a convergence of perspectives. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 50(3), 437-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636829800200053

Herr, E. L. (2001). Career development and its practice: A historical perspective. The Career Development Quarterly, 49(3), 196-211. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2001.tb00562.x

Savickas, M. L. (1994). Measuring career development: Current status and future directions. The Career Development Quarterly, 43(1), 54-62. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1994.tb00846.x

read more "What is a career?"

Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 3

In a couple of recent posts (here), I have been looking at how to export a Google Calendar as an .ics file, update it using Excel, and then reimport that data into a new .ics Google calendar; effectively duplicating all the events from one year into the next.

Of course it has turned out to be more complicated than I had hoped, but it does work after a fashion. I am hoping that I will find some hacks as I go to further smooth my path.

What I did to change the dates in Excel was  to create an Excel sheet with the following columns:

• A: Headings, a list to filter for "DTSTART" and "DTEND". In this column copied all my raw data from my exported .ics file, then deleted everything from the colon onwards (i.e. find and replace ":*")
• B: Course Name 2025, this column was a repeat of the raw data (to remain unchanged)
• C: Extracted date, trims the date in column D to eight characters. Uses the formula =LEFT(D3,8)
• D: Trim R/H, to filter for the date. Contains the formula =MID(B3,FIND(":",B3)+1,LEN(B3)-FIND("T",B3))
• E: Reorganised date, to create a readable date from column C. Uses the formula =DATE(LEFT(C3,4),MID(C3,5,2),RIGHT(C3,2)) with the date format  [$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy
• F: Course Name 2026, this column was a repeat of the raw data which I will change (and copy out and reimport)
• G: Extracted date, trims the date in column H to eight characters. Uses the formula =LEFT(H3,8)
• H: Trim R/H, to filter for the date. Contains the formula =MID(F3,FIND(":",F3)+1,LEN(F3)-FIND("T",F3))
• I: Actual date, to create a readable date from column G for double-checking. Uses the formula =DATE(LEFT(G3,4),MID(G3,5,2),RIGHT(G3,2)) with the date format  [$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy

After setting up, I (a) filtered column A to DT, (b) changed all years in column F from 2025 to 2026, (c) checked that the day for 2026 was the same day of the week for 2025 (moving the dates on manually at the moment), and (d) reimported the calendar.

Steps c and d took quite a while. But it worked. 

I am sure there are smarter ways of processing the data, but as a trial, this was effective. 

Sam 

read more "Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 3"

Lenses for Ethical Decision Making

CDANZ ran an ethical workshop a while ago to help practitioners work through ethical dilemmas (2020). A six step framework was used for that mahi which was assumed at the time to be based on either the six step method from Bond (2005) or the Velasquez et al. (2009) model - the Framework for Ethical Decision Making - created at the Markkula Centre for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

While I have explored Bond (2005) before on this blog (here), and have run through an earlier version of the Velasquez model (here; by Cavanagh et al., 1981), I have not stepped through the thinking behind the Cavanagh et al, (1981) model, which uses six ethical lenses to determine what ethical issues exist. Those six ethical lenses are as follows:

• Rights: perhaps an ethical action is that which respects the moral rights and responsibilities of those affected, because, due to our freedom of choice, we have 'human dignity' conferring our right to be treated as ends in ourselves, and not just as means to another's ends. The moral rights are debated, and some infer all animals have them (and I suspect the world is going this way), and include freedom of life choices, to be told the truth, not avoid harm, to personal privacy (Velasquez et al., 2009).
• Justice: people are due fair or equal treatment, to treated as equals - not exactly the same - but equitably. Perhaps parity is a better term. This section includes "social justice (structuring the basic institutions of society), distributive justice (distributing benefits and burdens), corrective justice (repairing [... injustice]), retributive justice ([...] punish[ing] wrongdo[ing]), and restorative or transformational justice" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Utilitarianism: This focuses on results, where an "ethical action is the one that produces the greatest balance of good over harm for as many stakeholders as possible". We need to have crystal clear foresight on the likely outcomes and costs: in an "ethical corporate action, then, is the one that produces the greatest good and does the least harm for all who are affected—customers, employees, shareholders, the community, and the environment. Cost/benefit analysis is a[...] consequentialist approach" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Common Good:  our actions should contribute to the collective community good, where "the interlocking relationships of society are the basis of ethical reasoning and that respect and compassion for all others—especially the vulnerable—are requirements of such reasoning", while accounting for those "common conditions [...] important [for] everyone—such as clean air and water, a system of laws, effective police and fire departments, health care, a public educational system, or even public recreational areas.  [...] [T]he common good lens highlights mutual concern for the shared interests of all members of a community" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Virtue: an old ethics philosophy suggests our "actions ought to be consistent with certain ideal virtues that provide for the full development of our humanity", to develop our character and align with "values like truth and beauty. Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, tolerance, love, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all examples of virtues. Virtue ethics asks of any action, 'What kind of person will I become if I do this?' or 'Is this action consistent with my acting at my best?'" (Velasquez et al., 2009)
• Care: relationships drive our compassion and care of those around us. It is not about rules or costs: it is about growth, nurturing, community, and love, growing "interdependence, not just independence. It relies on empathy to gain a deep appreciation of the interest, feelings, and viewpoints of each stakeholder, employing care, kindness, compassion, generosity, and a concern for others to resolve ethical conflicts. Care ethics holds that options for resolution must account for the relationships, concerns, and feelings of all stakeholders. Focusing on connecting intimate interpersonal duties to societal duties, an ethics of care might counsel, for example, a more holistic approach to public health policy that considers food security, transportation access, fair wages, housing support, and environmental protection alongside physical health" (Velasquez et al., 2009)

When we stop to consider these six ethical lenses, we can see that asking a range of questions after considering these can help us make a more ethical decision. By taking this range of six philosophical lenses into account we open ourselves up to many different perspectives (Velasquez, 2009, 2015). 

And, on reflection, I think that the Velasquez model is useful for background thinking, but is not the model that was used in the CDANZ work. I think that was likely to be the Bond model (2005).

However, Velasquez et al. (2009, 2015) have come up with eleven steps to follow these lenses, which I will explore in a later post.

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., 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/

read more "Lenses for Ethical Decision Making"

Time for a reminder

I think it is time to remind ourselves to put our citation at the back of the sentence, and avoid, in the immortal words of Professor Pat Thomson, writing a 'laundry list' (2017; and read my take on that here). A student recently asked for feedback, when they had written:

Research by Aubusson et al. (2009) indicates that teacher professional development, supported by a positive school culture, leads to correlations between teachers who actively engage in their learning and development with positive student outcomes. Further research by Alton-Lee (2008) highlighted that when senior leaders actively participate in and lead professional development alongside teachers, they enhance their pedagogical knowledge and understanding.

The student knew this was an "X says, Y says" format, known as a laundry list (Thomson, 2017), but wanted help in transforming this. I suggested a simple reword to bring the topic to the fore, and push the author into the shadows:

Research shows that teacher professional development, if supported by a positive school culture, links teachers who actively engage in their learning and development with positive student outcomes (Aubusson et al., 2009). When senior leaders actively participate in and lead professional development alongside teachers, they enhance their pedagogical knowledge and understanding (Alton-Lee, 2008).

We can see that first sentence still talks about research. We could also start with "Studies show that..." or "A meta-analysis of 150 research projects found that..." or similar. Getting to the 'what' and the 'why' in quickly holds our reader's interest. The 'who' can trail in last 😉

We can also usually save a few words by writing with the topic at the front and the author at the back of the sentence. The laundry list paragraph was 60 words and my edited version was 52. Further, this way of writing has an added bonus: we can group multiple authors evidence on the topic together, and pop in a multiple works citation at the back of the sentence.

While we are getting our heads around writing with the topic first, we begin our draft with notes in the 'X says' format, then, once we have written enough topic fragments accumulated, we can turn our sentences around. But after a while we should get used to writing topic-first from the outset, and save ourselves lots of time 🙂

Sam

References:

Alton-Lee, A. (2008). Designing and Supporting Teacher Professional Development to Improve Valued Student Outcomes [paper]. Education of Teachers Symposium at the General Assembly of the International Academy of Education, Limassol, Cyprus 26 September 2008. https://thehub.sia.govt.nz/assets/documents/42443_Designing-and-Supporting-Teacher-Professional-Development_0.pdf

Aubusson, P., Ewing, R., & Hoban, G. F. (2009). Action learning in schools: reframing teachers’ professional learning and development. Routledge.

Thomson, P. (11 September 2017). Avoiding the laundry list literature review. https://patthomson.net/2017/09/11/avoiding-the-laundry-list-literature-review/

read more "Time for a reminder"

Word Navigation Pane

In MS Word, there is a left-hand sidebar that enables us to navigate documents, called the "Navigation Pane". If we use standard Word tools - headings, shortcuts and bookmarks - the Navigation Pane allows us to skip through the document outline quickly. Hierarchies of headings can be collapsed, so we can navigate to chapter headings, making large documents more workable. I seem to recall that the Navigation Pane is on by default.

However, the problem arises when I turn it off. Most of the time I have it open, but every now and again I turn it off to conserve screen space (in Zooms, for example). And I close out my apps, shut my PC down and only come back to it the next day... to find no Navigation Pane. And I KNOW there is an easy place to find the magic turn-on... and it MUST be on the View Ribbon, but I cannot see it.

So I sigh and run a search. Luckily, I am not the only one who has trouble finding this. MissKathy (2021) does too. Luckily, Stefan Blom, a volunteer moderator, was able to provide the answer.

And well, that magic turn-on IS on the View Ribbon. But not where we would expect: it is tucked away as a wee tickbox in the "Show" section. I expect to see it in the "Views" tools section, and try heaps of things there. But no. It is in the "Show" section.

Hopefully by writing this aide memoire I mayn't need to look this up again (but I probably will!).

Sam

Reference:

MissKathy. (2021, January 19). Word 365 How to show document outline on side of screen. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/word-365-how-to-show-document-outline-on-side-of/98210619-c918-4470-aca8-5ec7a8972ecc

read more "Word Navigation Pane"

When to refer on, part 2

In a previous post, we considered when we should refer a client on (here), and I suggested a few considerations for us to reflect upon, so we could see if we had missed some steps in our practice. However, if we reverse those reflection prompts and if we have experienced any of the following, we do indeed need to refer on:

• We feel we are working beyond our level of competency
• We feel there is someone better suited to working with this client
• The expertise required for this work is better suited to another practitioner or agency
• The work between us and the client is not related to the contract we originally negotiated 
• A psychological issue emerges in our session which cannot be contained within the session
• A health issue emerges within the session which cannot be dealt with in the session.

But further, in considering the first item listed above, we could also take five minutes, and ask ourselves the multiple choice questions in the image accompanying this post - and we can select as many items as we think apply (Cooper, 2011, p. 144):

• Which of the following are components of burnout?
• Which job factors in healthcare settings contribute to the most distress?
• Affective signs of work stress include [what?]
• Accumulated loss phenomena include which of the following[?]

Suffering on in our practice does not help either the client or ourselves. We are much less able to bring our best selves to our practice. So if we answer a and d; b and e; b; and a and b, we should seek some help (Cooper, 2011, p. 146). That "support can be emotional (clinical supervision/mentorship), or accessing practical support to help solve a work task" (p. 144). And that includes referring a client on.

For best results for our client, we refer on with a 'warm' handover (Fletcher, 2021), hosting our client into the hands of the new practitioner by "directly introducing" them (p. 30).

And so lightening our load.

Sam

References:

Cooper, P. A. (2011). Chapter 10: The implications of workplace stress on service development. In D. B. Cooper (Ed.), Developing Services in Mental Health-Substance Use (pp. 137-146). Radcliffe Publishing Ltd.

Fletcher, S. (2021). "It's one less thing I have to do": does referring patients to a co-located psychology service impact on the well-being of primary care health providers?. [Master's thesis, Massey University]. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/0bf33e5f-b236-409b-aca9-af77c9ff6a93/content

read more "When to refer on, part 2"

The Learning Organisation

I cannot believe that I have not previously compared two nearly 20 year old organisational models: those of efficient performance and the learning organisation (Daft, 2007). Why should we think about this? Because organisations designed for efficient performance are different to those designed for continuous learning, and we can see how by looking at Senge's five elements of learning organisations:

In a previous post (here), I mentioned Senge’s five elements of learning organisations: those of systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, a shared vision, and team learning (1990).

The efficient performance organisation is based on a hard, rational model, characterised by a vertical structure, formalised systems, routine tasks, competitive strategy, and a rigid culture (Daft, 2007); whereas the learning organisation emerges from a soft, intuitive perspective of organisations. Structures are more horizontal and employees are empowered to act independently and creatively. Strategy emerges from collaborative links within and among organisations, and the culture encourages experimentation and adaptability (Daft, 2007; Semler, 2015).

When environments are stable, leaders can effectively use rational management to maintain organisational control and stability. But because we live in a globalised environment where change is expected, designing organisations strictly for efficient performance is generally not effective (Daft, 2007). Consider the crises experienced by South America through the latter part of the 20th century, and the founder "learning organisation" of Semco (read more here) which weathered some pretty significant financial, governmental, and production storms. And survived. They learned to be a learning organisation by jettisoning all that weighed them down. They focused on what would keep them afloat, and largely, that was flexibility (Semler, 1993).

Knowledge, information, analysis and insight are probably more important than production machinery. Forward thinking firms are being reconfigured as learning organisations, where all staff are problem-solvers. The learning organisation is skilled in acquiring, transferring, and building knowledge that enables the organisation to continuously experiment, improve, and increase its capability. The learning organisation is based on equality, shared information, little hierarchy, and a shared culture that encourages adaptability and enables the organisation to seize opportunities and handle crises (Daft, 2007; Semler, 2015).

Many organisations become victims of their own success, clinging to outdated values and behaviours because of rigid cultures that do not encourage adaptability and change. But a learning organisation has a strong, adaptive culture which includes the following values (Daft, 2007; Semler, 2015):

• The whole is more important than the part, and boundaries between parts are minimized. People are aware of the whole system, how everything fits together, and the relationships among various organisational parts
• Everyone considers how their actions affect other elements of the organisation
• Equality is a primary value. The culture of a learning organisation creates a sense of community, compassion, and caring for one another
• Each person is valued, and the organisation becomes a place for creating a web of relationships that allow people to develop their full potential
• The culture encourages change, risk-taking, and improvement. A basic value is to question the status quo, the current way of doing things
• Constant questioning of assumptions opens the gates to creativity and improvement.

It is not an easy organisation to work in. We have to give up trying to control the process, be flexible, and fluid. That takes a certain kind of person.

But the rewards are great.

Sam

References:

Daft, R (2007). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Semler, R. (1993). Maverick!: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace. Warner Books.

Semler, R. (2015). TEDx Rio de Janeiro: Radical wisdom for a company, a school, a life [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/k4vzhweOefs

Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Currency Doubleday.

read more "The Learning Organisation"

Peeling back the layers

I mentioned in my previous post that Thesis Whisperer, Professor Inger Mewburn from ANU, had written a post touching on her PhD research findings (here). That post linked a side issue she talked about with social construction; but I want to come back to a more central point that she made, which is how being focused on a particular outcome can blind us to what is actually going on - and which may end up being the more interesting story.

Through her PhD research, Inger found that, of the video footage gathered on gestures architects used in presenting:

"Later I found out that I had unwittingly only filmed, or kept footage of, the top performing students. I asked some of these students about their family background: of course, they had architects as parents. My theory is they learned to ‘talk architecture’ (which includes ways of gesturing ‘properly’) at the kitchen table.

"These people had an invisible advantage, one that possibly would last all the way through their career. This would have been a much better argument to further in my thesis than the kind of anodyne one I pushed about gesture being ‘important for teaching practice’. Since gesturing is a basic human trait, there’s a broader question about what role it plays in the commonly observed phenomen[o]n of children prospering in the same profession as their parents. Those ‘bad’ interactions, full of lingering silences and awkwardness were potentially far more interesting than the ones full of people talking and having a good time. But they were hard to make sense of, so I deleted them.

"I still kick myself about this oversight (Thesis Whisperer, 2025).

While I take Inger's point about seeking the wrong story in the data, I think it also takes a long time for us to truly see: and sometimes many years must pass for us to be able to peel back the layers. Reflection is a time skill: mastery accumulates, like patina on aged furniture from all the living going on around it. Our oversights are not something that we CAN see straight away; we are too close to the event to gain perspective. It time that allows us to see that s-l-o-w-l-y developing image of each more interesting story.

I suspect that most of us can only peel back the onion one layer at a time. 

Sam

References:

Thesis Whisperer. (2025 , May 1). The Power of No: Learning to Refuse in Difficult Times. https://thesiswhisperer.com/2025/05/01/the-power-of-no-learning-to-refuse-in-difficult-times/

read more "Peeling back the layers"

Dinner table social construction

This year I had a kōrero with my students about how we are socially constructed within our family environments, potentially providing us benefits - or barriers - in our chosen fields. Social conditioning can be defined as "the process by which people of a certain society are trained to think, believe, feel, want, and react in a way that is approved by the society or the groups within it. There are many causes, dimensions, beliefs, programming, and barriers that are interwoven within social conditioning" (Maxwell, 2022, p. 8), while social construction is about the knowledge we create "via communication and interactions with others [… in our community]. Through socialization, interaction, and communication (particularly language), [we] collectively construct the realities in which [we] live” (Sanner et al., 2020, p. 2).

An example to illustrate my point was for us to consider migrants who arrive in Aotearoa New Zealand from places which have superb public transport infrastructure: those migrants may not may not have driven in their origin nations nor have a family driving culture. They had no need to. Whereas we Kiwis have to drive. We are a long, thin country, 29 times smaller than Australia, with the population the size of Sydney. To get places, we need a drivers licence, because running comprehensive public transport like Singapore or London would tax us out of existence.

We Kiwis learn to drive at the dinner table, in the stories we tell, in movies we see, in watching other drivers, and as we travel in vehicles with our whānau. Most New Zealanders can ride a bike, horse, skateboard or scooter long before we get a drivers licence. Rural children also learn to drive tractors, quad bikes, and the farm ute before they get near any formal driver training. Driving is rehearsed in front of us in a myriad of ways. And that immersion in a driving culture gives us a head start over migrants arriving here from a non-driving culture.

So I was very interested to read a blog post from Professor Inger Mewburn from ANU, the Thesis Whisperer, in the same week that I had that chat with my students about social construction (2025):

"During my own PhD about how hand gestures work in architecture classrooms, I threw away a lot of my video data. I also couldn't film everything, so I had to make on the fly decisions about when to start and stop the camera. (In my defense, it was 2007 and disc space was expensive). I only filmed 'good' interactions, where the gesture was clearly participating in creating shared understanding.

"Later I found out that I had unwittingly only filmed, or kept footage of, the top performing students. I asked some of these students about their family background: of course, they had architects as parents. My theory is they learned to 'talk architecture' (which includes ways of gesturing 'properly') at the kitchen table.

"These people had an invisible advantage, one that possibly would last all the way through their career" (Thesis Whisperer, 2025).

Pretty much exactly what I had been explaining to my students: we are given a professional leg-up in our family environments (Maxwell, 2022). while this was only a partial illustrator of what Inger was talking about (she was talking about finding what we are looking for in research; rather than what we are blind to - but more about that another time).

Fascinating how sometimes one thing reinforces another. 

Sam

References:

Maxwell, C. D. (Ed.). (2022). Shatter the System: Equity Leadership and Social Justice Advocacy in Education. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Sanner, C., Ganong, L., & Coleman, M. (2021). Families are socially constructed: Pragmatic implications for researchers. Journal of Family Issues, 42(2), 422-444. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X20905334

Thesis Whisperer. (2025 , May 1). The Power of No: Learning to Refuse in Difficult Times. https://thesiswhisperer.com/2025/05/01/the-power-of-no-learning-to-refuse-in-difficult-times/

read more "Dinner table social construction"

Front-loading keyboarding practice

I stumbled across a piece of research recently where the aim was to see if different timings of practice might affect participant keyboarding improvement/development. To check that, the researchers used an online keyboard training platform (Typing Club), which measured participant keying speed and accuracy. All participant groups spent five hours practicing their keyboarding during the programme, but each group's scheduling of their practice differed (Mugglestone, 2024) in one of three ways. 

• One group 'front-loaded' their practice, by doing the bulk of the training early in the programme, then doing smaller top-up practices to cement the learning later on. 
• The second group had a linear practice load, spread evenly throughout. 
• The third group 'back-loaded' practice, doing less practice initially, then increasing the practice session durations toward the end. 

What was interesting was that the front-loaded group significantly improved their keyboarding speed, despite practice being the same overall. While the findings suggest that early intense practice may better increase performance, practice timing didn’t affect accuracy. Additionally, there wasn’t enough evidence to see whether the front-loaded group also retained their skills after training ended (Mugglestone, 2024). A similar study considering long-term retention could be very useful.

But. This does show that when we practice might be just as important as how much we practice. If the research findings are transferrable, front-loading practice may help us speed up our learning. To make learning more efficient, schools or companies could design training programs to build early practice into programmes (Mugglestone, 2024). 

The early bird may indeed get the worm: getting off to an early start may well give us a competitive advantage.

And it may keep us engaged for longer. 

Sam

References:

Mugglestone, R. (2024). Beyond Marginal Gains: The Search for High Performance and ‘High-Hanging’ Fruit. Routledge.

Typing Club. (2025). Home. https://www.typingclub.com/

read more "Front-loading keyboarding practice"

Creating a background fill in Adobe Acrobat

I needed to recreate a lost page in a book recently, and thought that I could simply copy the missing text into a text box, then fill the box with colour.

But no. Adobe Acrobat does not allow text boxes to have colour fills. It seems that Adobe considers pdfs to be the equivalent of a 'print' output: and Adobe Acrobat is not an editing tool. Despite the fact that many of us use it as such.

So what we need to do is: 

1. Firstly we create an image file - i.e. .jpg, .png - in the colour we need (I used PowerPoint with a background fill, and Saved As a .jpg)
2. Then, going into Adobe Acrobat, I navigated to the page, and selected the edit tool
3. I clicked the "insert image" in the toolbar, and navigated to the saved location of my colour image to insert it on the page
4. I used the pull handles to align the coloured image with where I wanted it to cover on the page
5. At this point the edit tool had lost focus on the page, so I closed the edit function, saved the file, then reopened edit
6. I was then able to click the image again and send it to back.

Job done.

But who would have thought something so simple would have required so many steps?

Sam 

read more "Creating a background fill in Adobe Acrobat"

Rogerian versus Eganian career practice

In the beginning of client-centred career practice, there was Carl Rogers (Feltham & Horton, 2006). What I take out of the Rogerian approach to career development is my client is the focus and has my "unconditional positive regard" (p. 73); my job is to listen, and to 'mirror' my understanding back to the client; and I must be my authentic self in the space. Three of the "'necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change' [...are] (1) be yourself, (2) trust the client, and (3) listen. Collectively, they prescribe a quality of openness to experience - [i.e. the practitioner]’s own experience and the client’s. They demand at least tentative trust" (p. 66). 

This latter point is particularly important in career practice, and - in our domain, or unless we are also a trained counsellor - the discussion should stay on the side of workplace wellness, if we will; not illness. If we find ourselves straying into areas of grief, loss, or unwellness, we should refer on. Feltham and Horton note that "The remaining three conditions were that client and therapist be in psychological contact, that the client is in 'a state of incongruence' [which could be unwellness], and hence potentially motivated for therapy, and that the client perceives, to some degree, the presence of the other conditions" (2006, p. 66).

I am not invisible in the process, but I am 'behind the camera', so to speak. The client is foregrounded, like the image accompanying this post. My aim is often to make the client think deeply about what they want, and then work with them to consider what comes next. I help them take their first step: and they may only need me for that. I think of Rogerian client-centred therapy as a relational approach to career practice. 

The risks are that we have too much hui and not enough do-ey. It is always nice to talk about ourselves, but we are on the side of wellness, so should get to action at some point!

In the 1960s, springing from Rogerian, client-centred practice, Gerard Egan began working on a more pragmatic approach to career development, focused on managing client problems. This is framed as a "practical model for doing counselling" (Egan, 1975, p. v; emphasis added). Eganian practice takes a more change-oriented approach, often drawing on practitioner - helper - knowledge, tools and techniques at different times within the counselling process, and "emphasizes [the] clients' resourcefulness, resilience and capacity for constructive change" (Feltham & Horton, 2006, p. 334). Eganian practice "is relentless in incorporating new approaches, optimistic in its emphasis on the innate potential of human beings to move forward, to work with and resolve intrapersonal and interpersonal problems" (Jenkins, 2000, p. 163). There are lots of acronyms and frameworks to improve the process.

While I am feeling my way a little on this, I see Eganian practice as having a dual focus: one is on meeting client outcomes and goals; the other is on using/inventorying the career practitioner skills-bank. And as a result, this model - despite focusing on client change/action and therefore being transformational - feels more transactional and task-oriented. A bit prescriptive. There is more of a sense of haste, about the derived action, and getting the client to their next gig. 

The risks are that the client may not have reflected deeply enough, talked out the what-ifs, the exploration may have been too superficial as a result, and - as a result - the client may have made expedient decisions. 

Two approaches. Both serve their purpose.

Sam

References:

Feltham, C., & Horton, I. E. (Eds.). (2006). The SAGE Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Jenkins, P. (2000). Gerard Egan's Skilled Helper Model. In S. Palmer, R. Woolfe (Eds.), Integrative and Eclectic Counselling and Psychotherapy (pp. 163-164). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446280409.n9

read more "Rogerian versus Eganian career practice"

A tripartite approach to career

I was thinking that in many ways, Hall (2004) was a seer. In 1976, he described the protean career, "a career orientation in which the person, not the organization, is in charge, where the person’s core values are driving career decisions, and where the main success criteria are subjective (psychological success)" (Hall, 2004, p. 1). Protean careerists have two key drivers: being self-directed, and being values-driven (Inkson et al., 2015).

In our ever-changing world of work, there is a great need for proactivity - self-directed - due to factors such as globalisation and technological advancements (Arthur et al., 2002; Kundi et al., 2024). A protean career attitude allows us to take charge of our career, to adapt, and to hopefully find career satisfaction.

Hall could see that we were going to move away from jobs for life into life-long development (2004), which today leads us to skill clustering. By gaining mastery in a range of skills which interest us, we can apply our particular skill set to any field.

And it is this act of applying our existing skills to any field which reminded me of a tripartite research approach: the dimensions of business research (Veal, 2005). This model has us consider three dimensions of approaches from our central idea in order to refine our ideas, using: contexts/domains; themes/issues; and approaches/methodology (Veal, 2005, p. 20; see diagram accompanying this post):

• Contexts & domains: Human Resources; Industrial Relations; Succession; On-boarding; Retention; Training and Development; Information Technology; International Management; Event management; Project Management; Strategic Management; Governance; Operations Management; Supply Chain; Logistics; Company law; Commercial law; Consumer law; Private sector; Public sector; Not-for-profit; Marketing; Economics; Financial Management; Accounting; Management Accounting; Marketing; Buyer Behaviour.
• Themes & Issues: Communication; Conflict; Culture; Entrepreneurship; Environment; Ethics; Gender; Ethnicity; Age; Stage; Leadership; Learning organisations; Managerial effectiveness; Motivation; Organisation development and change; Organisational behaviour; Climate change; Corporate Social Responsibility; AI; Digitisation; Technology convergence; career management; decentralisation versus centralisation; globalisation versus localisation; local versus national versus international.
• Approaches & methodologies: Subjective versus Objective; Positivist versus Critical/interpretive; Qualitative versus quantitative; Inductive versus deductive; Experimental versus non-experimental; Theory-building versus theory-confirming; Primary data versus secondary data; Self-reported versus Observed; Questionnaire-based surveys versus interviews versus Case study methods versus observations versus Focus groups; Exploratory versus descriptive versus explanatory.

We can consider our approach to our own career as a context (e.g. being people oriented, task-oriented, or values-oriented) or a domain (e.g. organisational development, private practice, career educator); in line with a theme (e.g. sustainability, refugee resettlement, or rehabilitation) or an issue (e.g. green energy, DEI, or access to services); using an approach (e.g. Rogerian client-centred practice or Eganian skilled helping) (Egan, 1975; Rogers, 1942) or a methodology (e.g. choosing tools and techniques). 

Now, while methodologies (Veal, 2005) might be a bit obscure, we could consider this as "The science of method, ‘methodics’; a treatise or dissertation on method; Nat[ural] Hist[ory], systematic classification. Also, the study of the direction and implications of empirical research, or of the suitability of the techniques employed in it" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 693). Determining the most suitable tools for the our issues - the work which is about us - makes perfect sense in this instance.

All this makes even more sense when we are considering our clients - the work which is before us - within our practice. We could consider our client's approach; taking a client-centred approach to our practice; working out the best tools to enable our client to meet their goals in our sessions.

I need to do more thinking on this, but I am quite liking this as a tool to frame options.

Sam

References:

Arthur, M. B., Khapova, S. N., & Wilderom, C. P. (2005). Career success in a boundaryless career world. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 26(2), 177-202. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.290

Egan, G. (1975). The Skilled Helper: A Model for Systematic Helping and Interpersonal Relating (7th ed., Instructor's ed.). Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.

Hall, D. T. (2004). The Protean Career: A quarter-century journey. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2003.10.006

Kundi, Y. M., Presti, A. L. & Khan, H. (2024). Designing your own job: how protean mindset and adaptability resources shape the modern workplace. Career Development International, 30(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/cdi-05-2024-0223

Inkson, K., Dries, N., & Arnold, J. (2015). Understanding Careers (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Rogers, C. R. (1942). Counseling and psychotherapy: newer concepts in practice. Houghton Mifflin.

Veal, A. J. (2005). Business Research Methods – A Managerial Approach (2nd ed.). Pearson Education Australia.

read more "A tripartite approach to career"

Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 2

In a recent post (here), I looked at the first stage of exporting a Google Calendar as an .ics file, and the next stage; working out how to update the dates so that I can import the updated version back into Google Calendar.

In the previous post, I had my data in a text file, as a vertical list of text strings containing the dates which need to be updated (depending on the type of calendar item each relates to). There are three 'types' of data in the export, all at various lengths, with the key date information that I want slopping around nicely on the far right in the unbracketed entries below, but lurking somewhere in the middle on the two bracketed examples:

DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250210 (or DTSTART:20250210T070000Z or DTSTART;TZID=Pacific/Auckland:20250210T070000)

DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250210 (or DTEND:20250210T080000Z or DTEND;TZID=Pacific/Auckland:20250210T080000)

Of course it couldn't be too simple, could it!

I needed to work out how to extract the date - 20250210 - from those various length strings, so then I could convert the date to a full date format (I wanted to see the formatted dates and days so I could work out which items needed to be moved to a particular day. This is for me to see which dates need to change to a particular day rather than a year less a day when moving items year to year: Zooms tend to be on a particular night of the week, so being able to see the date in date format with the day makes it much easier to make the right adjustment. To do that, ended up having to do a three step process (despite trying all sorts, I ended up giving up and doing it an easy way!). First, I extracted the data from the colon in each data string, using a 'mid' function in Excel in column I:

=MID(B30,FIND(":",B30)+1,LEN(B30)-FIND("T",B30))

Secondly, in column C, I ran the following:

=LEFT(I30,8)

Thirdly, I then picked up the product of that C30 in D30 with a date reorganise using Excel's 'left', 'mid', and 'right' functions, also with a custom date format with days ([$-en-NZ]dddd, d mmmm yyyy):

=DATE(LEFT(C30,4),MID(C30,5,2),RIGHT(C30,2))

Crikey. And that got me to being able to begin to update the calendar data.

Now I need to work out an easy way to bulk change dates...!

Sam

read more "Copying a Google Calendar from 2025 to 2026, part 2"

Career clusters and vague roles

The world of work has become much more complex. The world today is full of 'vague roles', where we have gone from structured professions where we have a pretty clear idea about what people do in those careers, to something that is a lot more amorphous and hard to define (Lengelle, 2019). In the 1970s, The Netherlands did some research and found there were around 5000 defined roles and few vague roles (Lengelle, 2019; Young, 2019). However, if we roll the clock forward to 2012, "the Central Bureau of Statistics in the Netherlands[ repeated that research, and ...] What they found was that there were only about 1,000 of those definable professions[ left: ...] like dentist, English teacher, nurse, those type of things; and - if you can believe it - 23,000 of those vague roles (Lengelle, 2019; Young, 2019).

In 2018, the consultancy firm AlphaBeta produced a report For Tertiary Education Commission - aka TEC - to help guide departmental policy. The research team analysed over a million New Zealand job ads and identified six career clusters, as follows (AlphaBeta, 2018):

1. Inventors "have technology and business skills, alongside creativity and problem solving"
2. Organisers have "service-oriented and administrative skills"
3. Healers "have caregiving expertise and some administrative and corporate skills"
4. Operators have "manual skills, good communication skills and a positive attitude"
5. Engagers "have sales skills combined with deep interpersonal skills"
6. Crafters have "sophisticated industrial skills and organisational skills" (AlphaBeta, 2018, p. 5; Betts, 2024, p. 18).

The result of this is that employers are unwise to seek narrow, overly-defined skills to fit a candidate to a particular job. Instead we should hire on broader transferrable, interdisciplinary skills, and assume, as the report found, that training for one job has portability to another 12 (AlphaBeta, 2018, p. 5). 

This should help employers find fewer skill gaps. It may also encourage recruiters and employers to write more accurate job descriptions. 

In addition, our systems may put a lot of pressure on school leavers to pick their career, rather than to begin experimenting. Other actions that young people can take are: networking, internships or job shadowing, working part-time, and trying many roles for potential fit (Betts, 2024). 

It all sounds so easy. 

Sam

References:

AlphaBeta. (2018). Hidden Links, New Opportunities: How big data and job clusters can improve the 1.2 million job matches in NZ each year [report]. https://www.tec.govt.nz/assets/Reports/49efa6f071/Hidden-Links-New-Opportunities-Report.pdf

Betts, R. (2024, August 31). Just the Job. New Zealand Listener, 34, 16-21.

Lengelle, R. (2019). Scared, Lost or Confused? Develop Your Warm Inner Compass through Career Writing [webinar]. CERIC. https://ceric.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Reinekke-Lengelle-Presentation-CERIC-Webinar-Career-Writing-2019.pdf

Young, S. (2019, October 14). The growth in vague roles. https://www.samyoung.co.nz/2019/10/the-growth-in-vague-roles.html

read more "Career clusters and vague roles"