Pages

Monday, 3 July 2023

My career influences

Another career exercise that can work quite well either for students or for clients is to get them to reflecting on those mentors or influencers who have affected where they are currently. How those "career shapers" have had an effect. Students/clients may draw, take photos (then tell a story), or somehow represent those who have been important influences on their career. This may take the form of a mindmap of networked roles or relationships (see accompanying illustration), a map of our personal terrain; a lego model of important people in our lives; a series of photos on a phone with a guiding story. The career influences may connect with an identifiable theory. Or may not.

Before debriefing the client/student, more depth may be gained from discussing their ideas with whanau (we should use our judgement here). The premise of the exercise is to highlight importance for the client. Then to listen to the explanation, and to consider asking some prompt questions, such as what did the influences do? What worked? What did not work? What was truly valuable? And how did we repay their gifts?

The anonymised image accompanying this post used Super’s Career Rainbow (1992) as the creator's inspiration, mapping a variety of their life roles. Part of the story accompanying the mind map (Buzan, 1988) was "I have an extensive, sparse network with many weak ties which also gives it a level of density as many of my networks interconnect as is illustrated by the dotted lines (Inkson et al, 2015)", continuing with it "is in the area of my new career where my existing networks are weakest", but they are seeking "a mentor to reap the benefits as outlined by Kram (1985)". 

The creator goes on to say that their family makes mention that they are continually "bumping into someone I know, they are yet to appreciate how valuable my network might be to them in the future" and has been "described 'as the most relentless connector I've ever met, you join dots, causes, people, whanau, communities, resources, ideas and systems in a way that mutually benefits all involved'".

The insights for both client and practitioner from doing such work is clear to see.


Sam & Eleanor

References:

Buzan, T. (1988).  Super-Creativity. St. Martin's Press

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

Kram, K. E. (1985). Mentoring at Work: Developmental relationships in organizational life. Scott Foresman.

Super, D. E. (1992). Chapter 2: Toward a comprehensive theory of career development. In D. H. Montross, C. J. Shinkman (Eds.), Career Development: Theory and practice (pp. 35-64). Charles C. Thomas.

* Eleanor Blakey kindly assisted with the material for this post

No comments :

Post a Comment

Thanks for your feedback. The elves will post it shortly.