Career inaction

Most of us are likely to have phases of action and inaction throughout our various career stages, perhaps not necessarily taking action when we should. Career inaction is now a career theory of Verbruggen & De Vos (2020), where those of us with "turnover intentions [may] stay in their organization, and people with entrepreneurial desires often turn out to be wantrepreneurs" (p. 376; emphasis added). I found 'wantrepreneurs' a very evocative term, for those of us who are all talk and no trousers. We get stuck in 'inaction', where we fail "to act sufficiently on a desired change" (p. 376), which may eventually lead to "life regret" (p. 377).

However, career inaction might also be what helps to keep the world of work relatively stable; perhaps why new trends may be slower to take hold than predicted (Dries & Verbruggen, 2022; Verbruggen & De Vos, 2020) - such as the boundaryless career (read more on boundaryless careers here). 

But what keeps us in work which we have grown out of? Well, it appears that uncertainty avoidance - personal or cultural - seems to have a part to play (Dries & Verbruggen, 2022; read more here), which appears to relate to some identity concepts, specifically "the 'striving me,' the 'comfortable me,' and the 'uncertain me'" (Rogiers et al., 2022, p. 10):

• Comfortable me: where we are "comforted and stuck by the benefits (e.g., salary, seniority, pension schemes), familiarity, and mastery (e.g., knowing what to expect, knowing what to do)" in our work (Rogiers et al., 2022, p. 6)
• Striving me: This is where we might be short on "career progress and [feel] a need for continuous learning", with a "mismatch between [our] lived career experience and [our] developmental needs" (p. 6). We need to change something to scratch a self-developmental itch 
• Uncertain me: where we feel "uncertainty and fear, despite [our] desire for change" (p. 6). This seems similar to Hofstede's "Uncertainty avoidance, or the degree to which people in a country prefer structured over unstructured situations: from relatively flexible to extremely rigid" (1989, p. 392), where we "feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these" (Dries & Verbuggen, 2022, p. 65, citing Hofstede, 2001).

If we are largely comfortable me, there is little need for change. If we are largely striving me, we will probably build in our own change. But an uncertain me may see more risk than in fact there is. 

So how might we make a largely uncertain me see a way to safely change? Seeing a career coach seems a logical way to shift an uncertain me from inaction to action (Dries & Verbuggen, 2022), but also having corporate initiatives such organisational internships where staff can try out new roles for three or six months would help those who are feeling stuck to try before they buy. 

Sam

References:

Dries, N., & Verbruggen, M. (2023). Chapter 8: Career Inaction in Belgium: When you want to make a career change, but you just … don’t. In J. Briscoe, M. Dickmann, D. T. Hall, W. Mayrhofer, E. Parry (Eds.), Understanding Careers Around the Globe (pp. 64-72). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Hofstede, G. (1989). Organising for Cultural Diversity. European Management Journal, 7(4), 390-397. https://doi.org/10.1016/0263-2373(89)90075-3

Rogiers, P., Verbruggen, M., D'Huyvetter, P., & Abraham, E. (2022). Stuck between me: A psychodynamic view into career inaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 136, 103745, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2022.103745

Verbruggen, M., & De Vos, A. (2019). When People Don’t Realize Their Career Desires: Toward a Theory of Career Inaction. Academy of Management Review, 45(2), 376-394. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2017.0196

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Hofstede's cultural dimensions

Culture is a shared societal system of values and norms, which - when taken together - are a "design for living" (Rao, 2008, p. 308). Our values are abstract ideas about what we believe to be good, right, and desirable; whereas our norms are our social rules and guidelines which set out what is 'appropriate behaviour' in most situations. Our values give us context for our norms, helping us establish and justify our culture society (Rao, 2008). And a society? Well, that is a group of people who share a common set of values and norms!

Geert Hofstede worked for IBM, in HR. When doing his PhD, he decided to turn the lens inward on his own work environment, so studied - over 11 years - the 166,000 IBM staff who were working across more than 50 countries. He undertook this study in 1974, published his results in 1984 (and I am guessing that he had access to an IBM mainframe computer to crunch his numbers!). Because he had such a large data set, he was able to identify six cultural or value dimensions which distinguish one national culture from another. This became a framework for understanding how basic values motivate organisational behaviour.

There are four key cultural dimensions which have stood the test of time. They are (Daft, 2008):

• Power distance: "Power distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally." Cultures that endorse low power distance expect and accept power relations that are more consultative or democratic. People relate to one another more as equals regardless of formal positions. Subordinates are more comfortable with and demand the right to contribute to and critique the decision making of those in power. In high power distance countries, less powerful accept power relations that are more autocratic and paternalistic. Subordinates acknowledge the power of others simply based on where they are situated in certain formal, hierarchical positions. As such, the power distance index Hofstede defines does not reflect an objective difference in power distribution, but rather the way people perceive power differences (p. 340). 
• Uncertainty avoidance: "a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity". "It reflects the extent to which members of a society attempt to cope with anxiety by minimizing uncertainty. People in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance tend to be more emotional. They try to minimize the occurrence of unknown and unusual circumstances and to proceed with careful changes step by step by planning and by implementing rules, laws and regulations. In contrast, low uncertainty avoidance cultures accept and feel comfortable in unstructured situations or changeable environments and try to have as few rules as possible. People in these cultures tend to be more pragmatic, they are more tolerant of change (p. 340). 
• Individualism vs. collectivism: "The degree to which individuals are integrated into groups". In individualistic societies, the stress is put on personal achievements and individual rights. People are expected to stand up for themselves and their immediate family, and to choose their own affiliations. In contrast, in collectivist societies, individuals act predominantly as members of a lifelong and cohesive group or organization (note: "The word collectivism in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state"). People have large extended families, which are used as a protection in exchange for unquestioning loyalty (p. 340). 
• Masculinity vs. femininity: "The distribution of emotional roles between the genders". Masculine cultures' values are competitiveness, assertiveness, materialism, ambition and power, whereas feminine cultures place more value on relationships and quality of life. In masculine cultures, the differences between gender roles are more dramatic and less fluid than in feminine cultures where men and women have the same values emphasizing modesty and caring. As a result of the taboo on sexuality in many cultures, particularly masculine ones, and because of the obvious gender generalizations implied by Hofstede's terminology, this dimension is often renamed by users of Hofstede's work, e.g. to Quantity of Life vs. Quality of Life (p. 340). On reflection, I would prefer that these terms were labelled something less gendered (such as 'task' versus 'relationship'), but this is what we have.

Further, uncertainty avoidance is also about how those in a cultural group are comfortable - or uncomfortable - with uncertainty and ambiguity; and so, how much we support beliefs and behaviours which promise us uncertainty and difference; or promise us certainty and conformity (CSU San Marcos, 2004; Daft, 2008). We might also want to think about how much we, in our national or organisational culture, may feel threatened by ambiguous, uncertain situations; do people around us try to avoid feeling less certain by imposing structure and rules? Or do they say "woohoo, yeah!" and leap right in?

These are very interesting dimensions to consider. And collectively they help us understand just where we feel our cultural values are in sync; or not.

Sam

References:

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

CSU San Marcos (2004). Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture.  http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3542579/hofstedes-theory

Rao, P. L. (2008). International Human Resource Management: Text and Cases. Excel Books India.

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What does an ideal teaching moment look like?

I read an article by James Derounian in the Guardian on what his "idea of a (utopian) university" looked like recently.

In reading that article, I started thinking about what my ideal teaching moment looked like (of course, then I started thinking about what my ideal learning moment looked like, but I will postpone that thinking for a future post). For this time, I will think about what I need to see in my learners to know that my teaching has done what it should. That fabulous "Aha!" moment.

I want to see that learners have taken the course materials and explored beyond them. I want to see curiousity, exploration, risk, testing of new ideas, uncertainty, experimentation, over-turning of old ideas that don't make the grade and seeding of new ideas that will work for now. I want to see theories applied to known situations and used to test potential situations. I want to see independence of thought. I want learners to give me a map back to where they have got their new ideas from and honour those whose ideas are worthy of repitition. I want them to be passionate in their thirst for new learning. I want them to make learning a fire that burns within them, a Tonto that will ride shotgun with them on their knowledge quest for the rest of their lives.

I want their eyes to light up when they are challenged with something new, and understand that they can work through this new thing. To have the confidence and the grounding to know that, like Creighton Abrams said, this is just like eating an elephant... a bite at a time.

I want their learning behaviours to be really active, where, if I asked them what they were doing and how engaged they were with their material, they would say that they wrote their own study questions and answers; that they compared and contrasted; that they closed their notes and tested how much they remembered; that they asked themselves “How does this impact my life?”

Quite a big ask really, now I come to think of it!

• Reference: Derounian, James (20 September 2013). The idea of a (utopian) university. Retrieved 26 September 2013 from http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/sep/20/new-academic-year-university-utopia?j=50280&e=sam@samyoung.co.nz&l=351_HTML&u=2716443&mid=1059027&jb=9&CMP=&et_cid=50280&et_rid=4915806&Linkid=The+idea+of+a+%28utopian%29+university

Sam

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