Category: Open Diary

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AI Employability Open Diary

Protean Career A Bibliographic Review

Since the beginning, my career has been oriented towards the field of people and culture. When I started my psychology degree and got my first internship in HR (2010), I was fascinated by the universe that opened up, blending business, marketing, and technology with human behaviour. But it was only a few years ago, during my master’s (2019), that I began to take an interest in career management.

The field of Human Resources has similarities with career management, to the extent that a quite natural move for HR professionals, after years of dedication to HR, is to transition to the field of career management. Both deal with the work relationship between individuals and companies, but each has a specific interest and perspective:

  • The HR management perspective works for a company. The goal is to get employees to deliver the maximum value to a corporation. To achieve this, they recruit the best employees, train their skills, and motivate them to stay and produce more.
  • The career management perspective works for the employees/professionals. The goal is to make companies/clients see the maximum value in them, developing the employability and brand of the individual.

During my master’s, I came across a human resources management author who introduced the term “Protean Career” for the first time. According to Hall (1976), there is a tendency in people to use their own success criteria, usually focusing on self-realization and happiness, as opposed to the values emphasized in the traditional career era where the focus was on external conditions such as salary, hierarchical level, and status. From this perspective, a career is seen as a sequence of lifelong work experiences that enable personal satisfaction and psychological success.

With this career view, Hall (1976) developed the concept of the Protean Career, in analogy to the mythological figure Proteus, who has the ability to change shape at will. People start to value the freedom to develop and find challenges not only in a wide variety of companies but also in all spheres of human experience. The shift toward personal fulfilment is its core value.

In this perspective, a career should be reinvented from time to time and becomes directed by individuals rather than organizations.

The Protean Career requires organizations to have a humanized and flexible management, considering the individual needs and values of each professional. From the professionals’ perspective, it should be seen as one where the individual is responsible for constant improvement, knowledge, self-awareness, as well as the ability to adapt to changes due to personal needs or environmental circumstances.

The Protean Career is shaped by the individual’s own needs, goals, and values, not by organizational structures or received ideas from a company’s professional development programs.

In this historical moment where AI manages a significant portion of operational and repetitive tasks, the Protean Career model becomes even more advantageous. Lifelong learning remains paramount, emphasizing the importance of self-directed and relational learning in facing professional challenges. The essence lies in cultivating a diverse repertoire, where the ability to pose insightful questions outweighs the mere possession of answers, given that AI is readily available to provide them. In the Protean Career, the focus shifts from owning knowledge to mastering the art of questioning, enabling continuous adaptation and a proactive approach to change.

Success factors have changed from:

know-how ———-> learn-how

job security ———> employability

work self ———> whole self

  • Work is an important part of your personal identity. For example, you can reinvent yourself and reshape your work and career around family priorities.
  • The main goal is always a psychological success: feeling well is a priority. Being well, we solve the rest.

It’s worth arguing, however, that although the Protean Career approach emphasizes that individuals should be responsible for their career development and that people start to seek and value psychological success, not all workers have the necessary requirements to assume a career with these characteristics, as they feel the need for external support (Hall, 2002).

With this perspective and inspiration, I have been developing my own career self-management model based on three pillars:

  • Mental health at work and emotional intelligence.
  • Productivity: organization, execution, and planning.
  • Employability.

The objective is to provide a holistic career self-management system encompassing methodologies, habits, and tools. I’ve been offering this solution for approximately 3 years through weekly meetings, with the process spanning around 1 year for each professional.

This is a dynamic system continually refined through my ongoing learning and experiences. You can explore the framework here.

References:

Enache, M. , Sallan, J. M. , Simo, P. , & Fernandez, V. (2011). Examining the impact of protean and boundaryless career attitudes upon subjective career success. Journal of Management & Organization, 17(4),459-473.

Gerber, M, Wittekind, A, Grote, G, Conway, N. , & Guest, D (2009). Generalizability of career orientations: A comparative study in Switzerland and Great Britain. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(4),779-801.

Hall, D. T. (1976). Careers in Organizations. California: Goodyear Pub, Pacific Palisades.

Hall, D. T. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1995). The New Career Contract – Developing The Whole Person At Midlife And Beyond. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47(3),269-289.

Hall, D. T. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1996). Long live the career. In The career is dead – Long live the career; 1-12, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Hall, D. T. , & Moss, J. E. (1998). The new Protean career contract: Helping organizations and employees adapt. Organizational Dynamics, 26(3),22-37.

Hall, D. T. (2002). Careers in and out organizations. London: Sage Publications.

Hall, D. T. (2004). The protean career: A quarter-century journey. Vocational Behavior, 65,1-13

Inkson, K. (2006). Protean and boundaryless careers as metaphors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69(1),48-63

McDonald P. , Brown K. , & Bradley, L. (2005). Have traditional career paths given way to protean ones? Evidence from senior managers in the Australian public sector. Career Development International, 10,109-129.

Categories
Open Diary Well-being

For not-so-good days: my survival kit (part 2)

It’s been about three weeks since I last wrote. I don’t really know how to start again. I’ve had not only not-so-good days but also the hardest days of my life – I said goodbye to my great love, Floki.

It was the strongest blow of my entire life. I saw my soul tremble, inflamed. Floki was the being that taught me the most in life. With him, I learned about consent, patience, and the purest and most genuine love, the kind that asks for nothing in return and gives itself completely. I could write a book about the size of my love for him. Because of him, I am vegan today. Because of him, I learned to enjoy the most important things in life: a couch, a coffee, a sunset, having health and vitality, listening to birds, looking at the one we love, and feeling truly complete and grateful.

Floki passed away on the morning of April 1, 2003. His young heart could no longer bear its size, which had grown due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a hereditary condition somewhat common in some breeds of cats.

Floki was the most loved cat in the world. He was and always will be. Even at the time of his passing, I learned from him.

He had not been eating well for the past few weeks. For months, he was no longer interested in playing, even though he had enjoyed hunting and catching his prey all his life, which we tossed up with a toy stick. He was no longer living well. In the last week, he weighed only 3.5 kg, which for a large cat was half his weight. I suffered with him. Even on his last day, he had the strength to wake us up at his usual time, 5 am, made biscuits, purr, and touch my face with all his affection. I cried because I knew it would be the last time, and he literally wiped away my tears (actually, he licked them away).

Soon after, he approached the window, and as if inviting us, we watched the sunrise together, me, him, and João. Perhaps the most beautiful moment of our entire life. We cried, but with so much love in our hearts, that his longing was just one of the many emotions we felt.

Floki and his favourite spot. I always remember him when I’m there.

The two weeks of life promised by the doctor would be through medication, another medication among the four that he was already taking. It was not fair to him. His tired eyes and weak body could no longer bear the strain of dodging so many medications. It was better to cure him forever than to prolong his pain for days.

My love for him is proportional to the pain of not having him around. It hurts so much, and my resolute mind tries to find ways to solve grief, avoid pain, and find a solution, but when it comes to Floki, he even had something to teach me about that.

I learned to recognize that resolute voice inside of me and notice that it doesn’t solve all the challenges and situations that I face in my life. Many times, it’s about feeling, not thinking.

The loss of Floki made me realize that there is no solution to everything. Accepting, conforming, and living through the period of pain with all its intensity may be the only way to go. This path, unlike the one I’m used to taking, is not the most creative, optimistic, or energizing, but it is the most natural, powerful, healthy, and vulnerable expression of love that I have in my heart.

With love,
Karina.

Categories
Book inspiration Leadership and HR Open Diary Well-being

What the pandemic sabbatical year has done for me

The year was 2019, my husband received an offer to work in Stockholm and after a few months, we were in Scandinavian lands.

I’ve always had the desire to take some time just to study. I had been working in HR for 10 years without interruption and felt that my undergraduate degree in Psychologist, MBA, eventual courses and books didn’t answer my questions. Perhaps because of the volume of work, I felt that I wasn’t able to digest all the content I was consuming and enjoy it in practice.

Then, I saw this opportunity as almost a calling to be able to dedicate myself to answering these questions. Below I recap the 3 big questions I had about my career that this time has brought me answers.

also good for catching up on my reading
Question 1: How do I balance (is there a balance?) the interests of the employer and the employee in my role in HR and as a leader?

Working in the people area, I sometimes found myself in a kind of tug-of-war. At one time I defended the interests of the company (that’s what I was there for, isn’t it?) and at another time I defended the interests of employees, and many times these positions were conflicting.

Actually, I felt that I lived in a kind of identity conflict, many times I didn’t feel truly authentic with the decisions I made. There was a piece missing, but at the time I believed I was missing a decision: I should decide “which side I was on”. I believe that every HR professional feels that way at some point. “Who do I work for?” is a question that eventually floats through our tumultuous minds.

Perhaps this conflict is more internal than practical, but that tension – as they say in Holocracy – has always been there. 

-A manager leaves the company

-The company offers Anna this position

-She has always wanted to be an expert in another sector. She has another career ambition.

-Anna is happy with the offer. It’s a good salary.

-Anna freezes her ambition because the company has designed another scenario. Anna gives up what she most identifies with because the company has another commercial interest.

In this scenario, I could:

-Defend the advantages of the vacancy, enthusiastically communicate the promotion, and ignore that I know Anna has another career ambition. If Anna brings it up, I could quickly get around it, after all, it’s an opportunity that the company is giving, so enjoy it!

or

-Defend the advantages of the vacancy and enthusiastically communicate the possibility of Anna’s promotion and salary increase. Covering all decision points, facilitating the visual analysis of Anna’s professional trajectory, her current possibilities and the hypothetical scenario where she would accept the offer, thus facilitating her clarity and decision. And then, Anna has the option of not accepting or still negotiating.

In this scenario, I don’t take sides. I change the “OR” to “AND“.

What usually happens is that HR protects the interests of the company. After all, I am not a career coach at the company.

The second position is more congruent with what I always believed because as I always say, our career comes before our current position. However, our interests change, and sometimes the world shows us another path. But it’s not about choosing between planning and adapting, there is no quick and easy answer to multifaceted scenarios, like career and life situations.

It is important to say that for most people in the job market it is a privilege to have options in their careers or even aspire to a different position, unfortunately. This conversation is not possible for everyone in a company, much less for most. In this typical scenario, all the offers given by the company are “opportunities”, almost like a gift that we should be grateful for and value. In some realities we can look for possibilities, in others, we have to build almost from scratch the chances to have these career options.

Understanding the answer to this question was simpler than I thought. Maybe because I had never consciously thought about the question. I shouldn’t have to prefer one side and “play against” the other. I should manage this organizational paradox. It doesn’t have to be contradictory for me to be genuinely interested in the careers of people within a company while preserving the organization’s business interests. I don’t have to choose, I can have both.

It was curious that, in learning to manage this paradox, I allowed myself to open up to doing this exercise in many other aspects of my life. By harmonizing opposites and ambiguity, I don’t need to abandon one side and decide on another. Instead, I seek connection: what do these ideas have in common?

“The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Today I feel that this clarity makes me more transparent in terms of expectations, for both sides.

Question 2 – How to create a working system (my routine) for me that brings me results, health, and satisfaction;

Self-perception made me realize that I need structure and order to understand and be able to process tasks and learning. 

I need to feel my feet on the ground.

Before, I found myself following other people’s schedules, starting projects without finishing, feeling bored and then jumping to another activity without understanding why and mainly, working without respecting my energy level. In reality, it’s not that I didn’t understand, I didn’t even know what I should understand, just like the previous question, there wasn’t even a question to be answered.

I could create a working system that:

  • respects my energy level: I can get the most out of my creativity and disposition;
  • starts and ends my day intuitively, not as vague as it once was
  • ensures that I see everything that is important and “saves” my attention on what is a priority;
  • provides clarity about my expectations and consequently better manages others’ expectations of my work;
  • allows me to dream big! Having big dreams and achievable goals, simply because today I can have consistency;
  • last but not least: I never had a good memory, and I get involved a lot in the projects I propose. So I need a system which works for me, protecting me from distractions and supporting my activities, I no longer need to spend energy remembering and searching for what I need.

What gave me these answers? I delved deeper into the study of productivity and self-awareness about how my body and mind work. This involves many topics such as the GTD method, Notion, Google Calendar, circadian cycle, sleep hygiene, how to plan, organize and execute better, reflecting on my physical environment, etc. Productivity is a combination of elements that, when you look at it intentionally, you can notice many factors that influence your performance.

Question 3 – What do I best deliver to the world with ease and pleasure?

This question led me to one of the characteristics I most admire in people, brands, and projects: authenticity. Looking inward is like a muscle, a habit that, when it starts, turns into an attitude towards life.

Internal, intangible, and subjective. My values. My edge, my limits.

The quest for a more authentic life is the search to be comfortable in our own skin. Feel free to be who we are in essence. That means boosting and illuminating our potential and dancing and playing with our incompleteness.

On this path of self-discovery, I realized that this journey is an eternal process of discovering and building at the same time. Maybe we’ll never know if we found ourselves or built ourselves. It is an ambidextrous process.

All this to be able to speak no more calmly for proposals and projects. In an optimistic mind, with a thousand different ideas bubbling up, having this “edge”, makes me a faster and more accurate decision-maker.

A good starting point was looking for the common points in these questions:

  • What we like to do
  • What we are good at
  • What the world needs

As well as other career questions, I believe that the common denominator of these answers is to be written in pencil. After all, while I find myself, I also build myself, it is a lifelong process. And of course, the world evolves too. 

Obs. This post refers to a personal experience and not advice. Each experience and reality is unique and should not be a comparison parameter just to inspire other points of view. 

REFERENCES: