Planned Happenstance (Mitchell et al. 1999)
Introduction
This is one of the most popular and well-used career theories. It is a descriptive theory, meaning that it does just literally describe how people’s careers actually unfold. This differs from many of the theories we cover in this book which are prescriptive theories – those that give advice on what you should be doing – prescribing how you can do it better. Of course, as career practitioners, we want to help our clients do things better – that is the whole point. But the advice we give needs to be relatable – it needs to build on their natural or instinctive approaches rather than try to replace them altogether. And that’s where the magic of Planned Happenstance lies.
The starting point of Planned Happenstance is the understanding that most people’s career paths are a bit haphazard. Traditional advice advocates specific career goals and five year plans, but in reality, very few of us are that clear sighted, and, even those who have identified career goals often find themselves facing unexpected decisions as life doesn’t always go to plan.
The theory of Planned Happenstance acknowledges the messiness of our lives and our careers and the huge impact and potential that can come from chance opportunities. But it also buys into the idea that you can make your own luck – you can make choices about what you look for, what you see and how you respond to what comes your way.
The key message of the theory is that we should make sure that we look out for chance opportunities, identify them and then capitalize on them. This mindset will then allow us to make the most of whatever life throws at us. It can also make us more resilient. It shows that goals will always change, so if you don’t end up exactly where you planned to be, it isn’t necessarily a problem, embracing the principle that when one door closes another one opens.
The authors of this approach have identified
five key principles that we need to adopt to embrace a planned happenstance
approach to career development.
Five Planned Happenstance Principles
Be curious. The more you open your mind the more chances
will come your way. Be interested to find out about different careers,
different approaches, different ideas and this might lead to more ideas and
opportunities.
Be flexible. Goals and plans can be useful – we know that
they make us more motivated and resilient, but if we stick to them too rigidly,
they can start to limit us. It’s great to have some ideas of goals, and some
plans to get there, but it’s important to recognize that there is no single
perfect job, and not just one way to get to it. If opportunities come your way,
you need to be able to change your mindset and take advantage of them, even if
it takes you away from your set course.
Take risks. Things won’t always work out, but that’s
fine. Maybe it won’t work out, but maybe it will, and if you don’t try, you
will never know.
Be positive. Every opportunity will teach you something.
Even the worst job, the most humiliating job interview, the most excruciating
networking opportunity can push us forward, allowing us to understand a bit
more about ourselves and the world.
Don’t give up. Things don’t usually come easily. Most of us
have to work and try and fail and then work and try again. To reap the rewards
you want, you need to stick with it and keep going, but if you focus solely on
the goal at the end, you may miss out on some interesting and enjoyable life
experiences that you encounter on the journey.
Using Planned Happenstance in Practice
1) To
reassure clients. This can be a good theory to share explicitly with
clients whose careers have not gone quite to plan. Knowing that they own
experience is reflected in an actual theory can help to normalise and validate
the choices they have made. Sharing the theory can get clients to see that a
seemingly haphazard or incoherent career path is very natural, and does not
indicate that anything has gone wrong or that they have failed in any way.
2) To
help clients to be more flexible The theory can also be useful to share
with clients who seem quite rigid in their approach to career planning. Clients
who seem either unhelpfully fixed on a particular goal, or anxious about trying
to find the ‘right’ career path can learn that some flexibility is helpful and
that spontaneity has an important part to play in any good career path.
3) To
increase our empathy as practitioners The theory is a helpful reminder for
practitioners that being undecided is not necessarily a problem and that as
long as people are open to ideas and making an effort to seek out opportunities,
the goals are likely to come.
4) To
structure career education. The five principles needed to spot, identify
and capitalise on chance opportunities can be used to help structure career
education. You could take the principles in turn and identify some activities
aimed at boosting your clients’ awareness of the value of each. Here are some
examples:
i)
To pique curiosity, you could find some interesting
stories of alumni from their school or course who have gone on to interesting
or unexpected positions.
ii)
To encourage flexibility, you could ask your clients to
reflect on a time in their lives when one door opened because another one
closed.
iii)
To boost risk taking, you could get clients to identify
a particular risk they are anxious about and push them to really examine the nature
and severity of the risks. Invite them to imagine that they took the risk and
then to think about their feared outcome, asking them to articulate what would
be the worst that could happen. Encourage them to think about the consequences,
and then to consider how they would cope if their worst fears came true. Sometimes
this exercise will confirm that the risk is not worth taking. More often than
not, it demonstrates that the negative consequences aren’t actually that bad.
iv)
To encourage some positivity, you could use some
techniques from positive psychology that have been shown to boost our moods.
One nice one is the ‘Three Good Things’ exercise, where people need to identify
three good things that happened to them each day for the course of a week.
v)
Finally, to boost resilience, you could try and
encourage your clients to make clear distinctions between aspects of their
lives that are within their control and those which are not. You could ask your
client to reflect on a recent negative experience - perhaps a job they applied
for and didn’t get. Encourage them to unpick what exactly happened – what led
to their rejection, and to identify the aspects that they were in control of
(for example, turning up to the interview on time, doing sufficient
preparation) and those they weren’t (such as who the other candidates were).
Further reading:
Mitchell, K. E., Al Levin, S., & Krumboltz, J. D. (1999). Planned happenstance: Constructing unexpected career opportunities. Journal of counseling & Development, 77(2), 115-124.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1999.tb02431.x?casa_token=UQgxNa4ZYUIAAAAA:UWtOy2C6h-E844ZioW3TiP1pp6V0UporfZmnFdOhwHLTXxJtFUJ8aBictrx4pIapm4C38-EsFaNn1TGW
