I've recently found a paper that reports the results of a huge meta-analysis of the predictors of career success. It's not hugely recent, having been published in 2005, but as the sample size goes up to 45,000, I think it's still worth thinking about!
It looked at both extrinsic and intrinsic career success. Extrinsic was defined as both salary and promotion, and intrinsic was measured by career satisfaction.
So, what did they find?
Well, if you're after promotion, then you should be feeling pretty smug if your MBTI profile includes the letters E and T, as extraversion and logic are both strong predictors of a promotion. But if you're not blessed with this personality type, then you can up your chances if you get loads of training and work long hours.
Now if it's a high salary you're after (and it's interesting to learn that these two aren't as closely linked as you might imagine - with a correlation of 0.18), your cognitive ability is key, along with your educational level, the number of hours you work, and the number of years of experience you've clocked up.
If you want to be happy at work (and again there is a significant but relatively small correlation between satisfaction and both salary and promotion), an extravert personality will stand you in good stead (nearly all work environments involve a substantial degree of social interaction which satisfies the more sociable amongst us). On top of this, the amount of training you get, support from your supervisor and organisation, the degree to which you have engaged in active career planning, and an internal locus of control are all likely to keep you chipper at work.
One interesting gender finding is that the link between education and success is stronger for women than for men. Make of that what you will!
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that personality has such a strong link with these measures of success. I feel a bit uncomfortable about the notion that these are traits that we are born with, and that to some degree, your chances are limited or enhanced from an early age. And what do we, as coaches, do with this information? "I see you're an introvert, how very unfortunate...".
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Life Events and Career Change: "I'm Adam, I'm a marine"
I've just read a really moving study on career changes that are caused by traumatic life events. The study looked in particular at ex-servicemen and women who have had to change their career direction following injury sustained in the line of duty. This was a great group of people to look at for two reasons. First, the life events involved were pretty dramatic. Many of us have faltered from our career paths throughout our working lives, but not many of us can blame our career changes on the fact that our legs were blown off in Iraq. The other reason that this group of participants were so interesting is that the professional identity of service men and women tends to be very tightly bound with their personal identity: they are their job, so a forced change is likely to be very challenging for them to cope with.
It's a qualitative study, so although you can't be confident about its generalisability, you get some really powerful insights. One participant had been a marine and his professional and personal identities were clearly very tightly linked. He said that he always introduced himself as "I'm Adam, I'm a marine" and now that he wasn't a marine any more, he didn't know what to say.
The researchers found that the career change left these participants lost in the world: their fundamental assumptions and understanding about what the world was and how they fitted into it were shattered.
The main message from the study was that these individuals needed to re-build a coherent narrative that linked their past lives to their future lives. They needed to find some thread that ran throughout their careers, that told a sensible story to explain how their new career built on, or at least sat comfortably with their old career. How they as a single individual could autentically be both a soldier and a teacher / police officer / career coach.
I don't think I've coached anyone who has had an experience such as this, but can imagine that a narrative approach to the interview could be really helpful.
It's a qualitative study, so although you can't be confident about its generalisability, you get some really powerful insights. One participant had been a marine and his professional and personal identities were clearly very tightly linked. He said that he always introduced himself as "I'm Adam, I'm a marine" and now that he wasn't a marine any more, he didn't know what to say.
The researchers found that the career change left these participants lost in the world: their fundamental assumptions and understanding about what the world was and how they fitted into it were shattered.
The main message from the study was that these individuals needed to re-build a coherent narrative that linked their past lives to their future lives. They needed to find some thread that ran throughout their careers, that told a sensible story to explain how their new career built on, or at least sat comfortably with their old career. How they as a single individual could autentically be both a soldier and a teacher / police officer / career coach.
I don't think I've coached anyone who has had an experience such as this, but can imagine that a narrative approach to the interview could be really helpful.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Mother hood and part time working
I've been a bit silent on my blog for a few weeks now, but I was just doing some research in to the impact that motherhood has on women's careers and found some interesting bits to share.
One that irked, but perhaps didn't surprise me, was the evidence about part time workers. The first piece of information was about the workers themselves, and suggested that women are so very grateful at being allowed to work flexibly (or possibly so concerned to make a success of their flexible arrangements), that they put in more hours than they are paid for, and that because they don't suffer from work-fatigue, they are more productive per hour. Supervisor ratings for part time workers also tend to be higher. BUT when the researchers asked managers in general terms about part timers, they reported that they they are thought to be less committed, harder to motivate, harder to manage and less caring about their jobs, their departments and their customers. They tend to receive lower pay, fewer fringe benefits, fewer opportunities for promotion and less training and because they are less likely to be members of a Union, they have lower job security.
One that irked, but perhaps didn't surprise me, was the evidence about part time workers. The first piece of information was about the workers themselves, and suggested that women are so very grateful at being allowed to work flexibly (or possibly so concerned to make a success of their flexible arrangements), that they put in more hours than they are paid for, and that because they don't suffer from work-fatigue, they are more productive per hour. Supervisor ratings for part time workers also tend to be higher. BUT when the researchers asked managers in general terms about part timers, they reported that they they are thought to be less committed, harder to motivate, harder to manage and less caring about their jobs, their departments and their customers. They tend to receive lower pay, fewer fringe benefits, fewer opportunities for promotion and less training and because they are less likely to be members of a Union, they have lower job security.
Managers also reported that they thought that mothers (full time or part time) were more likely to suffer from work-family conflict (e.g. having to leave work early to pick up children, taking days off when the children are sick) than either fathers or non-mothers, and that this (NB the perception not the reality) has a knock-on effect on their chances of promotion.
Humph, grump, grump etc.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
More on Job Satisfaction
I've spent the day submerged in job satisfaction data so am bringing you some of the choicest fruits of my labour.
There is LOADS written about this. Papers about specific groups of society, different facets of satisfaction and different occupational groups (especially nurses, for some reason!). I think that one reason that the topic is so popular is that it touches on a wide range of academic disciplines. The topic has some currency for Occupational Psychologists, Human Resources, Economists and Business Management researchers as well as our very own vocational psychologists, so the topic is dealt with from many different angles. Including molecular genetics, and I can now reveal that there are 2 genetic markers, dopamine receptor gene DRD4 VNTR and serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR, that are weakly but significantly associated with job satisfaction. But you probably knew that already!
So, what have I found of interest? One really interesting study (Abele and Spurk 2009) looked at the way that objective and subjective measures of career success interrelate. Objective measures would be things like pay and heirarchical position and subjective measures are split in to comparisons with others (how well you feel that you are doing compared to your peers), and job satisfaction. So, no great surprise that objective success didn't particularly increase job satisfaction, but what was quite interesting was that both subjective measures influenced the objective success which means that if you're happy in work, AND if you think that you're doing well compared to your peers, you are likely to end up with a higher salary and more promotions.
Another, perhaps more controversial paper looked at jobs satisfaction for men and women in a range of professions. Cassidy and Warren found that men and women are both happier in occupations that are dominated by their own sex (so women in female-dominated jobs are happier than men in female dominated jobs), but that both sexes have greater job satisfaction in male dominated jobs. They suggest that the reason for this is all down to the notion that male-dominated jobs have higher status and that this makes employees more fulfilled at work.
The work factor that has the most impact on job satisfaction by miles is task variety, and this is linked to autonomy, in part because an autonomous worked has the flexibility to control their own task variety and move on to the next thing as soon as they are ready to. Also significant are colleagues, - not so much in terms of having a single close friend at work, but working in a harmonious community - (more important to women than men). Having a good relationship with your supervisor however doesn't make much difference.
The last one I'm going to quote is evidence around the culture of the organisation. This can have quite an impact, with the most positive cultures being those which are creative, fair and having a reputation for doing what they do well. Cultures that reduce the job satisfaction of their workers are those which are aggressive, and which focus on goal achievement and on beating the competition.
So much food for thought! I wonder what we as career coaches should do with all this data? In some ways this would be amazing stuff to be able to share will clients, but it's quite a lot for us to make sense of, let alone trying to communicate it in such a way that our clients could find it helpful. But I must say, I can't wait to try!
There is LOADS written about this. Papers about specific groups of society, different facets of satisfaction and different occupational groups (especially nurses, for some reason!). I think that one reason that the topic is so popular is that it touches on a wide range of academic disciplines. The topic has some currency for Occupational Psychologists, Human Resources, Economists and Business Management researchers as well as our very own vocational psychologists, so the topic is dealt with from many different angles. Including molecular genetics, and I can now reveal that there are 2 genetic markers, dopamine receptor gene DRD4 VNTR and serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR, that are weakly but significantly associated with job satisfaction. But you probably knew that already!
So, what have I found of interest? One really interesting study (Abele and Spurk 2009) looked at the way that objective and subjective measures of career success interrelate. Objective measures would be things like pay and heirarchical position and subjective measures are split in to comparisons with others (how well you feel that you are doing compared to your peers), and job satisfaction. So, no great surprise that objective success didn't particularly increase job satisfaction, but what was quite interesting was that both subjective measures influenced the objective success which means that if you're happy in work, AND if you think that you're doing well compared to your peers, you are likely to end up with a higher salary and more promotions.
Another, perhaps more controversial paper looked at jobs satisfaction for men and women in a range of professions. Cassidy and Warren found that men and women are both happier in occupations that are dominated by their own sex (so women in female-dominated jobs are happier than men in female dominated jobs), but that both sexes have greater job satisfaction in male dominated jobs. They suggest that the reason for this is all down to the notion that male-dominated jobs have higher status and that this makes employees more fulfilled at work.
The work factor that has the most impact on job satisfaction by miles is task variety, and this is linked to autonomy, in part because an autonomous worked has the flexibility to control their own task variety and move on to the next thing as soon as they are ready to. Also significant are colleagues, - not so much in terms of having a single close friend at work, but working in a harmonious community - (more important to women than men). Having a good relationship with your supervisor however doesn't make much difference.
The last one I'm going to quote is evidence around the culture of the organisation. This can have quite an impact, with the most positive cultures being those which are creative, fair and having a reputation for doing what they do well. Cultures that reduce the job satisfaction of their workers are those which are aggressive, and which focus on goal achievement and on beating the competition.
So much food for thought! I wonder what we as career coaches should do with all this data? In some ways this would be amazing stuff to be able to share will clients, but it's quite a lot for us to make sense of, let alone trying to communicate it in such a way that our clients could find it helpful. But I must say, I can't wait to try!
Friday, 2 December 2011
Goal Setting - how important is it?
I had the great pleasure of seeing , Tony Grant give a lecture today. He was a very engaging, very accomplished lecturer. He knows his psychology backwards and did a very good job of bringing in evidence from all sorts of psychological disciplines into coaching.
The main thrust if his session was about goals, and made me question the importance of goal setting in career guidance and coaching. Goal setting is one of the things that careers advisers often imagine is a key difference between the two career disciplines.
I recently published an article in Constructing the Future which outlines the evidence of the difference between career guidance and career coaching, and previous research suggests that although goal setting is often perceived to be a key difference (with goal setting being a more significant part of coaching than guidance), in reality, coaches and advisers would use goal setting in the same way: setting goals with clients who would benefit from goal setting, and not with those who wouldn't.
This was an explanation that I was quite happy with, but listening to Tony Grant has made me wonder.
Grant was suggesting that it's just not possible not to have no goals. Goals don't need to be big or long term, but they do underpin everything. Without goals, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed, or make it to the office, and those of us who claim not to have goals, are either not really understanding what goals are, or are being disingenuous.
And, having thought about it, I quite agree. So where does that leave our career interventions? Should we be conducting coaching or guidance sessions that don't start with goals? I begin to think not. And whether we are using the GROW model as a framework for a coaching session, or the Ali-Graham careers interview model, we aren't going to get our clients very far if we don't set goals both for what we're planning to achieve during our time together, and if we don't identify an end point to their current career thinking.
I like the idea that in the collaboration between coach and client, the client is responsible for the topic, and the coach is responsible for the process. I think I've concluded that the place we all need to start in every interaction is with the identification of these two levels of goals. And I think that without a goal for the session, the conversation is just a chat, and without a goal for the client's current career exploration, we are failing to take adequate responsibility for the process, and letting our clients down.
So what do you think? Is it possible to have a productive coaching or guidance conversation without goals? What would you do as a practitioner if your client was reluctant to set a goal during your session?
The main thrust if his session was about goals, and made me question the importance of goal setting in career guidance and coaching. Goal setting is one of the things that careers advisers often imagine is a key difference between the two career disciplines.
I recently published an article in Constructing the Future which outlines the evidence of the difference between career guidance and career coaching, and previous research suggests that although goal setting is often perceived to be a key difference (with goal setting being a more significant part of coaching than guidance), in reality, coaches and advisers would use goal setting in the same way: setting goals with clients who would benefit from goal setting, and not with those who wouldn't.
This was an explanation that I was quite happy with, but listening to Tony Grant has made me wonder.
Grant was suggesting that it's just not possible not to have no goals. Goals don't need to be big or long term, but they do underpin everything. Without goals, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed, or make it to the office, and those of us who claim not to have goals, are either not really understanding what goals are, or are being disingenuous.
And, having thought about it, I quite agree. So where does that leave our career interventions? Should we be conducting coaching or guidance sessions that don't start with goals? I begin to think not. And whether we are using the GROW model as a framework for a coaching session, or the Ali-Graham careers interview model, we aren't going to get our clients very far if we don't set goals both for what we're planning to achieve during our time together, and if we don't identify an end point to their current career thinking.
I like the idea that in the collaboration between coach and client, the client is responsible for the topic, and the coach is responsible for the process. I think I've concluded that the place we all need to start in every interaction is with the identification of these two levels of goals. And I think that without a goal for the session, the conversation is just a chat, and without a goal for the client's current career exploration, we are failing to take adequate responsibility for the process, and letting our clients down.
So what do you think? Is it possible to have a productive coaching or guidance conversation without goals? What would you do as a practitioner if your client was reluctant to set a goal during your session?
Monday, 28 November 2011
Because you're worth it
The pay of the wealthy in our society has barely been out of the press in the last couple of years. Bankers salaries and bonuses have been attracting horror for some time, but in the last couple of weeks there's been some stories about the relative pay of those at the top and those in the middle. Our bosses, it seems, have been getting richer, with the top bankers now earning 74 times the average wage in their organisation, compare to 14 times in 1980.
Our relationship with money, and more specifically salaries, I think is quite a complex one. I've been having a read of some of the careers literature that touches on salaries to find out exactly what we feel about what we earn.
Evidence shows us that salary has a tiny and non-significant correlation with job satisfaction, so it doesn't make us any happier in our work. It has a slightly larger correlation with life satisfaction - so although is won't make your work life any better, you could argue that you might want a higher salary not to improve your working week, but to allow you to enjoy yourself a little bit more at the weekends. Jobs that pay higher salaries are more likely to enhance some of the work environment qualities that lead to higher job satisfaction (such as task variety) but are likely to decrease some others (such as relationships with colleagues) so overally salary doesn't even indicate greater job satisfation, let alone bring it by itself.
So money neither brings nor symbolises greater work satisfaction.
Nor, as I was astonished to find out, does it even make you happier with your salary. Pay has only a small correlation with pay satisfaction, which means that the big cheeses in your firm earning more than 100k a year are no more content with their salaries than the lowly junior clerks on less than 20k. This is really counter-intuitive, but when I think about my own career history, it begins to make more sense to me.
I think that I've always been sort of content-ish with what I earn, even though my salary has gone up and down quite considerably in my working life. In fact the time when I have been most pleased with my salary was when I was 15 and played the piano for a local ballet class, earning nearly twice what some of my friends did in their Saturday shop jobs, but still the lowest paid job I've ever had. And I think the key here is that our satisfaction with our salaries is relative. It's not about "what do I earn?" it's about "what do other people in my community earn, and how do I compare?". There is plenty of evidence that it's pay differences that make people troubled about their own wealth rather than money itself -big differences between rich and poor in a society make for unhappy countries. And I don't know if this strikes a chord with you, but I most often question my salary when I am spending time with my management consultant / lawyer friends, rather than my usual public sector crowd.
There was one study that was conducted at Harvard, which asked whether the students would prefer to earn a particular high salary or to earn a lower sum of money, but be guaranteed that they were earning more than all their classmates. Almost without exception, the students choose the relative wealth rather than the absolute wealth.
So what's it all about? Why are so many of us so concerned with our salaries? Why is it important for us to earn money, more money than we did before and more money that other people?
I guess it's all about a feeling of self-worth. Enshrined in all aspects of our culture is that we pay more for better things, and salaries are perceived as no exception to this. The more you are paid, the better you are. So we strive for better pay not because it makes us happier, or more fulfilled, or because it leads to more interesting jobs, or because of what we can do with it, but simply because it makes us feel valuable. And hey, we're worth it.
Our relationship with money, and more specifically salaries, I think is quite a complex one. I've been having a read of some of the careers literature that touches on salaries to find out exactly what we feel about what we earn.
Evidence shows us that salary has a tiny and non-significant correlation with job satisfaction, so it doesn't make us any happier in our work. It has a slightly larger correlation with life satisfaction - so although is won't make your work life any better, you could argue that you might want a higher salary not to improve your working week, but to allow you to enjoy yourself a little bit more at the weekends. Jobs that pay higher salaries are more likely to enhance some of the work environment qualities that lead to higher job satisfaction (such as task variety) but are likely to decrease some others (such as relationships with colleagues) so overally salary doesn't even indicate greater job satisfation, let alone bring it by itself.
So money neither brings nor symbolises greater work satisfaction.
Nor, as I was astonished to find out, does it even make you happier with your salary. Pay has only a small correlation with pay satisfaction, which means that the big cheeses in your firm earning more than 100k a year are no more content with their salaries than the lowly junior clerks on less than 20k. This is really counter-intuitive, but when I think about my own career history, it begins to make more sense to me.
I think that I've always been sort of content-ish with what I earn, even though my salary has gone up and down quite considerably in my working life. In fact the time when I have been most pleased with my salary was when I was 15 and played the piano for a local ballet class, earning nearly twice what some of my friends did in their Saturday shop jobs, but still the lowest paid job I've ever had. And I think the key here is that our satisfaction with our salaries is relative. It's not about "what do I earn?" it's about "what do other people in my community earn, and how do I compare?". There is plenty of evidence that it's pay differences that make people troubled about their own wealth rather than money itself -big differences between rich and poor in a society make for unhappy countries. And I don't know if this strikes a chord with you, but I most often question my salary when I am spending time with my management consultant / lawyer friends, rather than my usual public sector crowd.
There was one study that was conducted at Harvard, which asked whether the students would prefer to earn a particular high salary or to earn a lower sum of money, but be guaranteed that they were earning more than all their classmates. Almost without exception, the students choose the relative wealth rather than the absolute wealth.
So what's it all about? Why are so many of us so concerned with our salaries? Why is it important for us to earn money, more money than we did before and more money that other people?
I guess it's all about a feeling of self-worth. Enshrined in all aspects of our culture is that we pay more for better things, and salaries are perceived as no exception to this. The more you are paid, the better you are. So we strive for better pay not because it makes us happier, or more fulfilled, or because it leads to more interesting jobs, or because of what we can do with it, but simply because it makes us feel valuable. And hey, we're worth it.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Sacked!
Not me. At least, not as far as I know. But I have been reading some bits and pieces about the whole notion this week. There isn't all that much that I could find that's been written about it - I guess beause it's hard to find large numbers of willing participants, but I'd be really pleased if anyone knows of any research or could direct me to something that might be interest. In particular I'm really trying to find out what impact being sacked has on career trajectories - do people's careers recover, and if so what factors contribute to a successful future career?
There has been quite a bit written about what happens when CEOs are sacked, some of which is quite interesting. One paper ( Ward et al 1995) found that the age at which the CEOs are sacked makes quite a difference to their future career path. The very worse time to be sacked is, apparently, in your fifties. Earlier than that, and you have a high chance of finding another similar CEO role, and from 60 onwards, you're in a pretty good position to find one or more advisory positions, but in your fifties, you appear to be caught between the two - possibly seen as too old for a CEO post and too inexperienced for an advisory role. But the paper doesn't make it clear whether these career paths are specifically linked to the fact that the participants in the study were sacked.
The other thing the paper looked at is whether the reason for the sacking made a difference to the future career path of the CEOs. The authors classified the reasons for sacking into two categories - reasons which might be thought of as negative (e.g. fraud, poor performance, misconduct etc) and those which might be thought of as neutral (such as taking responsibility for someone else's mistake, leaving after a takeover or going on a point of principle), and found that CEOs sacked for "negative" reasons were only marginally less likely to find successful future positions than those who were sacked for neutral reasons.
I found another paper looking at sackings in young people (Kellner et al 2011). It didn't follow participants' careers after sacking, but provided quite an interesting analysis of the reasons for the sackings. Now it must be borne in mind that the analysis was based entirely on the reports of those who had been sacked, (althogh the researchers seemed to use quite thorough interviewing skills to try and unearth the details of the circumstances, and it was quite a large sample n=1259) but the reasons for sackings were to my mind, quite shocking, in terms of the widespread non-compliance with equal opportunities legislation. The most common category of reasons was "leave or personal circumstance" of which the biggest categories were sick leave and injury. Many of those sacked for taking sick leave took only a single day's leave and 1/5th provided a medical certificate to explain their absence. Of those sacked for or following an injury, 4/5ths sustained their injuries at work, as part of their duties. The quotes from participants were astonishing, one participant, for example, saying "chemical burns at work to eyes and stomach. Coerced into resigning when put in Work Cover claim".
The final category I'm going to mention is that 60 of the participants had been sacked for being pregnant, in general when the women suffer from morning sickness.
Discrimination, alive and kicking.
Kellner, A., McDonald, P. and Waterhouse, J. (2011) "Sacked! An investigation of young workers' dismissal", Journal of Management and Organisation 17 (2) 226 - 244
Ward, A., Soonenfeld, J.A. and Kimberly, J.R. (1995) "In Search of a Kingdon: determinants of subsequent career outcomes for chief executives who are fired" Human Resource Management 34 (1) 117 - 139
There has been quite a bit written about what happens when CEOs are sacked, some of which is quite interesting. One paper ( Ward et al 1995) found that the age at which the CEOs are sacked makes quite a difference to their future career path. The very worse time to be sacked is, apparently, in your fifties. Earlier than that, and you have a high chance of finding another similar CEO role, and from 60 onwards, you're in a pretty good position to find one or more advisory positions, but in your fifties, you appear to be caught between the two - possibly seen as too old for a CEO post and too inexperienced for an advisory role. But the paper doesn't make it clear whether these career paths are specifically linked to the fact that the participants in the study were sacked.
The other thing the paper looked at is whether the reason for the sacking made a difference to the future career path of the CEOs. The authors classified the reasons for sacking into two categories - reasons which might be thought of as negative (e.g. fraud, poor performance, misconduct etc) and those which might be thought of as neutral (such as taking responsibility for someone else's mistake, leaving after a takeover or going on a point of principle), and found that CEOs sacked for "negative" reasons were only marginally less likely to find successful future positions than those who were sacked for neutral reasons.
I found another paper looking at sackings in young people (Kellner et al 2011). It didn't follow participants' careers after sacking, but provided quite an interesting analysis of the reasons for the sackings. Now it must be borne in mind that the analysis was based entirely on the reports of those who had been sacked, (althogh the researchers seemed to use quite thorough interviewing skills to try and unearth the details of the circumstances, and it was quite a large sample n=1259) but the reasons for sackings were to my mind, quite shocking, in terms of the widespread non-compliance with equal opportunities legislation. The most common category of reasons was "leave or personal circumstance" of which the biggest categories were sick leave and injury. Many of those sacked for taking sick leave took only a single day's leave and 1/5th provided a medical certificate to explain their absence. Of those sacked for or following an injury, 4/5ths sustained their injuries at work, as part of their duties. The quotes from participants were astonishing, one participant, for example, saying "chemical burns at work to eyes and stomach. Coerced into resigning when put in Work Cover claim".
The final category I'm going to mention is that 60 of the participants had been sacked for being pregnant, in general when the women suffer from morning sickness.
Discrimination, alive and kicking.
Kellner, A., McDonald, P. and Waterhouse, J. (2011) "Sacked! An investigation of young workers' dismissal", Journal of Management and Organisation 17 (2) 226 - 244
Ward, A., Soonenfeld, J.A. and Kimberly, J.R. (1995) "In Search of a Kingdon: determinants of subsequent career outcomes for chief executives who are fired" Human Resource Management 34 (1) 117 - 139
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