Providers of career development assistance meet a wide variety of people who present a wide variety of employment problems. Some have lost their job and want a new one. Others have been told that their benefits will be cut off unless they show evidence of looking for work. Still others are several years into their initial career, and now want help transitioning to a new line of work. Some have been struggling for years to identify the kind of role they want to play in the workforce. Many are experiencing a lot of friction at work with their supervisors, and are looking for a way out.
Embedded in this variety are a few common themes.
- Clients want what they don’t have (e.g., more challenge, more responsibility, better working conditions)
- Clients have what they don’t want (e.g., an unfriendly supervisor, a low paying, part-time job, large debts)
- Clients need what they don’t have (a source of income to pay for necessities)
- Clients want what they don’t need (a change that helps them put off facing their own limitations)
- Clients need what they don’t want (more education, a better attitude, an ability to speak up)
Problem ecologies of having and wanting
These experiences of having and needing and wanting are at the heart of what Warren Thorngate (2020) calls “problem ecologies.” According to Thorngate, people experience a problem when they perceive or imagine a difference between what they have and what they want. Growing up, we learn to balance these differences in many parts of our lives, but when the differences grow too large, we experience a loss of equilibrium. At these times, we may seek assistance from others.
“If we spend our days chasing after what we want but don’t need in one area of life, chances are we will be doing the same in the employment/career domain of life.”
When people go to a doctor with a problem, they may want the doctor to prescribe a treatment that they think they need. Upon examining them, the doctor may conclude that they don’t need the treatment. Indeed, they may conclude that the treatment would do more harm than good. In such situations, the doctor has a professional duty to tell the client that the treatment is not needed, and won’t prescribe it.
While most people expect doctors to bring their knowledge of the complexities of the human body to bear on their problems, they may or may not want career development practitioners to bring a similar kind of knowledge to bear on their employment situation.
In his 2015 TED talk, Dave Redekopp made the point that every decision is a career decision. Why might this be so? Because the habits of mind that create good decisions are those that take into consideration what we have along with what we want or need. If we spend our days chasing after what we want but don’t need in one area of life, chances are we will be doing the same in the employment/career domain of life.
Implications for practice
While our clients may prefer to believe that a solution to their experience of disequilibrium can be found by changing one aspect of their work situation (e.g. new job, new position, new boss, more money, more education, etc.), we don’t have to agree. We can keep in mind Garrett Hardin’s First Law of Ecology, which states that when it comes to ecological systems, you can never change just one thing. Further, we can also be mindful that when clients describe what they have and what they want, they are not stating facts. They are stating their perception of the facts or the situation. This view of their statements opens the door to a different approach.
This different approach views career development as embedded in thousands of intertwined relationships among problems and solutions we call problem ecologies. The relationships ensure that any career change will likely have multiple effects on personal, social and economic aspects of life, including career choices and consequences – many unexpected. A problem ecology perspective on career development promotes consideration of these “side effects” as a useful and important part of counselling practice.
If you are interested in learning more about this ecological way of thinking about the provision of career development assistance, we recommend reading Meadows and Wright (2008). We also invite you to attend our session at next year’s Cannexus22 virtual conference. This session, “The Problem Ecology Perspective on Career Development Assistance,” is scheduled for Jan. 25.
