Strategic Practice: Career Practitioner Case Study

Transcription

1 Strategic Practice: Career Practitioner Case Study heidi Lund 1 Interpersonal conflict has one of the most negative impacts on today s workplaces. It reduces productivity, increases gossip, and I believe can ultimately lead to higher rates of turnover. This paper will address a conflict situation between two groups employed by the Calgary Board of Education and will apply the concepts from Boydell, Herasymowych & Senko's (2005) model of Strategic Practice in order to highlight a possible approach to assisting these two cultures understand each other more and learn to work better together. Langton & Robbins in their textbook, Organizational Behavior, define corporate or organizational culture as, the pattern of shared values, beliefs, and assumptions considered to be the appropriate way to think and act within an organization (Langton & Robbins, p. 354). Boydell and colleagues define Corporate Culture as a specific form of culture that defines the essence of an organization (Boydell et al., 2005, p. 2). In layman terms, corporate culture refers to the commonly accepted way to do things or behave at work. This incorporates a variety of ideas including, efficiency and productivity, amount and length of breaks taken, dress code, interpersonal relationships, etc. It is most clearly defined when someone does not adhere to the common norms. This break from the usual pace of the workplace is often met with indirect and direct negativity, which impacts the individual. Often the person will either modify their behavior or their employment will be terminated (by choice or force). Often within a larger corporate culture there will also be many smaller subcultures. A common example of this is the Tech Support Teams in large organizations. This group is stereotypically computer nerds whose technology language is indecipherable to others, are often isolated from others, and whose interactions are limited to problem-solving or crisis interventions. However, if there are positive working relationships between subcultures, these differences may be respected, understood, and even kindly joked about. Unfortunately, if the subcultures lack understanding, more negative interactions may occur.

2 heidi Lund This is a case study of Career Practitioners working at public high schools in Calgary. Each 2 Career Practitioner has a mandate to promote career development activities in their individual schools. However, the delivery and time allotment is unique for each Practitioner and their school. Each Practitioner has different skill sets and chosen activities are directed by the unique clientele in their schools. Career Practitioners are directly supervised by their Principal and are expected to work with a variety of teams within their school, including guidance and curriculum areas, and the greater public education system. One of the system teams is the Career Pathways Team. One of the Career Pathways Team s main focuses is the Summer Off-Campus Program, a work experience placement program during the summer months for students to earn high school credits, valuable experience, money and scholarships for future educational pursuits. The Summer Off-campus Program is an important and valuable component of career development for students looking for real world experiences and credits. However, to Career Practitioners this is just one of many programs that require promotion and time commitment. Recently, there has been some conflict as the Career Pathways Team places higher emphasis on their program than other similar programs and has high expectations for Career Practitioner involvement in its promotion.

3 heidi Lund 3 Relational Map: Career Practitioner Team (School based) Career Pathways Team (System based) The Career Practitioners do not understand why the Career Pathways Team will not recognize their other time commitments in addition to the Summer Off-campus Program The Career Pathways Team does not understand why the Career Practitioners will not spend more time and energy on their project, the Summer Off-campus Program. What is working and why? Each team provides important career development activities for high school students in the public education system. The Career Practitioners work successfully in their respective schools, to promote career exploration, job readiness and work experience. Each Career Practitioner is responsible for promoting many different programs for students, including the Summer Offcampus Program. The Career Pathways Team is happy that the Career Practitioners are promoting career development activities for students. However, Career Pathways would like the Career Practitioners to place more time and emphasis on their program than the others. What are the Non-negotiables? 1. Career Practitioners need to promote all programs and career development activities for students, including the Summer Off-campus Program 2. The Summer Off-campus Program will happen and is of great value to students

4 4 heidi Lund 3. Career Practitioners only have a limited amount of time to devote to the Summer Offcampus Program. What is Not Working? There is conflict growing between the two teams' members based upon their perceptions of the level of importance of the Summer Off-campus Program. The Career Pathways Team considers it to be high; the Career Practitioners consider this program to be equal to the other programs. Career Practitioners see the Career Pathways team as pressuring them to spend more time on the project. The Career Pathways team sees the Career Practitioners are not valuing their project and not working as hard on it or spending enough time to promote it. Career Practitioners have many concerns, questions and opinions about the Summer Off-campus Program, which is frustrating and time consuming for the Career Pathways Team. What will happen if there is no change? If there are no positive changes in the groups interactions, increased negative feelings between the groups, and increased difficulty working together will occur. Additionally, the Summer Offcampus Program will happen, but with questionable success if the Career Practitioners become too frustrated and do not promote it effectively. Ultimately, this would have the greatest negative impact on the students who would miss out on a valuable opportunity. Furthermore, Career Practitioners cannot hold meetings without a representative from the system level, which is usually a member of the Career Pathways team. This practice may become jeopardized if the conflict escalates affecting the Career Practitioner team because of decreased networking opportunities and communication and increased isolation. Why examining the situation is important to this team? Both teams are committed to providing career development resources and activities to the students and have the best of intentions. As a member of the Career Practitioner team, I am committed to improving relations between the groups to reduce tension, animosity and overall difficulties in working relations. I hope that by applying the model, I will gain a greater understanding of my own team s cultural system as well as that of the Career Pathways team. I

5 heidi Lund hope that the strategies identified in this process will enable me to make small strategic 5 changes with large positive outcomes. Additionally, it is clearly important to both the Career Practitioner team and the Career Pathways team to put the needs of students first and ensure their future success. Cultural System Matrix Please see attached Cultural System Matrix's for Career Practitioners and Career Pathways. I first analyzed the learning dynamic of the Career Practitioners, by considering how this cultural group spends its energy and attention. I identified which of the 24 learning characteristics best describe the Career Practitioners as a whole. This process was a little challenging as each member of the team is very unique and there are a wide variety of skills sets within the team. I then distributed the indicators to determine where the emphasis lay. Learning Levels refer to underlying belief systems about learning and relates to the preferred cultural stance of the group. I found that Learning Level 1: Implementing received 25% and Level 2: Improving received 35% of the energy of the team. Whereas, Learning Level 3: Integrating, received the majority of energy and attention with 40%. To further describe the preferred learning styles, there are four types of learning. I found that the majority of attention was spent between two different types of learning learning to become yourself, with 30% and learning to achieve things with others with 35% of the time and energy. Learning about things, 10% and learning to do things, 25%, received the remainder of the time and attention. The Career Practitioners spend the majority of their energy and attention focused on Level 3: Integrating and prefer learning to achieve things with others. This indicates that this team prefers to operate from the Level 3 (L3) cultural stance of co-operating (learning to do better things).

6 heidi Lund I repeated this process for the Career Pathways team. This analysis is based on my personal 6 perceptions of the team as it relates to the specific situation. It would be interesting in the future to see how this team would rate themselves. I found that the majority of emphasis was in the Learning Level 2: Improving with 40% of the energy. Both Learning Level 1: Implementing and Learning Level 3: Integrating received 30% of the energy. In regards to the types of learning, the Career Pathways team received 30% of the energy within the learning to do things type. This was followed with 25% for both learning to become yourself and learning to achieve things with others. Finally, the learning about things type received the remaining 20%. The Career Pathways team spends the majority of their energy and attention focused on Level 2: Improving and prefers learning to do things. This indicates that this team prefers to operate from the Level 2 (L2) cultural stance of com-peting (doing things better). Both Cultural Matrices had a wide distribution of time and energy, filling all but one spot on the matrix each. Below, the cultural stances are indicated on the relational map: Co-operating Stance Level 3 Career Practitioner Team (School based) Career Pathways Team (System based) Level 2 Com-peting Stance

7 heidi Lund 7 The Career Practitioner Team is operating from a Level 3 (L3), co-operating stance. Their focus is on working in a collaborative way. However, descriptions highlighted in the other levels are based in the level 3 co-operating stance. For example: Energy in #16. Help Colleagues, teams and individual team members to delight their internal and external customers was highlighted in Level 2 but has a Level 3 proviso. Help everyone in an equal and collaborative way for the benefit of the students. The Career Pathways Team is operating from a Level 2 (L2), com-peting stance. Their focus is on striving together to do things better. Descriptions highlighted in the other levels are based in the Level 2 com-peting stance. For example: Energy in #22. Review and achieve career and life objectives in terms of doing something worthwhile for organization, professional, community or society was highlighted in Level 3 but has a Level 2 proviso. Focus on improving their own program as a way of doing something worthwhile for the great community. With the Career Practitioners coming from a Level 3: cooperating stance they have also assumed that the Career Pathways team will have the same preference, which is not the case. The Career Pathways Team comes from a Level 2:com-peting stance and would have made similar assumptions from their preference. The negative interaction may stem from this difference in perspective. Increased understanding of these differences should help with the conflict situation. Additionally, both teams are widely dispersed across the matrix, although operating from two different ideological stances this indicates that there are many activities in common. Being widely dispersed is also an indicator that both teams are able to learn and work at all three levels which implies resiliency.

8 heidi Lund For the Career Practitioners operating from a Co-operating (L3) Stance, characteristics that 8 stand out and describe the cultural system include (Boydell et al., 2005, p. 250):...partnerships with all stakeholders - many important career development activities and programs...number of structures, each appropriate for specific purposes - each Career Practitioner works within the unique area of their school focused on achieving things outside themselves - the focus is always for the good of the students self-organization - each Career Practitioner makes decisions based on the best outcomes for their students For the Career Pathways Team operating from a Com-peting (L2) Stance, characteristics that stand out and describe the cultural system include (Boydell et al., 2005, p. 246): geared toward continuous improvement - the team strives to make the system smoother and easier for students to become involved each year centralized control of direction and local empowerment - the Career Pathways team has set the basic requirements for the program application process, however the Practitioners are able to promote the program as they see fit challenge and questions ways of doing things - Career Practitioners are encouraged to provide feedback at the end of the year The cultural patterns tables are used to further understand each cultural system in more depth. (Boydell et al., 2005, p. 198). Available energy and how it flows are indicated by distributing the energy originally assigned to each of the cultural stances, to the seven Cultural Patterns. Cultural Patterns Tables Please see attached Cultural Patterns Tables for both the Career Practitioners and the Career Pathways teams as a reference. For the Career Practitioners there were five indicators within the con-formating (L1) stance, these were placed across all three cultural patterns, however, Cultural Pattern 3: Relating received the majority with three of the indicators. In the com-peting stance there were seven indicators, placed with three in Cultural Pattern 4: Experiencing and four in Cultural pattern 5: Experimenting. In the ideological stance of the Career Practitioners of

9 heidi Lund 9 the Co-operating (L3) Stance, indicators were equally distributed, four to both Cultural Pattern 6: Connecting and Cultural Pattern 7: Dedicating. For the Career Pathways team there were six indicators in the Con-forming (L1) stance, equally distributed across the three cultural patterns; Adhering, Adapting and Relating. In the cooperating (L3) stance, two indicator were placed in Cultural Pattern 6: Connecting and four were placed in Cultural Pattern 7: Dedicating. In the ideological stance of the Career Pathways team of Com-peting (L2) Stance, there were eight indicators. The majority of these, five, were placed in Cultural Pattern 4: Experiencing and the remaining three were placed in Cultural Pattern 5: Experimenting.

10 Below, the cultural stances are indicated on the relational map: heidi Lund 10 Co-operating Stance Level 3 Career Practitioner Team (School based) Career Pathways Team (System based) Level 2 Com-peting Stance The Career Practitioner Team is focused on: Experimenting from the Level 2: Competing Stance and Connecting and Dedicating both from the Level 3: Cooperating Stance. Although Relating from Level 1: Conforming Stance and Experiencing from Level 2: Competing Stance are also highlighted. The Pattern that overrides the rest is Experimenting (Plan, Do, Study, Act). The Career Practitioners want to partner with all stakeholders and be able to creatively promote all programs as they see fit. This is cultural mode encourages experimenting in a systematic way, often through the use of pilot projects, to evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches to program promotion. The Career Pathways Team is focused on: Experiencing and Experimenting from the Level 2: Competing Stance and Dedicating from the Level 3: Cooperating Stance. The pattern that overrides the rest is Experiencing. The Career Pathways team wants to make the Summer Offcampus program the best it can be with the Career Practitioners' involvement. They are flexible for what works best in each school however, the Career Pathways Team wants a greater time commitment from the Career Practitioners. The Career Practitioners operate from a Co-operating (L3) Stance and the team members focus is on the cultural patterns of Experimenting, Connecting, and Dedicating. Where the team

11 heidi Lund 11 meets the Career Pathways team is in Dedicating and Experimenting. So this is where the Career Practitioners Team needs to focus their attention. The team also needs to consider that a com-peting (L2) stance requires that members remember to work to improve the implementation of the Summer Off-Campus Program. Some of the leverage points that the Career Practitioner team could select are: From Dedicating: 1. Support purposeful contributions at a local level 2. Create opportunities for purposeful co-creation 3. Develop ways that appreciate and value everyone s contribution to the larger whole. From Experimenting: 1. Champion and support initiative 2. Act as a coach, mentor, facilitation and role model for continuous improvement 3. Be receptive to new ideas This is a great list to demonstrate to the team that there are many options for them to choose from. These leverage points are small actions that can cause large ripple effects in a relational system (Boydell et al., 2005, p. 215). As well, none of the options requires the Career Practitioners to change their overall ideological stance, which will increase buy-in and make them more likely to follow through. Possible Future: Career Pathways Team As the representative from the Career Practitioner team, I chose to focus on the Cultural Pattern of Dedicating in the Level 3 (Co-Operating) Cultural Stance and use the leverage point of develop ways that appreciate and value everyone's contribution to the larger whole. The Career Practitioners believe that the Career Pathways team is too demanding of time and resources but if approached properly would be fairly open to responding to the changes the Career Practitioners might make. As there have been other issues in the past, the Career Practitioners need to be aware of the need for psychological safety for the Career Pathways Team as well as within their own team. I believe that the cells that have the best chance of intervention success are the last two cells in Level 3.

12 heidi Lund 12 The Career Practitioners choose to focus on the strategic choice of Cross a Learning Boundary, and to focus on Go Next Door. In this strategic choice the team needs to focus action within the cells in the same stance that are in a different type of learning, and that have few or no indicators of energy. Specifically, approach 1: Go Next Door is a described as, Focus attention on the cell that is empty, or has few indicators, next to a cell that is occupied, and shows strength. It is recommend to choose a cultural stance with strength in it but it does not been to be that of the ideological stance for the target team. Focusing on the leverage point of Dedicating, also helps to create psychological safety for the Career Pathways Team as this is an area of strength for them. I believe that success could be achieved by increasing the Career Pathway Team's awareness of the wide range of stakeholders involved in providing career development programs for students by using the leverage point of Dedicating. Specifically, by developing ways that appreciate and value everyone s contribution to the larger whole, the Career Pathways team would see the benefit of the other programs to students. I believe this would appeal to their sense of doing something worthwhile for their community or society. I could start by creating an online calendar of events and deadlines for all of the career development programs and sharing it with the other Career Practitioners as well as the Career Pathways team. I would make sure to clearly indicate the important dates for the Summer Off-campus Program as well as indicated the other exciting programs for students. As well, I think that this would serve to remind the other Career Practitioners of important deadlines for the Summer Off-campus program, hopefully also to encourage them to address the necessary promotional activities. Another strategy to promote appreciation and value for everyone s contribution to the larger whole, I would also attempt to encourage connections between the Career Pathways Team and the organizers of the other programs. I believe that once the Career Pathways team sees the relevance of these alternatives they will embrace them as well.

13 heidi Lund 13 I believe that the learning to achieve things with others learning type in Level 3 would have an increase in energy, by identifying a large set of important stakeholders who have similar mission and vision as the Career Pathways team. I think that the learning to become yourself learning type in Level 3 would have a decrease in energy. If I approached the Career Pathways Team with this idea I believe that they would be very open to receiving it and even assisting in the creation. From the model, it may be successful because it creates psychological safety for the target group, because I am taking action within one of the target group's strong cultural stance. As well, this strategy is more successful when there is a moderate amount of resistance, as well as a desire to improve the status quo (Boydell et al., page 270). I believe that the Career Pathways team has a desire to improve working relationships with the Career Practitioners and will see this as an opportunity to do so. As well, I think that it clearly matches with both teams desire to provide services to the students. Some possible negative effects of my selected strategic pathway could include the following: Nothing could change and animosity could continue to grow between the two groups, and the other Career Practitioners could not utilize the online calendar and in turn not assist the Career Pathways Team in their main objective of promoting the Summer Off-campus Program. This would make my efforts ineffective and ultimately a waste of work time for me personally. Additionally, the Career Pathways Team could ignore the other career development programs and continue to pressure the Career Practitioners to work on their project. As I know all of the individual members I believe these are unlikely as both groups are interested and open to using new strategies to assist their students. I believe that in order to be successful and effective the strategies need to focus on the benefit to the students. At first I was a little skeptical of a model's ability to describe such complex human behavior, however, I have been pleasantly surprised. After each step of the model, the process became increasingly clearer. I was also a little skeptical about my own ability to assign the dots

14 heidi Lund 14 correctly for my team as a whole and the Career Pathways team. However, the resulting ideological stances and the cultural patterns just felt right when I was finished. I also thought that the leverage points would be difficult and complex however, the list of possible choices were extensive for possibilities that could work to make a small change. Without having working through the model, I think that my personal learning style preference would fall into the Level 2 Com-peting Stance. I thoroughly enjoy evaluating projects and activities in order to improve them for efficiency and effectiveness, in order to make them better. This is not always met with the appreciation or acceptance I hope for. Having used this model to identify Level 2: com-peting as the cultural stance for the Career Pathways team I think that this also assists me in personally understanding where they are coming from in this conflict. I think that it would be very interesting to actually use this model in the above scenario. I think it would be eye opening for both of the teams. However, I would like to have all of the team members identify which of the 24 learning characteristics best describes them personally and the team as a whole and the other team, without seeing the Cultural Systems Matrix beforehand. I think that there is common human behavior to want to be the best, to get to the top, to finish, and seeing the Levels numbered 1, 2, 3 and the learning characteristics numbered one through 24 would make people want to highlight the higher numbers. I know that I had to really sit back and evaluate where I was placing the emphasis to make sure that this bias was as minimal as possible. However, I think that this process would be too difficult for some members of both teams as they are highly emotional and frustrated about the situation. Otherwise, I believe this would be a very effective tool for increasing the level of understanding between two different cultural groups. I am also curious about how correct my analysis was compared to the potential self-reporting. I think that this tool would be a great mediating tool, if (and maybe when) this conflict continues or escalates. However, with my small changes hopefully there will be large ripple effects. I think that it is clear how this model can be used to

15 heidi Lund 15 address conflict situations and making changes to alleviate the related negative feelings and potentially unproductive behaviors. I would be interested in spending more time looking at using this model with groups who are willingly looking to make a change. I do not have the authority to implement using such a model at my workplace. However, I think that I will suggest that this be used if an appropriate situation arises. However, I think that I can use the results of my analysis and the selected strategies to make improvements for the teams I work with. I really believe that we cannot change other people, we can only change ourselves and how we respond to them. I think by purposefully changing my behavior I can slowly change the two groups to become more in-line with each other s needs and requirements. There is a lot of good work being done by both of the teams that could benefit from a more cohesive working relationship.

16 Levels Learning Level 1: Implementing Doing things well Dependent learning Stability Conformative Edge CULTURAL SYSTEM MATRIX Name of Cultural System: Career Practitioners Learning about things Recall and describe correctly facts, rules, procedures Explain in your own words established concepts and theories Learning to do things Carry out existing procedures and processes correctly, to the desired standards as specified or laid down by others Follow and put into practices instructions on the correct way to do things. Learning to become yourself Accept feedback on your performance Accept and implement a personal development plan drawn up for you by someone else, in order to meet gaps between your desired and actual performance heidi Lund 16 Learning to achieve things with others Recognize and respect existing norms of behaviour and standards of performance, and thus fit in or be accepted by others Understand and carry you specified roles and tasks within a team # % 5 25% Learning Level 2: Improving Doing things better Independent learning Dynamic, but stable change Competitive Edge Reflect on experiences, things that happen, and make your own meaning from them Think for yourself, devise your own concepts, theories, and hypotheses Carry out systematic experiments to improve existing procedures, processes, products, and services Handle a wide variety of tasks, and decide your own priorities Actively seek, obtain, and evaluate feedback on your performance and on the way your manage yourself Draw up and implement your own personal development plans in order to manage yourself better in a wide variety of situations and/of to meet your life and career objectives Influence others by challenging existing norms, standards, and ways of doing things when you think that these need to be changed or improved Help colleagues, teams, and individual team members to delight their internal and external customers 7 35% Learning Level 3: Integrating Doing better things Interdependent learning Dynamic and complex change Cooperative Edge # and % of indicators See overviews, large-scale patterns, and interconnections Think creatively by suspending judgement and considering alternative perspective and assumptions See differences between yourself and others as an asset, and work creatively with them Work together with a range of stakeholders, and create whole new ways of working, new processes, products and services Understand and manage your basic perspectives and assumptions Review and achieve career and life objectives in terms of doing something worthwhile for your organization, profession, community, or society Identify a wide range of stakeholders in any situation, initiative or project Recognize, accept, respect, and empathize with the feelings, positions, perspectives, and world views or mental models of these stakeholders 2 10% 5 25% 6 30% 7 35% 8 40%

17 CULTURAL SYSTEM MATRIX Name of Cultural System: Career Pathways heidi Lund 17 Levels Learning Level 1: Implementing Doing things well Dependent learning Stability Conformative Edge Learning Level 2: Improving Doing things better Independent learning Dynamic, but stable change Competitive Edge Learning about things Recall and describe correctly facts, rules, procedures Explain in your own words established concepts and theories Reflect on experiences, things that happen, and make your own meaning from them Think for yourself, devise your own concepts, theories, and hypotheses Learning to do things Carry out existing procedures and processes correctly, to the desired standards as specified or laid down by others Follow and put into practices instructions on the correct way to do things. Carry out systematic experiments to improve existing procedures, processes, products, and services Handle a wide variety of tasks, and decide your own priorities Learning to become yourself Accept feedback on your performance Accept and implement a personal development plan drawn up for you by someone else, in order to meet gaps between your desired and actual performance Actively seek, obtain, and evaluate feedback on your performance and on the way your manage yourself Draw up and implement your own personal development plans in order to manage yourself better in a wide variety of situations and/of to meet your life and career objectives Learning to achieve things with others Recognize and respect existing norms of behaviour and standards of performance, and thus fit in or be accepted by others Understand and carry you specified roles and tasks within a team Influence others by challenging existing norms, standards, and ways of doing things when you think that these need to be changed or improved Help colleagues, teams, and individual team members to delight their internal and external customers # % 6 30% 8 40% Learning Level 3: Integrating Doing better things Interdependent learning Dynamic and complex change Cooperative Edge # and % of indicators See overviews, large-scale patterns, and interconnections Think creatively by suspending judgement and considering alternative perspective and assumptions See differences between yourself and others as an asset, and work creatively with them Work together with a range of stakeholders, and create whole new ways of working, new processes, products and services Understand and manage your basic perspectives and assumptions Review and achieve career and life objectives in terms of doing something worthwhile for your organization, profession, community, or society Identify a wide range of stakeholders in any situation, initiative or project Recognize, accept, respect, and empathize with the feelings, positions, perspectives, and world views or mental models of these stakeholders 4 20% 6 30% 5 25% 5 25% CULTURAL PATTERNS TABLE Career Practitioners 6 30%

18 heidi Lund Level and Stance Learning Dynamic Cultural Pattern Cultural Pattern Learning Dynamic Con-forming Stance (L1) Doing things well Learning to implement through being taught the correct content Cultural Pattern 1: Adhering Cultural Pattern 2: Adapting Following directions Learning to do things correctly, sticking to the rules, procedures, and ways of doing things Crisis management Learning to modify rules, procedures and methods, and discovering shortcuts and modifications to make them work better Cultural Pattern 3: Relating Expert learning Learning to understand established expert explanations of why things are as they are, and why they work as they do, and internalizing the ways things ought to be done Com-peting Stance (L2) Doing things better Learning to improve through a process of initiative taking and systematic experiment Cultural Pattern 4: Experiencing Experiential learning Learning to make one s own meaning from experiences, and from things that happen, and creating or discovering one s own understanding Cultural Pattern 5: Experimenting Systematic improvement Learning to find out, in a systematic way, more about something, by hypothesizing, carrying out planned experiments or pilot projects, and analyzing and reviewing the results of these Co-operating Stance (L3) Doing better things Learning to integrate through changing the context of relationships within which the other types of learning are occurring, in order to create new possibilities Cultural Pattern 6: Connecting Cultural Pattern 7: Dedicating Co-creating Learning to see systematically wholes, connections, patterns, and interdependencies, in order to empathize and identify with others, and to acknowledge and value diversity Purpose-driven Learning to recognize and commit to one s purpose in life, in the sense of doing something in and for the external world

19 CULTURAL PATTERNS TABLE Career Pathways heidi Lund 19 Level and Stance Learning Dynamic Cultural Pattern Cultural Pattern Learning Dynamic Cultural Pattern 1: Doing things well Adhering Con-forming Stance (L1) Learning to implement through being taught the correct content Cultural Pattern 2: Adapting Following directions Learning to do things correctly, sticking to the rules, procedures, and ways of doing things Crisis management Learning to modify rules, procedures and methods, and discovering shortcuts and modifications to make them work better Cultural Pattern 3: Relating Expert learning Learning to understand established expert explanations of why things are as they are, and why they work as they do, and internalizing the ways things ought to be done Com-peting Stance (L2) Doing things better Learning to improve through a process of initiative taking and systematic experiment Cultural Pattern 4: Experiencing Experiential learning Learning to make one s own meaning from experiences, and from things that happen, and creating or discovering one s own understanding Cultural Pattern 5: Experimenting Systematic improvement Learning to find out, in a systematic way, more about something, by hypothesizing, carrying out planned experiments or pilot projects, and analyzing and reviewing the results of these Co-operating Stance (L3) Doing better things Learning to integrate through changing the context of relationships within which the other types of learning are occurring, in order to create new possibilities Cultural Pattern 6: Connecting Cultural Pattern 7: Dedicating Co-creating Learning to see systematically wholes, connections, patterns, and interdependencies, in order to empathize and identify with others, and to acknowledge and value diversity Purpose-driven Learning to recognize and commit to one s purpose in life, in the sense of doing something in and for the external world

20 CULTURAL SYSTEM MATRIX Possible Future: Career Pathways heidi Lund 20 Levels Learning Level 1: Implementing Doing things well Dependent learning Stability Conformative Edge Learning Level 2: Improving Doing things better Independent learning Dynamic, but stable change Competitive Edge Learning about things Recall and describe correctly facts, rules, procedures Explain in your own words established concepts and theories Reflect on experiences, things that happen, and make your own meaning from them Think for yourself, devise your own concepts, theories, and hypotheses Learning to do things Carry out existing procedures and processes correctly, to the desired standards as specified or laid down by others Follow and put into practices instructions on the correct way to do things. Carry out systematic experiments to improve existing procedures, processes, products, and services Handle a wide variety of tasks, and decide your own priorities Learning to become yourself Accept feedback on your performance Accept and implement a personal development plan drawn up for you by someone else, in order to meet gaps between your desired and actual performance Actively seek, obtain, and evaluate feedback on your performance and on the way your manage yourself Draw up and implement your own personal development plans in order to manage yourself better in a wide variety of situations and/of to meet your life and career objectives Learning to achieve things with others Recognize and respect existing norms of behaviour and standards of performance, and thus fit in or be accepted by others Understand and carry you specified roles and tasks within a team Influence others by challenging existing norms, standards, and ways of doing things when you think that these need to be changed or improved Help colleagues, teams, and individual team members to delight their internal and external customers # % 6 30% 8 40% Learning Level 3: Integrating Doing better things Interdependent learning Dynamic and complex change Cooperative Edge # and % of indicators See overviews, large-scale patterns, and interconnections Think creatively by suspending judgement and considering alternative perspective and assumptions See differences between yourself and others as an asset, and work creatively with them Work together with a range of stakeholders, and create whole new ways of working, new processes, products and services Understand and manage your basic perspectives and assumptions Review and achieve career and life objectives in terms of doing something worthwhile for your organization, profession, community, or society Identify a wide range of stakeholders in any situation, initiative or project Recognize, accept, respect, and empathize with the feelings, positions, perspectives, and world views or mental models of these stakeholders 4 20% 6 30% 4 20% 6 30% 6 30%

21 References heidi Lund 21 Boydell, T., Herasymowych, M. & Senko, H. (2005). Corporate culture and organizational change: Strategic practice guide. Calgary: MHA Institute, Inc. Langton, N. & Robbins, S.P. (2007). Organizational behavior: concepts, controversies, applications (4 th Canadian Ed.). Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.