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2006 Minnesota Careers Conference
If you didn’t get a chance to hear keynoter Dr. Rich Feller at the 2006 Minnesota Careers Conference, you missed out on an informative and fun learning event. Dr. Feller is known for his research, expertise in the classroom, and speaking activities. He presented to us about our changing work and career environments, highlighting research from his book, Knowledge Nomads and the Nervously Employed: Workplace Change & Courageous Career Choices (PRO-ED, 2005), co-written with Judy Whichard. “Career development nurtures passion, it identifies potential, and it honors courage in choice making,” Feller emphasized. “However, change and discovery shape the world around and within us.” Some of the changes in our world that Dr. Feller touched upon:
There are two kinds of workers today, Dr. Feller noted: the Knowledge Nomads and the Nervously Employed. Knowledge Nomads:
Knowledge Nomads do the right thing, Dr. Feller noted, by making courageous choices that consider the impact on self and others. On the other side of the equation are the Nervously Employed, who:
This makes for a very uneasy existence for the Nervously Employed. It is in this environment that all of us are working. As career practitioners, we must help both of these camps get the most out of what they have to offer. It is our duty to help our clients/customers through the enormous changes they face in their daily world of work. We can offer people the opportunity to change their view of work from a “form of punishment to a place where [they] feel fulfilled at the end of the day,” Dr. Feller stressed. Dr. Feller ended his talk with a Slinky. He had it move from one hand to another and used the visual as a metaphor for the changes we’re all seeing in our lives and in our jobs. If we nurture our passions and think in terms of opportunity, he said, we can all be among the Knowledge Nomads and not the struggling Nervously Employed. I highly recommend Dr. Feller’s book. It offers many insights, guides, and tools to help all of us in our journey through this world of work and careers. ~ Jamie Morrow
Few career professionals would disagree that values are ultimately the key to career/lifework satisfaction. This is why I found Edward Colozzi’s Depth-Oriented Values Extraction (DOVE) so valuable. DOVE goes beyond objective assessments and gets to the heart of what is important to the client. Fundamental to DOVE are the tenets that clear understanding of self-knowledge is required to make satisfying career/life choices, and that values hold the key to lifework focus, satisfaction, and purpose. Colozzi makes an important distinction between two types of values: work values and life values. He further separates work values into two types: expressed and implicit. Expressed values are easily influenced by external sources of authority (e.g., family, society) and are readily in a person’s awareness, often being internalized without question. Conversely, implicit values are usually unavailable to a person’s awareness but reflect a truer picture of what’s important to that person. It is the expressed values, according to Colozzi, upon which most people make career/lifework decisions. When career/lifework decisions are based on one’s expressed values, that person ends up with a lack of focus, feeling unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and generally “off purpose.” DOVE helps the client uncover the implicit values, referred to as values themes. Realizing these implicit values themes enables the client to find lifework that is ultimately more meaningful. DOVE is a systematic process. The first step is to have clients identify and prioritize their top skills and abilities/things they do well; interests/specific activities and hobbies they enjoy; their expressed work values (what they believe to be very important in a work setting); and their expressed life values (what they believe to be very important for their life). Then, the five-step process of DOVE begins: Discovery. Helping the client get in touch with emotions associated with specific interest activities and encouraging deeper reflection upon reasons for interests through questions such as “What is it about … ?” “Why do you enjoy … ?” “How is this different than … ?” and “Say more about … .” Integration and crystallization. Noting common themes and collaboratively identifying words and phrases to describe the implied values, as well as the relationship between these evolving themes and the Holland-type RIASEC themes. Extraction. Once a values theme is identified and examined, continuing the process to identify and examine other values themes. Prioritization and achievement of cognitive clarity. Working with the client to prioritize values themes and articulate his/her preferred work environment. Congruence. Helping the client assess the congruence between the implicit work values and the ideal career scenario to determine best “fits.” Ed’s session was interactive, lively, and thought provoking. Best of all, he showed videotapes of actual DOVE counseling sessions, which is always so helpful as a teaching and learning tool. ~ Janet Pelto
This half-day session was led by Dr. Bruce Roselle, organizational psychologist, founder of Roselle Leadership Strategies, and author of Fearless Leadership: Conquering Your Fears and the Lies That Drive Them (Roselle Leadership Strategies, 2006). In this information-packed session, Bruce guided participants through his model of achieving high-performance, fearless leadership by unearthing irrational and unconscious fears that we form at a very young age in reaction to something that made us afraid. This fear causes “retroactions” as an adult—knee-jerk leadership responses that seem to come out of nowhere. In Bruce’s model, understanding your irrational and unconscious fears is the beginning of fully understanding your ineffective behavior as a leader. The result of understanding these fears is to tackle the faulty beliefs we create for ourselves as a false promise of protection. We create our own if/then scenarios of faulty beliefs in order to provide that protection. Example: “If I get shy in situations where I don’t know people very well, then I will not be rejected by them.” Faulty beliefs bond with our irrational fears. From here, Bruce outlined the next steps to recognizing lies that anchor these fears and beliefs. So what are the strategies for leading fearlessly and performing at an optimal level? In the final portion of the seminar, Bruce presented strategies for leading fearlessly. Though too detailed to outline here, Bruce’s strategies include:
Finally, everyone needs to find a counterbalance to the anchor lie by replacing faulty beliefs with healthy ones based on an adult perspective. These healthy beliefs stem from our bedrock truth—a deeply held belief about who you are and how acceptable you are to others. This truth provides the foundation for functioning in a healthy, effective way. As Bruce puts it: “Your new healthy beliefs must make sense to you and must be believable to you … then shift your behavior based on your bedrock truth and new, healthy beliefs.” The value is in using this model to help clients uncover and replace their own lies, beliefs, and fears so that they may operate more effectively in the marketplace. ~ Shelley Jensen-Decker
Carmen Croonquist facilitated an energetic session on the Law of Attraction (LOA) and creating abundance—more of what you want—in your life. She provided insights, information, and tools that can be used both personally and with clients. The premise of the concept is that we attract into our lives that to which we pay the most attention. In other words, if we give our energy and attention to positive outcomes, that’s what we’ll attract. Conversely, if our attention is directed toward negative events and outcomes, our reality will reflect that. The proof of this is in all of the coincidences, synergy, déjá vu, “it was meant to be” occurrences each of us experiences. For instance, have you ever thought of someone you haven’t seen in a long time and then had him/her call you out of the blue? This demonstrates the law of abundance; your energy was focused on this person and you attracted him/her into your life. The LOA is based on the quantum physics theory that we live in a vibrational world. At every moment, the LOA checks your vibrations (positive or negative) and matches them by giving you more of the same, whether positive or negative. Most of the time, we attract by default instead of deliberate choice. However, there is a way to be deliberate about what we attract into our lives. It involves three steps: Identify and clarify your desire. Identify what makes you feel abundant and motivated. Carmen demonstrated a T-tool activity for gaining clarity around your desire called Clarity Through Contrast. To use the tool, identify a recurring hot-button issue and ask yourself, “What happens and how does it make me feel?” If this is something you don’t want in your life, ask yourself, “What do I want?” List 10 to 15 things on the left side of the T-tool that you don’t want. Then, rewrite them as the opposite, positive word or phrase on the right-hand side of the tool. Raise your positive vibes. This is about giving deliberate positive energy and focus to your desire. An effective way of doing this is to write a desire statement by filling in the blank for such statements as “I’m in the process of attracting my ideal__________” or “If I could wave a magic wand, I’d__________.” It’s about imagining that you already have what you desire and then matching your feeling to that. Allow it to happen. This involves expecting that you’ll get your desire. Some techniques for doing so:
The participants responded enthusiastically to the session and found the information and tools to be useful for them and their clients. ~ Shelley Jensen-Decker The annual MCDA Awards Ceremony honored two outstanding individuals:
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Minnesota
Career Development Association (MCDA)
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