Posts Tagged compromise
Are you a maximiser or a satisficer?
Posted by David Winter in Career satisfaction, Decision making, Fit on 25 January 2010
Imagine that you were receiving feedback on something you had worked on along with a colleague. Which of these two scenarios would you prefer?
- Scenario 1: You receive great feedback from your supervisor, but your colleague receives even better feedback.
- Scenario 2: You receive really negative feedback from your supervisor but your colleague receives significantly worse feedback.
On the face of it, Scenario 1 seems to be the best situation; you are receiving great feedback rather than negative feedback. However, in one study, certain people experiencing Scenario 2 reported feeling happier and more self confident than those experiencing Scenario 1. They would rather do better than their peers even if it meant performing much worse overall. Not everyone felt this way, though. In fact, it was only people who reported themselves as being generally unhappy who engaged in this social comparison. Happy people were just pleased to get a good report and didn’t measure themselves against other people.
What makes some people more sensitive to their relative success than to their absolute success? And what implications does this have for career decision making?
According to Barry Schwartz and his colleagues the unhappy people are ‘maximisers’ and the happy people are ‘saticficers’.
Classics – Theory of Work Adjustment
Posted by David Winter in Career choice, Career satisfaction, Career success, Classic theories, Decision making, Employability, Fit on 1 November 2009
You may have noticed the theme of compromise that I have been developing over the latest few posts. Given the economic conditions, it is very likely that people will be forced to make more compromises in their careers. So it seems to make sense to explore the notion of compromise and examine how to do it well.
I’ve decided to continue this theme by introducing another classic theory. This one is primarily a matching theory, but with a bit more to it.
I have included a brief summary of the Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA) in the resources section and you might want to read that first if you are unfamiliar with it. Here I will concentrate on why I think it is interesting.
Twisting the kaleidoscope
Posted by David Winter in Roles, Work-life balance on 28 October 2009
In our work with foundation doctors choosing their specialties, I pose a number of questions to help them to think about their choice in more depth. One of these questions is, ‘Have you thought about how your priorities will change over time?’ One of the female doctors accused me of aiming this question specifically at women because they are the ones likely to have to consider issues of work-family balance. However, many of the male doctors I’ve spoken to have also raised the issue of working hours and their impact on life outside work.
Last week the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the research report Working Better: Fathers, family and work – contemporary perspectives. This quote from the conclusions sums up the main findings of the research.
The findings from this survey show that fathers’ attitudes towards parenting do not appear to match the reality of their work and care arrangements. Their rejection of traditional views, dissatisfaction with the time they spend with their children and their strong support for extended paternity leave shows a willingness to be involved in the day-to-day care of their children. In practice, however, most fathers still work full time, and many work long hours.
See the press release for other key highlights. In the report, they admit that the figures may be unrepresentative because men who are actively involved in sharing responsibilities for parenting are more likely to respond to the survey. Similarly, male doctors who are particularly concerned about work-life balance may be more likely to attend optional career management sessions.
In 2005 Lisa Mainiero and Sherry Sullivan introduced the concept of Kaleidoscope Careers as a way to describe the changing priorities over the course of a person’s working life.
Positive compromise
Posted by David Winter in Career choice, Career satisfaction, Fit, Inheritance, Resources on 23 October 2009
I want to continue this short series of posts based around the theme of compromise by looking at a more modern developments.
In 2004 Charles Chen introduced the concept of positive compromise (Positive compromise: a new perspective for career psychology. Australian Journal of Career Development, 13(2) 2004). Compromise within career choice is generally considered a negative concept. Chen proposes that compromise will always be part of career choice in a complex and rapidly-changing world. Therefore, it makes sense to understand how to engage with compromise in constructive way.
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