Missed it by that much? Getting smart with Chaos in Organisations
The Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) (Pryor & Bright, 2007) provides a new way of considering organisational performance and organisational career development issues that encapsulates complexity, change, chance, stability, pattern and emergent culture. Within this framework, both individuals and their organisations can be reconceptualised as complex dynamical systems whose behaviour produces emergent order which reproduces itself as patterns of functioning over different times and contexts. This is called fractal behaviour. The fractal nature of organisations means that if vision, feedback, ongoing learning, creativity and experimentation are encouraged and rewarded then ideas, possibilities, trial and error, and small projects of discovery are likely to occur at varying levels within the company as ways to respond to competition, change and growth. This becomes an organizational culture that employees imbue and participate in if they wish to remain in the company. Successful enterprises have fractal qualities.
Professor Jim Bright and Professor Robert Pryor
Successful organisations and their successful employees within them must be simultaneously focussed and flexible. Modern working environments are inescapably complex, rapidly changing and increasingly global bringing into question traditional static “exact fit” models of career development.
Organisations and individuals using a “missed it by that much” philosophy are not working smartly because it indicates a focused and inflexible approach that fails to recognise the complexity of influences on performance, the emergent patterns at work and the creative possibilities for personal and organisational success that can develop working on the edge of chaos.
This keynote presentation reviews the smart way to apply CTC within organisations and presents examples of organisations and their people applying CTC principles and loving it!
Education AND Community: Working in partnership to grow aspiring, able and achieving young people
Prof Brenda Cherednichenko
The development of happy and successful children, adults and communities is the responsibility of whole communities. Families, schools and universities working together with policy makers have the resources to engage all young people in authentic learning and enable genuine pathways to learning, employment and civic engagement. This seminar will discuss how effective and sustainable partnerships assist in addressing the specific needs of local communities to build aspiration, participation, social justice and success for all. It will highlight a range of community-school-university partnerships which have successfully served to build educational capacity and ability for all partners. In particular it will provide exemplars of collaborative research and learning practice with families, young people and communities, including Indigenous communities to support self directed achievement and pathways to careers and work. Specifically the session examines a typology of engagement in learning for success, the relationship of schools and learning practices to student success, the influence of social class on learning practice and outcomes and the potential for teachers and career professionals to intervene in traditional patterns of educational outcome. The session argues that, together, partners can be the voice and drivers for social and policy change in all partner institutions.
Smart Future Directions for the Career Development Profession
This year career development practitioners in Australia will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Career Development Association of Australia in the launch of its new name and the publication of its twenty year history. The international career development community will join us in celebration and in reflecting on the beginnings of our profession as we celebrate the centenary of the posthumous publication of choosing a Vocation (1909), written by Frank Parsons, recognised as the Father of Vocational Guidance.
This paper, Smart Future Directions for our Profession, will look at the evolution of career development in Australia, the key leadership role played by Career Development Association of Australia (formerly AACC), and some implications for the future directions of our profession.
Strong collaboration between policy makers, researchers and practitioners in Australia has resulted in the establishment of the peak body, the Career Industry Council of Australia, and the Professional Standards have been developed to ensure quality service delivery. While the benefits to the profession have been substantial, with a raised profile and funding for recurrent projects, have the benefits to the economy and to the community been fully realised?
The challenge of acting as a social justice advocate, whether as an individual or an organisation, implies questioning existing policies and systems, and a creative approach to instigating positive change. CDAA, as a leader in the field of career development, and individual practitioners, need to develop a “Smart” approach to instigating organisational change, and to assist individual students and clients to embrace the possibilities and opportunities that are inherent in change.
Career Development – Sharing the Vision
Tim Costello AO
In his keynote presentation Tim Costello AO will focus on his work at World Vision - the challenges World Vision are being called to do and the challenges they are facing. Tim will connect that agenda to current issues around social inclusion, employment and the impact of the financial crisis and how career development can impact positively in these areas. He will also offer his thoughts about the potential for service learning.
Business Growth and Career Development: Making the Connection
Megan Lilly
This presentation will outline the connections between career development and business growth, current connections/relationships between business and career development professionals and discuss the potential for optimising these connections to achieve mutual benefits for business and individuals.
Influencing career development commitment with employers and individuals
Sue Seawright
Education and career development are key drivers of employment participation and economic success. What are the persuasive arguments that see employers investing in career and workforce development for their staff? How do we as career development practitioners influence this commitment by employers and their staff?
In a context of full employment, a contest for skills and labour and fears of losing talented staff to competitors, there are a range of ways to discuss with employers the need to plan for sustainability of their organisation, including career development and pathway opportunities, talent management and succession planning.
This keynote is drawn from observations and experience of career management practice; HRM consulting; support to employers in their business and workforce planning; and organisational development programs focusing on both individual learners and enterprises as clients.
Key skills for development by career development practitioners are identified, to enable us to play an increasingly positive role in building employer commitment and the individual valuing of this commitment. This includes an understanding of how the balanced scorecard approach and concepts such as return on investment, community capacity building, corporate social responsibility and the employer of choice proposition play a role, to attract and retain talented employees and encourage high levels of workforce engagement and participation.