The use of metaphor is increasingly being used in career planning.\u00a0 For a PhD researcher it can be a useful way of conceptualising the place of career planning amongst the range of challenges to be addressed.<\/p>\n
I recently came across a metaphor for people\u2019s career behaviour based on how a dog chases a tennis ball thrown for it.\u00a0 This can be seen in Victoria Park here in Leicester every day.<\/p>\n
If one tennis ball is thrown then, usually, a dog will chase after it and bring it back, safe in the knowledge that this is what his\/her owner\/walker wants.\u00a0 The dog enjoys doing this, so it is meeting the needs of both the dog and the human.\u00a0 Now what happens if a tennis ball is thrown and as the dog chases it, another one is thrown?\u00a0 Well then you have a confused dog who is not quite sure which tennis ball he\/she should be retrieving.\u00a0 (The dog may go for the first tennis ball irrespective of whether it is the best option).<\/p>\n
Similarly, or perhaps worse, a ball is thrown and the dog chases after it.\u00a0 Then as the dog is about to pick it up another ball arrives; and another etc\u2026\u00a0 Now what does the dog do?<\/p>\n
Similarly, for our careers it is important to know which tennis ball we are chasing.\u00a0 Because there may be a lot of (career) tennis balls thrown, and if we don\u2019t know which one we are chasing\/retrieving we will most likely end up confused and dissatisfied.\u00a0 For some one doing a PhD the task of career planning will be much clearer, and more likely to be successful, if the person knows which career tennis ball they are chasing.\u00a0 Too often, when people neglect this they get to the end of their PhD, to find a bunch of career tennis balls on the ground.\u00a0 Unfortunately, at that point, the person may have little idea of how to discriminate between these tennis balls.\u00a0 Which tennis ball am I chasing?<\/p>\n
Footnote: The same phenomenon can be seen in some workplaces.\u00a0 If goals are not SMART then people may find themselves faced with a myriad of tennis balls arriving at unpredictable times.\u00a0 Too often, the result is confusion and sub-optimal performance, from both an individual and organisation perspective.\u00a0 Which tennis ball am I chasing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The use of metaphor is increasingly being used in career planning.\u00a0 For a PhD researcher it can be a useful way of conceptualising the place of career planning amongst the range of challenges to be addressed. I recently came across a metaphor for people\u2019s career behaviour based on how a dog chases a tennis ball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[5,6,7],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","category-postgraduate","category-research","tag-careers","tag-postgraduate","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/pgrcareers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}