CA 3. Career Settings Inventory

While there are many factors that contribute to the nature and dynamics of the organizational settings in which we work, there is one fundamental factor that plays directly into the interplay between career need and press. This is the typical manner in which one’s career is perceived and encouraged by the people and culture of the organization.
Michael Driver and Ken Brousseau proposed that one of four “career concepts” (and associated career paths) are promoted in most organizations. CPOA provides an inventory that builds on (and updates) these concepts/paths and suggests career opportunities associated with each concept/path:
This inventory provides a respondent (or group of respondents) with the opportunity to assess the extent to which each of these concepts/paths are prominent in their own organization. Together with a coach or consultant, the respondent can explore the career possibilities associated with each concept/path:
• Linear Incline. Possibility of moving up in the organization and finding many opportunities for career advancement as well as being recognized for your work and given greater responsibility and authority,
• Steady State. Possibility of engaging in a consistently structured job with clear and consistent job expectations as well as being recognized for a specific and stable work assignment,
• Recursive Spiral. Possibility of moving into job assignments that make use of your existing skills and knowledge while also requiring and enabling you to acquire new skills and knowledge, as well as being recognized for and given responsibility to engage emerging opportunities in your job that supports new learning while building on the foundation of your current successful work, and
• Diffuse Opportunism. Possibility of moving freely in and out of specific job assignments and organizationally defined expectations regarding your role and responsibilities, as well as possibility of being recognized for and supported in initiating bold new ventures both within and outside current organizational boundaries that may yield unanticipated beneficial outcomes.

CA 4. Career Interests/Settings Alignment Template

CPOA brings together results from the Career Interests Inventory and Career Settings Inventory in a two -dimensional (11×4) template that enables the respondent (and their supervisor) to examine the extent to which their interests and their organizational setting are aligned. Several “hot spots” are identified where research shows that there is a good match between interests and setting.

CA 5. CPOA Organizational Planning Template

A process is described for making use of several CPOA assessment instruments when addressing specific organizational issues. This process is based on Edgar Schein’s premise that one’s career provides the intersect between personal aspirations and organizational needs.
The planning process incorporates the Career Interest Inventory along with the other assessment instruments related to personal perspectives and preferences as tools for identifying personal aspirations.
The insights gained from these inventories are then paired with CPOA career-oriented assessments and job enhancement tools (RISE and TEAM) as they relate to the engagement of specific organizational issues. Results from the career-oriented tools on behalf of the organizational issue being addressed provide guidance for the identification of appropriate training and educational initiatives.
The CPOA planning template also provides a unique and valuable perspective regarding the nature and dimensions of organizational issues being addressed. Specifically, analytic tools are identified and described for discerning between organizational puzzles, problems, dilemmas and mysteries.
Important planning-based insights are derived from this analysis—especially when this analysis is related to the personal perspectives and preferences, and to the career-orientations and job/team related environments of those employees and stakeholders who are addressing these issues.