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Self-knowledge focused on career?

Self-knowledge has already been covered here (if you haven't read it yet, I suggest you have a look first), but because it's an extremely important and very broad soft skill, today I'm bringing it up with a new approach, related to professional life.

Everyone will work at some point, whether in a formal job or not. In fact, work usually takes up a large, often the largest, part of a person's life. In Brazil, the culture of working hard to achieve "success", which is a socially defined standard and which, in fact, should be a personal and private concept, is still very present (but I'll have to leave that for another time).

What happens is that people grow up in a society where certain professions are more valued, and in that sense many try to fit in without realizing, or belatedly realizing, that this won't make them happy and fulfilled. This is why self-knowledge in relation to work is also essential. Knowing how to recognize your work style and career anchors should be a prerequisite for professional life.

According to the Estudar Foundation: work styles are beliefs, more specific than values, aimed at the professional environment. They reflect the work environment where you tend to be most productive and satisfied. Studies related to work styles began to be carried out with the aim of identifying the degree of compatibility between people and the companies/occupations they have.

In the 1990s, three American academics, Charles O'Reilly III, Jennifer Chatman and David Caldwell, mapped organizations and individuals in search of a test that could measure cultural alignment. They basically came up with eight attributes that create corporate culture and work style:

  • Agility: people with this aspect have a preference for environments that seek action and speed, where calmness is less valued.

  • Attention to detail: in this case the preference is for analytical environments, where attention is paid to everything that is happening and where quality is valued.

  • Stability: associated with those who prefer organized environments in which things are well defined.Result-oriented: people like this type of environment, where what matters is what has been done and they don't value how things are done so much.

  • Aggressiveness: this type prefers an environment that values and encourages competition and focus.

  • Emphasis on reward: in this regard, there is a preference for places with plenty of opportunities for growth and gain for those who are willing to do what it takes to get them.Informality: a predominant characteristic of those who prefer informal and free environments, with few rules.

  • Teamwork: classic among people who prefer environments where decisions and responsibilities are shared and where the focus is less on the individual and more on the team.

 

We all possess the eight characteristics, to varying degrees, so that some stand out. Every organization also values each of these aspects more or less, so knowing which ones you most identify with will help you choose a company with which you are more compatible and, consequently, will feel better about being part of.

  It's worth remembering that an aligned employee settles in more quickly and is happier at work, which is beneficial both for the employee experience and for the company, which retains them. This fit (or alignment), in addition to the characteristics associated with the professional environment, also takes into account working styles. There are four main ones, which can be found under different names:

  • Executor: this is the type of professional who values the completion of tasks, stability, order and standardization. Generally, these people are very focused, pragmatic, detail-oriented, hard-working and don't like to take risks. Perfectionists and worriers, they only stop working when the job is done. However, communication with the rest of the team can often be poor, and they tend to be more diligent when it comes to adopting new things.

  • Leader: they are responsible for creating a vision and inspiring other colleagues to believe in it. They like to take risks and bring more energy and imagination to the team. A good leader seeks to seize every opportunity or even create new possibilities. They tend not to be very detail-oriented and make decisions quickly and spontaneously. One problem with these professionals is that they may not wait for other people when they develop an idea and are driven by it. 

  • Lover: these are the people who foster lasting relationships. They believe that we are stronger together and thrive on harmony to manage relationships and build consensus.They are diplomatic and are always promoting team unity and connecting people. Generally, these professionals are sensitive, sympathetic and empathetic, they can understand the overall context and the importance of each person in the team and have no problem working as part of a team.

  • Learner: this type of professional loves to learn and understand the nuances of a problem. They are very disciplined and tend to think more logically and strategically than most people. They are focused on objectives and feel more secure when there is a debate in decision-making. Therefore, in order to execute their best plans, they need a team ready to act.

Although it's easier to get along with similar people, an organization needs to be diverse and contain a balance between all types in order to function better, because everyone's characteristics complement each other and different visions are adopted. It is also very important for leaders to know how to recognize and exploit each other's styles, so that the overall performance of the team and each employee is improved.

Are you curious to identify your working styles? I recommend the Fundação Estudar Test: https://www.napratica.org.br/entenda-o-teste-de-estilo-de-trabalho/.

  Still on the subject, another important concept to be explained is career anchors - have you heard of them? Can you tell us what makes you or would make you wake up ready to go to work? What motivates you? Edgar Schein, a specialist in organizational development and former professor of management at the Sloan School of Management - MIT, wanted to understand what motivated people to do what they did and created a theory based on career anchors.

 

The anchor, in case you didn't know, is the part of a ship that makes it stand still in the middle of the sea. Do you know what makes you stay in one place? What gives you firmness, strength and tranquility? Edgar says that the career anchor is like a person's self-image, what makes them unique, what shows what they want and don't want and what values they stand for. And this representation of one's self is formed as one experiences work, in other words, it has a direct influence on one's career.

  There are a number of factors that contribute to an individual finding and staying in a particular job, and it's important to note that they are unique to each individual. Being aware of our motivations, which can often be unconscious and we attribute the wrong causes to them, is important for our self-knowledge and personal and professional fulfillment.

According to Schein, the anchors are pillars that guide each individual's career decisions, so through the test professionals can discover which of them have the greatest weight in their work experience. Even though it was created a long time ago, the career anchor test continues to serve its purpose of being a good guide for professional life.

As with work styles, people generally oscillate between the eight anchor factors. However, in most cases, there is one of these pillars that most strongly supports an individual's career path. Can you list your main ones just by reading the name of each one?

  1. Autonomy and Independence (AI) - consists of people who are looking for a career that, over time, will allow them greater independence, where they can impose their own conditions. Autonomy is inherent in every human being, to varying degrees, but those who feel strongly about this anchor feel the need to be in charge of their own destiny, to do things their own way. That's why they don't value standardization in organizations and will organize their professional life around jobs that give them more choice and decision-making power.

  2. Security/Stability (SS) - this is where people who need to feel secure in the workplace fit in. They value a structured career, a stable and predictable job. They also seek security guarantees, benefits and think about retirement. The focus is on long-term jobs, with greater predictability of the future, in which the context matters more than the nature of the work itself. They are attracted to companies that offer this stability, especially financial stability, with good retirement plans and a good reputation.

  3. Technical and Functional Competence (TFC) - these are people who are committed to a career of specialization. They are motivated when they are experts in a particular subject, are looking for challenging work and want to test their knowledge and skills in their area of expertise. They seek to exercise their talent and develop their personal capacity in their area of interest in order to become a reference. They don't usually aim for senior administrative positions (these are usually more generalist), but rather specialist positions.

  4. General Administrative Competence (GAC) - refers to those who, throughout their professional lives, aim to reach the highest levels of responsibility in the organization. These are people who understand the business as a whole, aim for leadership, and are motivated to reach the top of the corporate hierarchy. They understand the importance of knowing the functional areas, but are not looking to specialize technically, as they want the role of general manager and associate the company's growth with their own personal growth.



 

  1. Entrepreneurial Creativity (EC) - includes professionals with a flair for creating new businesses and organizations. They like to create things, take risks and face challenges. They are not necessarily people with artistic creativity, but with an entrepreneurial spirit, who want to establish or restructure their own businesses. They have the motivation to start ventures from an early age in order to earn money. It's worth noting that the focus here is not on the search for autonomy, but on business creation.

  2. Dedication to a Cause (DC) - these are people who guide their career by values they want to imprint on their work. They dedicate themselves to causes rather than to their talents and skills. They are professionals who want, in some way, to contribute to a better world through their work. Generally, they need to feel that they are influencing the organizations in which they work according to their personal values. One of their most outstanding characteristics is their interpersonal skills and their devotion to teaching and helping others.

  3. Pure challenge (PC) - professionals who define success as overcoming impossible obstacles or being able to solve unsolvable problems. These are people who need to feel that they can achieve anything. The search for challenges permeates almost everyone's career, but for those who are anchored in pure challenge, it is what guides their trajectory, so that all their professional decisions will always be aimed at overcoming ever greater challenges.

  4. Lifestyle (LS) - contains people who seek to find a way to integrate and reconcile all their needs: individual, family and career. They may be highly motivated by work, but understand that it should only be one part of their overall life. Above all, they want flexibility and work-life balance. The difference with the autonomy anchor is that they adapt well to the organizational environment, with its rules and restrictions, but want to have more flexible work options.

Anchors represent everyone's unique combination of perceived career competencies, motivations and values. Knowing what yours are makes it easier to find the best company for you to work for, where your profile is aligned with the organizational culture. Interested? 

As a final tip, I'd also like to recommend a professional website which, as well as offering the career anchors test, also offers various other personal and professional development journeys, as well as job vacancies in large companies. It's free and well worth registering: https://www.bettha.com/mapeamento-de-perfil.

Did you already know about these work style divisions? Do you think this knowledge will help you make more assertive decisions about your career? Remember that the aim is to help you become more fulfilled, not to limit you! We can all evolve, change or adapt as necessary and as far as possible.

©2024 Ser de Maestria. Produced by Bárbara Barnabé.

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