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How to Choose the Right Career
From: Cambridge University Press
| By:
Robert J. Sternberg |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Success in the workplace requires more than just talent and training: because individuals think differently, they ideally should find the career that is suited to the way they think. Robert J. Sternberg argues that people can maximise their enjoyment of work by recognising their own particular style of thinking, and pursuing a career accordingly. |
 hy do so many people who fail in school succeed in life, and vice versa? Why do some people turn to law, others to medicine, and still others to accounting? And why do some of those doctors who were straight-A students in medical school fail their patients? Why is it that some gifted kids get straight A's in school, whereas others with equal abilities flunk out? These are just some of the questions that can be addressed through an understanding of styles of thinking. |
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| Creative types, such as sculptors, usually like to make their own rules, and prefer problems that are not prestructured or prefabricated. | |
My thesis is that what happens to us in life depends not just on how well we think, but also on how we think. People think in different ways, and moreover, our research has shown that they overestimate the extent to which others think the way they do. As a result, misunderstandings can develop--between spouses, parents and children, teachers and students, and bosses and employees. Understanding styles of thinking and learning can help people prevent these misunderstandings, and actually come to a better understanding of each other and of themselves. |
What are thinking styles? Why do we need them?
A style is a preferred way of thinking. It is not an ability, but rather how we use the abilities we have. We do not have a style, but rather a profile of styles. People may be practically identical in their abilities and yet have very different styles. But society does not always judge people with equal abilities as equal. Rather, people whose styles match those expected in certain situations are judged as having higher levels of abilities, despite the fact that what is present is not ability, but fit between those people's styles and the tasks they are confronting. |
Often, the tasks people face could be arranged better to fit their styles, or they could modify their styles to fit the tasks. But if an attribution is made that the people do not have the requisite abilities, the people typically never even get a chance to change their approach. |
Go to any high school or college reunion, and you will meet scores of people who went into the wrong job for themselves. They may have done what their guidance or career counselor told them to do, based on abilities or even interests. But many of them have found careers where they feel like they are at a dead end. Being at a dead end is often in the mind of the beholder, and one often feels at a dead end when the work one does is a misfit to the way in which one best uses the talents one has. Understanding styles can help people better understand why some activities fit them and others don't, and even why some people fit them and others don't. |
Why a theory of mental self-government?
The basic idea of the theory of mental self-government is that the forms of government we have in the world are not coincidental. Rather, they are external reflections of what goes on in people's minds. They represent alternative ways of organizing our thinking. Thus, the forms of government we see are mirrors of our minds. There are a number of parallels between the organization of the individual and the organization of society. For one thing, just as society needs to govern itself, so do we need to govern ourselves. We need to decide on priorities, as does a government. We need to allocate our resources, just as does a government. We need to be responsive to changes in the world, as does a government. And just as there are obstacles to change in government, so are there obstacles to change within ourselves. Here is an overview of the proposed theory. |
Functions of mental self-government
Roughly speaking, governments serve three functions: executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch carries out the initiatives, policies, and laws enacted by the legislative branch, and the judicial branch evaluates whether the laws are being carried out correctly and if there are violations of these laws. People also need to perform these functions in their own thinking and working. |
Legislative people like to come up with their own ways of doing things, and prefer to decide for themselves what they will do and how they will do it. Legislative people like to create their own rules, and prefer problems that are not prestructured or prefabricated. Some of the preferred kinds of activities of a legislative stylist are writing creative papers, designing innovative projects, creating new business or educational systems, and inventing new things. Some of the kinds of occupations they prefer, all of which let them exercise their legislative bent, are creative writer, scientist, artist, sculptor, investment banker, policy maker, and architect. |
The legislative style is particularly conducive to creativity, because creative people need not only the ability to come up with new ideas, but also the desire to. Unfortunately, school environments do not often reward the legislative style. Indeed, even the training for occupations that require people to be creative often discourages the legislative style. Thus, a person might find him- or herself in a science course, required to memorize facts, formulas, and charts. Yet scientists almost never have to memorize anything: If they don't remember something, they look it up on their bookshelf. Creative writers also need a legislative style, but a legislative style is not often encouraged, and is often discouraged in literature classes, where the emphasis in the lower grades is likely to be on comprehension and in the upper grades on criticism and analysis. |
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| Executive decisions: those whose thinking style is executive may be suited to working as police officers. | |
Executive people like to follow rules and prefer problems that are prestructured or prefabricated. They like to fill in the gaps within existing structures rather than to create the structures themselves. Some of the kinds of activities they are likely to prefer are solving given mathematical problems, applying rules to problems, giving talks or lessons based on other people's ideas, and enforcing rules. Some occupations that can be a good fit to executive thinkers are certain types of lawyer, police officer on patrol, builder of other people's designs, soldier, proselytizer for other people's systems, and administrative assistant. |
The executive style tends to be valued both in school and in business, because executive stylists do what they are told, and often do it cheerfully. They follow directions and orders, and evaluate themselves in the same way the system is likely to evaluate them, namely, in terms of how well they do what they are told. Thus, a gifted child with an executive style is likely to do well in school, whereas a gifted child with a legislative style is more likely to be viewed as nonconforming and even rebellious. |
Peer-group pressure encourages children to adopt an executive style as well, but with respect to the norms of the peer group rather than of the school. Thus, pressure from many sources can lead students to adopt this style. |
Judicial people like to evaluate rules and procedures, and prefer problems in which one analyzes and evaluates existing things and ideas. The judicial stylist likes activities such as writing critiques, giving opinions, judging people and their work, and evaluating programs. Some of their preferred kinds of occupations are judge, critic, program evaluator, consultant, admissions officer, grant and contract monitor, and systems analyst. |
Schools often shortchange the judicial style. Although the work of a historian, for example, is in large part judicial--the analysis of historical events--many children get the idea that the work is largely executive--remembering dates of events. As in science, therefore, some of the ablest students may decide to pursue some other field, even though their style of thinking may be well suited not to their preparation for the career, but to the actual career itself. |
Problems of mismatching are not limited to the school. In many businesses, including schools, lower-level managers are sought who have a largely executive style. They do what they are told, and try to do it well. People with such a style are often then promoted into the higher levels of management. The problem is that in the higher levels, a more legislative or judicial style also becomes desirable. But many of the people with a more legislative or judicial style may well have been derailed early in their management careers, so that they never get to the higher levels of management. People may be promoted to higher positions for which their styles are not suited. Small wonder, for example, that some school administrators are reluctant to accept change. They got to where they are because they did what they were told to do, not because they liked to decide what to do in the first place. |
The forms of mental self-government
The theory of mental self-government specifies four forms: monarchic, hierarchic, oligarchic, and anarchic. Each form results in a different way of approaching the world and its problems. |
A monarchic person is someone who is single-minded and driven. The individual tends not to let anything get in the way of his or her solving a problem. Monarchic people can be counted on to get a thing done, given that they have set their mind to it. Monarchic bosses often expect tasks to be done, without excuses or extenuating circumstances. When you get married to a monarchic individual, you usually find it out quickly. You may see little of the person, and when you do see the person, his or her mind may be elsewhere. If you, rather than, say, work, are the subject of a monarchic spouse's obsession, you may find yourself receiving more attention than you expected. |
Monarchic children often encounter a problem in school: They usually want to be doing something other than what they are doing, and are likely to be thinking about the other thing while they are supposed to be attending to the teacher. Sometimes, their interests are best served when a teacher (or parent) brings whatever they are monarchic about to bear on other things they are doing. For example, a child who has a strong interest in sports but is not a reader may become a reader if given sports novels to read (as I did with my son). A child who loves cooking but not math could be given math problems to do that involve recipes. In these ways, the child may become interested in things that previously were of no interest. |
The hierarchic person has a hierarchy of goals and recognizes the need to set priorities, as all goals cannot always be fulfilled, or at least fulfilled equally well. This person tends to be more accepting of complexity than is the monarchic person, and recognizes the need to view problems from a number of angles so as to set priorities correctly. |
Hierarchic individuals tend to fit well into organizations because they recognize the need for priorities. However, if their priorities are different from those of the organization, problems may arise. Then they may find themselves organizing their work according to their own, but not their organization's, priorities. The company lawyer who wants to spend too much time on pro bono work, the university professor who wants to spend too much time teaching, and the cook who wants each meal to be perfect but who takes forever in cooking the meals may soon find themselves unwelcome in their respective organizations. |
The oligarchic person is like the hierarchic person in having a desire to do more than one thing within the same time frame. But unlike hierarchic people, oligarchic people tend to be motivated by several, often competing goals of equal perceived importance. Often, these individuals feel pressured in the face of competing demands on their time and other resources. They are not always sure what to do first, or how much time to allot to each of the tasks they need to complete. However, given even minimal guidance as to the priorities of the organization in which they are involved, they can become as effective or even more effective than people with other styles. |
The anarchic person seems to be motivated by a potpourri of needs and goals that can be difficult for him or her, as well as for others, to sort out. Anarchic people take what seems like a random approach to problems; they tend to reject systems, and especially rigid ones, and to fight back at whatever system they see as confining them. |
Although anarchic individuals may have trouble adapting to the worlds of school and work, especially if the environment is a rigid one, they often have greater potential for creative contribution than do many of the people who find the anarchics so distasteful. Because anarchics tend to pick up a little from here, a little from there, they often put together diverse bits of information and ideas in a creative way. They are wide-ranging in the scope of things they will consider, and so may see solutions to problems that others overlook. The problem for the teacher, parent, or employer is to help the anarchic person harness this potential for creativity, and achieve the self-discipline and organization that are necessary for any kind of a creative contribution. If this harnessing effort works, then the anarchic person may end up succeeding in domains where others may fail. |
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