This section explores what was going on within the conversations in terms of the behaviours and nature of the relationship. The importance of relationship has been previously identified in many studies (e.g. Bosley et al., 2007; Kidd et al., 2003; Ragins et al., 2000). Due to the research approach for this study, information on the relationships between those involved in career conversations was not consistently collected. Rather, this information is only available for conversations where the participant chose to share it in response to an open question such as ‘tell me more about that’, or
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‘what was it that made this so helpful’. This is in contrast to Kidd et al., (2004) who collected this information through the structure of their interviews. The focus in this section is particularly on issues of trust and power which emerged from the conversation descriptions (although it should be noted that these were not labelled by the participants as power issues).
Trust was described by a number of participants as an important contributor to helpful conversations. Personal disclosure, or asking for help was particularly associated with trust. For example, UM spoke in general terms about her experiences;
‘The desire to open up to have these conversations is down to the individual, you have to trust the person and make yourself vulnerable’
UM Often participants described selecting someone to talk to based on their trust in them. For example, RC went through a very difficult period in his career and was planning to leave the business, but decided instead to have a conversation;
‘I knew and trusted the HRD – she listened, understood and identified an opportunity for a job which I could love not hate’.
RC The absence, or breakdown of trust was also mentioned by some in both specific and general terms;
‘I felt that she was weak to let me take it. She didn’t defend me I lost a lot of trust and respect’
BF ‘The tightly managed approach has consequences, because people don’t feel trusted’
CL
The importance of trust was also frequently referenced by the HR stakeholders. Indeed, it emerged in the initial analysis as a key feature of the local dynamics of the contextual map (to be discussed in more detail in chapter 7). Across the HR interviews, three elements of trust were described. Firstly, mutuality (as discussed under the collaborator role) was referenced with the approach working ‘for the individual and the business’ (Jessica). Secondly, honesty was identified, with an awareness that this could be difficult for both parties. For example, Richard observed that it
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can be ‘culturally expected’ that individuals will say that they want to progress and are mobile, and they may not feel able to be honest if this is not the case. Similarly, managers may not want to be honest about someone’s likely career path for fear of demotivating them. Thirdly, Suzanne raised the issue of interpersonal style, with some managers tending to adopt a prescriptive approach with comments like ‘we think this would be good for you’, which was not seen as a good starting point for mutual trust and openness.
A further area of trust was raised by the OD consultants who questioned the role of internal versus external career support. Many of the OD consultants were involved in providing external coaching support and saw benefits of this approach to the individual and the organisation. They felt that it was far easier to establish trust, enabling more openness and that an external person could be an advocate in a way that was difficult for an internal person. This was summarised by Gillian;
‘Trust is a big issue - are you going to trust the organisation if you open up and talk about your long term plans? The company is really just interested in you doing a good job.’
Gillian
The importance of trusting relationships as a precursor to positive career conversations is a consistent theme in the literature. For example, Hirsh et al. (2001) refer to trust in the conversation giver’s motives;
‘it was important that the giver had the individual’s best interests at heart and no particular agenda of their own’
Hirsh et al. (2001: 15) This is consistent with the findings of Bosley et al., (2007) which described one type of career helper credibility emerging from a personal knowledge, with knowledge, understanding and care. Trust is also a wider theme in the research on dialogue (e.g. Bokeno, 2007) and psychological contract (e.g. Guest, 2004). Given the prevalence of ‘trust’ as an ascribed contributor to successful conversations, it was surprising that it was not a more common feature of the descriptions by participants. This could be because the specific question was not asked, or because it was assumed it was a natural part of the conversations they were describing. However, it could also illustrate that for some types of career conversation trust is not seen as an important feature. For example, if someone is a gatekeeper, it may be that they make their contribution through their position, not because of a trusting
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relationship. In these instances, the person’s credibility as a helper was likely to be established through their structural role or knowledge. Thus, these findings could be seen to support the proposition that credibility may emerge from either structural role, relationship or both (Bosley et al., 2007).
Power dynamics in the context of careers were considered in the literature review. This highlighted the potential negative impact of power within coaching and mentoring relationships (e.g. Garvey, 2004; Rostron, 2009) and the potential conflicts for line managers when developing team members (e.g. Gibb, 2003; Nixon & Carroll, 1994). Elements of power were discussed in chapter 5 when looking at alignment. In particular, this considered organizational transparency and the balance between individual and organizational needs in talent management and career development. The perceived impact of power as it emerged in individual’s descriptions of career conversations has been considered at various points in this chapter (for example, as part of the discussion on the career catalyst and collaborator and when discussing the line manager’s role).
Additional references to power dynamics in the career conversations are described below. For example, JP described her relationship with a previous boss. She knew she was part of high potential group;
‘but I never had a truly clear conversation about the long-term, for example about my interest in the marketing director role.’
JP She described that her boss needed her to be a ‘capable pair of hands’, and she later had a conversation about whether she wanted to be a marketing director or ‘an excellent number 2’. When describing this JP gave no indication that she found her boss manipulative, or that he was using his power to limit her career options. However, her comment about the relationship that her boss was ‘very reliant on me, it was odd but healthy’, indicates that he may have been exerting power to further his own goals rather than those of JP. Similarly, FL gave her power to her boss, ‘He’s the boss, I should do what he wants’. For FL, her primary aim was to please her boss and thus she would buy in to whatever he suggested (as described by Riddle & Ting, 2006).
159 6.5 Summary
In this chapter career conversations have been discussed from the perspective of the way they are set up, the contribution of the conversation and the relationship between the parties involved in the conversation.
Supporting the work of Kidd et al. (2004), many different types of career conversations were considered to be helpful. Participants reported positive conversations about personal development, and there were also lots of positive conversations regarding specific job roles. However, there were fewer conversations (and a lower proportion of positive conversations) looking at future career options when compared with Kidd et al. (2004). Many of the positive conversations described in this research were informal and took place with the line manager. Rather than benefitting from a prescribed type of career conversation, people seemed to find different types of conversation helpful at different times, possibly linked to different stages in their career cycle (Inkson et al., 2015). This is contrary to the view of many of the HR stakeholders who, despite saying they recognised the value of the informal, expressed a desire for consistent, structured conversations which took place regularly. The value of informal, ad hoc conversations is also omitted from many of the recommendations which appear in the talent management literature.
Within the current study there was evidence to support for all five of the career shaper categories described by Bosley et al. (2009). However, within this sample, there seemed to be two additional categories. Firstly, a ‘collaborator’ category is proposed. This captures the career shaper who is genuinely working to match the needs of the individual and the organisation. As such, this is the category which can potentially help careers to be jointly managed (Clarke, 2013), acting as a bridge between the organizational talent and individual career agendas. Secondly, a ‘catalyst’ category is proposed. This is a line manager who challenges an individual to develop a new career self-concept and provides opportunities to support this. There was evidence of both new categories and they were also described by the other stakeholder groups. It is suggested that further research is conducted to develop greater insight into these categories to understand how common they are and how they can contribute to career development and talent management practice.
The impact of interpersonal relationships highlighted that trust is an important feature of many career conversations. However, it was not positioned as an essential element of all
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conversations. Issues of power were also seen to impact on career conversations, but the influence of this seemed to be varied, illustrating the complex and interacting nature of power relationships.
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