There are many models for helping a person to develop their career. One approach is to help them to explore where they are on the satisfying work curve.
This can involve focusing on their seed corn, satisfying work, salary earner and maybe even their spent force. Let’s explore these themes.
Seed Corn
A person may start by exploring many possibilities. They follow their interests and plants lots of seeds. Some of these turn into activities that they can develop. They then pursue a specific activity they find stimulating.
Some seeds may grow and there may also be some potential customers or employers who show interest. The person may then put extra effort into pursuing these opportunities and clarifying how they can help those people to achieve success.
Satisfying Work
The person translates the activity into doing a specific piece of satisfying work for a customer or employer. This may be a task, project or other activity. They continue to pursue this venture and, if possible, get some funding.
Sometimes this activity can involve doing project work or taking a full time role. The person may experience a sense of adventure and discover new things. They also develop their skills when doing the work.
Salary Earner
The person continues to translate the satisfying work into earning a salary and delivering success. This stage of the curve can produce many upsides – such as developing their skills – but it can also begin to have downsides.
Sometimes the person has spurts of growth, sometimes they may feel like they have plateaued. Sometimes they continue to do good work and earn a salary. But sometimes they experience the next stage.
Spent Force
The person finds that their energy begins to deteriorate. The cash is still coming in but doing the activity is no longer stimulating. They feel like a spent force.
Sometimes this can be a natural stage in a career. That is okay providing they have already spent time nurturing their next crop of seed corn. They will then be ready to begin the next development cycle.
Imagine that you are helping a person to develop their career. If appropriate, you can invite a person to clarify where they are on the curve. They may, of course, be at different stages with different projects or activities.
If appropriate, you can encourage the person to focus on the stimulating activities where they can use their strengths. They can then plant seeds and continue along the satisfying work curve.
The person may also find it useful to repeat this exercise at various points in their career. Some people neglect to do this, however, and do not react until they reach their spent force.
Bearing this in mind, you can invite the person to tackle the following exercise. This explores how they can plant seed corn and continue to develop their career.
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