A Research Paper By Xiaoyu Zhang, Career Coach, CHINA
Metaphor in the Career Coaching Conversation
Help people to pursue a joyful, fulfilling, and sustainable career.
In such a world with changes and uncertainties, many young people are struggling, stressed, and find themselves lost at the crossroads with a very ambiguous future. The career journey is no longer a straight road like our parents might define. You may hear the following talks coming up during the session ‘I feel stuck on a plateau’, and ‘My Career is going downhill.’ ‘I want to switch my career track.’ People are using metaphors in career-related conversations sometimes they don’t realize it.
Metaphor is a powerful tool allowing us to see different perspectives of complex and abstract things by connecting with physical and social experiences (Lakoff and Johnson, 2008). Therefore, I would like to share my research findings about metaphors in career coaching practice with you.
Definition and Benefits of Metaphors
Cambridge Dictionary defines Metaphor as an expression, often found in literature, that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics to that person or object. Amundson stated in his book ‘Metaphor Making: Your Career, Your Life, Your Way’ that when facing new challenges, people tend to refer to parallel examples and apply those experiences to the current problem(2009).
The benefits of using metaphors include (Frameworks, 2020)
- Explain abstract ideas or complicated issues by using everyday objects or experiences.
- Reframe thoughts by igniting an old issue with a new light.
- Evoke awareness and open dead-end conversations or repetitive debates.
Experts found that many career counselors with a constructivist foundation are choosing to use metaphors and stories in their counseling practice (Thrift and Amundson, 2005). Lakoff and Johnson (2008) also emphasized the importance of metaphor – ‘people’s conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.’ With the power of framing and reframing perspectives, metaphors have been used widely in the career counseling process. Client and career consultant are working together to shift the thinking away from issues and concerns and build up a creative and meaningful future filled with possibilities(McMahon, 2016). So, I believe that embracing metaphors in career coaching conversations would also be a useful way to evoke awareness and facilitate the client’s growth.
Career Metaphors:
Inkson (2004) summarised nine dominating metaphors in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour – the career was regarded as (1) inheritance, (2) construction, (3) cycle, (4) matching, (5) journey, (6) encounters and relationships, (7) roles, (8) resource, and (9) story.
Journey is the most common one that people use to describe their career progression. Research shows that when people are asked to describe their career in one word, more than half of them use journey as the leading metaphor (Inkson, 2002, Woldendorp, 2019). You may hear some other frequent-used words like “Career Path”, “Career River”, and “Career Ladder”, which are regarded as the sub-metaphors of the journey (Inkson and Amundson, 2002). No matter if it is a river, ladder, mountain, or land, they all have a direction. During the session, it is important for our career coaches to listen actively to understand the situation and support the client to overcome the challenges alongside the journey.
For those who are interested and want to know more – Inkson elaborated on those nine archetypal metaphors in his book ‘Understanding Careers: The Metaphors of Working Lives’ with over 50 real career cases which is beneficial for career practitioners to understand on a practical level (2007).
Career Metaphor in Coaching Conversations
As ICF core competencies mentioned, as a coach, we need to inquire about or explore the words the client uses. So, we should listen actively and be sensitive about the occurrence of those client-initiated metaphors. Sometimes, clients use a few metaphors to describe their situations and feelings. You may hear a client saying: ‘I have nowhere to go. I am hitting the end of the road. I am lost. It is a disaster.’It seems not possible to elaborate all those metaphors in a one-hour session and will be too exhausting to catch all metaphorical signals.
As a coach, we need to spot the key metaphor and use clear and concise open-ended questions to help clients explore it. Deeply connecting to the metaphor is not easy. Space and time should be given for thinking, feeling, and reflection.
Also, I want to highlight the cultural differences that we can’t ignore during the conversation. Cultural diversity was emphasized in our ICA class. The meaning of metaphor is very likely to vary across cultures. So, if there is confusion about the client-initiated metaphor (which is quite normal), it is important for us to clarify with the client.
During the conversation, it would be helpful to:
- Understand the client’s current situation (Where they are?)
- Picture and clarify the destination (Where do they want to be?)
- Figure out the way (How to get there?)
- Explore the environment (Who and what resources are available?)
Amundson (2009) shared a few practical methods to leverage client-initiated metaphors in the career counseling process.
- Extension: Ask further questions to extend the metaphor in great detail.
- Timeline: Ask what the metaphor is looking like at an earlier time and in the future. Seeing things in a bigger picture and a longer timeline can bring in more fresh perspectives.
- Drawing: We can also encourage the client to draw a picture of the metaphor, which will make the conversation more focused and dynamic (2009, p25-27).
Real Case:
Here is an example of how a metaphor was brought up by the client and we explore that in depth.
(Name and details disguised to protect confidentiality.)
- Client: I feel the pressure from the work is coming in like a tide recently, and I can’t breathe.
- Coach: I hear you say that the stress is coming like a tide, and the image of the sea comes into my mind.
- Client: Exactly! I was assigned by my boss to lead a project launch and manage a small team of five people, whom I haven’t worked with before. New project, new team – I felt like I had entered an unfamiliar sea.
- Coach: Sounds like a new challenge. How do you feel when seeing the sea?
- Client: Terrible. I feel extremely anxious and exhausted because normally September is already the busiest season with endless activities and reports. Now I must lead the new team to finish the preparation for launch in the next 3 months. I feel tasks just like waves going and coming back again, with no end in sight. To be honest with you, I’m considering quitting my job.
- Coach: I feel the pressure too. What does the sea usually look like?
- Client: Actually, it is not that bad. Most of the time it’s sunny. Our peak season is August to October, we normally stretch ourselves in these three months. Other than that, I have a quite balanced daily routine and my colleagues are nice. I enjoy having lunch with them, and we make jokes…… okay, I like my current company, the environment is good. Just the new project makes me feel the storm is on the way.
- Coach: I hear you mentioned the tasks like waves and the new assigned project like a storm on the way.
- Client: Yes, I don’t know if I can survive the storm…
- Coach: It seems like the new project (storm) really bothers you. How would you picture the image when facing the storm? Anyone besides you?
(…Then we explored the image of launch day, the client found it was not that scary. By exploring anyone besides, the client realized that she could build up a support squad to deal with those uncertainties and challenges …)
- Coach: Now, if you think about the storm, how do you feel?
- Client: Much better. I think the storm is an opportunity for me to practice my project prioritizing and team managing skills. I need to talk to my line manager about the workload and request more time and resources support. I believe that my team members and I will pull together and we can ride the tides and waves.
Limitations and Suggestions:
This paper states the definition, benefits, and key types of metaphor. We also explored how to use it in the career coaching conversation with real cases.
However, when I did the research, I found that many career metaphor theories, papers, and books were created decades ago, mainly between the 1970s and early 2000s. In recent years, the world has been filled with challenges, uncertainties, and opportunities like never before. We all see global trends like downsizing, economic shrinking, outsourcing, hybrid working mode, etc. The contemporary job market was also disrupted and restructured by new technologies and new norms. More modern theories should be created to reflect and represent the continuously changing working world.
Work takes at least 1/3 of our lifetime, let’s create a joyful, fulfilling, and sustainable career path together!
References
Amundson, N. E. 2009. Metaphor Making: Your Career, Your Life, Your Way, Ergon Communications.
Cambridgedictionary. Cambridge University Press. Available [Accessed 23 November 2022].
Frameworks. 2020. Tapping into the Power of Metaphors [Online]. Available [Accessed 23 November 2022].
Inkson, K. 2002. Thinking creatively about careers: the use of metaphor.
Inkson, K. 2004. Images of career: Nine key metaphors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65 (1), p.96-111.
Inkson, K. 2007. Understanding Careers: The Metaphors of Working Lives. Thousand Oaks, California.
Inkson, K. & Amundson, N. E. 2002. Career metaphors and their application in theory and counseling practice. Journal of Employment Counseling, 39, 98-108.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 2008. Metaphors we live by, University of Chicago Press.
McMahon, M. 2016. Working with storytellers: a metaphor for career counseling. Career Counselling. Routledge.
Thrift, E. & Amundson, N. 2005. Hermeneutic-narrative approach to career counseling: An alternative to postmodernism. Perspectives in Education, 23, 9-20.
Woldendorp, J. 2019. “Metaphorically Speaking…” Paradigm And The Use Of Metaphors in Career Conversations. Journal for Perspectives of Economic Political and Social Integration, 25, 83-101.