“To Be or Not to Be?”: Making a Professional Career Choice

Proposes that there are fundamental differences between the roles of professionals and managers which affect career choices in complex organizations. Career choice difficulties are compounded by the reality that only a very small percentage of individuals actually consciously plan their careers, the remainder often expecting organizations to manage their careers for them. Contends that most career programmes use only static processes and diagnostics, rather than a more dynamic action learning process. Reports the successful use of an action learning career programme with professionals. Contends that the power of the programme derived from the synergistic combination of traditional diagnostic approaches with an action learning phase, with the traditional inputs providing information which was synthesized and made relevant to career direction during the action learning phase.