A Synergistic Model of Organizational Career Development

The Synergistic Model of Organizational Career Development is a new model of organizational career development that combines the best of career development practice and organizational development into a unified, coherent model. The model has three levels of organization: philosophical, strategic, and practical. Expanding circles are used to illustrate movement from the broad philosophical vision to strategic plans and then to the practical need for acquisition and demonstration of specific competencies. The model encourages employees and organizations to dream (philosophical level), plan (strategic level), and perform (practical level). The personal and organizational vision circles are represented by the center rings to denote their role in regulating the other subsystems. The focus on competence is represented by the outer rings to denote their role in providing feedback to the rest of the system regarding the requirements of the world of work: the competencies that employees require to remain employable and organizations require to remain competitive. This feedback helps employees and organizations adjust to changes in the world of work and monitor their plans and strategies to ensure optimum fulfillment of their respective visions. The result is a synergistic reaction in which "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." (28 references) (MN)