Why Career Enrichment Is Like a Kaleidoscope

By Dr. Bev Kaye

When Sir David Brewster invented the kaleidoscope in 1816, he intended to create a toy that would please and mystify. His invention consisted of a cylinder with mirrors on one end that reflected fragments of colored glass or beads in a symmetrical design. By rotating part of the cylinder, a viewer could look through the opposite end and see a nearly infinite number of designs.

But the kaleidoscope intrigued adults as well as children, and so innovations in design and presentation were inevitable. Today’s kaleidoscopes employ lenses that can reflect images of surrounding objects, transforming familiar things into delightful and unexpected patterns.

Everyday surroundings take on unexpected qualities. They continually change in a variety of ways. And they can change at the discretion of the person holding the kaleidoscope. Each person who looks into a kaleidoscope sees something different. This is why kaleidoscopes are so fascinating, compelling and ingenious.

We believe it is entirely fitting to compare the Company’s Career Enrichment process to the kaleidoscope. If you and your employees take advantage of Career Enrichment, you may well discover work, job and career patterns you have never seen before—and, perhaps, didn’t realize existed.

The challenge is to make sense of these emerging patterns—to understand how  they fit into your career at the Company, your home and family life and your short-and long-term goals. While this is a big task, it is also an exciting one. It will be like looking into a kaleidoscope and seeing your surroundings in a new, and we hope, even more positive light.

My long time colleague Rosabeth Kanter says…

“Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility.”

From Evolve! Succeeding in The Digital Culture of Tomorrow.