It is useful to attempt to identify alternative ways in which human employment can be perceived, as a means of increasing understanding of the constraints on providing any satisfactory definition. This will also make evident the difficulty of attracting any consensus on strategies of human development. Whilst it is possible to discuss these perceptual modes as models, a broader and more insightful discussion results from treating such models as part of a set of metaphors. The following alternative perceptions are therefore discussed as metaphors of human potential and its implications for the process of human development. Ordered array Modes of engagement can be viewed as constituting an ordered array, like stations on a subway network.
Employment is essentially subject to order and discipline, as in many bureaucratic environments.
This view would tend to befavoured by those who are used to defining their environment in an orderly manner, in terms which favour management and control, whatever the degree of simplification necessary. In such an array, all modes are relatively accessible, although some may only be reached through intervening conditions. Modes are different, but not necessarily better in any developmental sense. In this metaphor, development might be envisaged in terms of extending and complexifying the network into a rich array of modes. Goals of human development might be expressed in terms of improving the stations, increasing the facility of movement throughout the network, and organizing the network into the most effective configuration of stations.