Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing
Your Career. By Herminia Ibarra, Harvard Business School
Press; 199 pages; $26.95
Most people who are considering a career change never seem to take the final step. Their approach to career change is ready, aim, fire—with a great deal of aim—pondering, deliberating and cogitating that continues for years, resulting in the absence of fire—forever a virgin, failing to consummate. They hold on to their past, paralyzed, and fearful of the loss of security and income for a career that may be a big question mark.
However, those few who take the step are glad they did it. Some enjoy the excitement of a start-up after what they see as the frustrating predictability of a major corporation. Others thrive on the challenge of a broader role in another company, after years in a corporate silo that had brought disappointment after disappointment. Still others affirm the transformation of finding an alternative career that really fits their life--after too many years of unfulfilling work. (With two transitions under my belt over 45 years, and a third on the way, I celebrate reinvention.)
Even the most conservative statistics support the need for Ibarra’s book, Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career. Career statisticians will tell you to expect 3 career changes in your life, and 12 – 15 jobs as corporate loyalty recedes into history and technology drives evolving skill sets.
Ibarra’s book challenges nearly all the conventional wisdom about career change. Rosabeth Kanter’s endorsement is apt: One of those rare and wonderful books that combines deep knowledge drawn from careful research with practical ideas that can be put to immediate use.
The book grew out of questioning how people change careers in this new economy. Ibarra’s research for the book was supported by the conception that changing careers amounts to changing identities. History reminds me that reinvention is the American career model. No one assumed more personas, played more roles, was more mobile, cosmopolitan and worldly than Ben Franklin, the most American of the founding fathers—the master of reinvention.
Ibarra’s social-psych research is focused on people aged 32 to 51, with the majority midcareer--ages 38 to 43--individuals with enough experience to know themselves. The selection includes a motley crew of MBAs, lawyers, physicians, university profs and IT professionals. Her methodology focuses on the transition from one career to another, comparing and contrasting personal cases to surface the characteristics of career transition. The result is the creation of a new theory of career change. This new thinking is desperately needed, largely because all the previous insights are built on the “one career” career—prior to the technology revolution.
I emphasize the research in this book because the bulk of popular business books are poorly researched, if at all. They are filled with great stories about how someone confronted a very difficult situation and triumphed. I love hearing and telling war stories, too. The fact of the matter is that very little of what goes for a great business book will travel—it’s not relevant outside the context from which it’s drawn. This is true for Jim Collins’ book—high quantity data, but poor quality. To check it out, go to the Freakonomics blog by Stephen Levitt: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/from-good-to-great-to-below-average/. Even Jack Welch admitted, in a Business Week article, that he never said his stuff would travel. So it’s important to ask, “Will Ibarra’s research travel?” Can you generalize from it? Based on the breadth of her research base, as well as my coaching experience, the answer is an unqualified yes.
Here are a few of her conclusions:
* Act your way into a new way of thinking, rather than think your way into a new way of acting.
* The biggest error when trying to change careers is deciding on the destination before taking the first step.
* We can’t regenerate ourselves in isolation. We develop in and through our relationships with others.
* Adults learn not logically—reflect, then act, or plan, then implement—but by testing an opportunity, then learning from it.
* The most effective way to tackle big problems such as a career change is through baby steps. This is also a great way to build your support network.
About fifteen years ago, I suggested an excellent book on leadership to an IT client. He told me he paid me for that. This was good for my wallet and my business, but he didn’t benefit as well as he could have had he read the book himself. If there’s the slightest possibility that you’ll be changing your career in the next decade, don’t let somebody else read Ibarra’s book for you.