Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career
Herminia Ibarra, 2003
Why does a whole year of thinking about a new career so often produce not a single real option? Herminia Ibarra spent several years following people who were changing careers, and she saw that for those who succeeded, clarity came after action, not before it. You'll learn how to run small experiments without giving up what you have, who helps a change along and who holds it back, and how to get through the uncomfortable middle of the journey.
Who it is for
For anyone whose old job and old life have stopped bringing joy, while a new one is nowhere in sight yet. And for anyone who has been thinking about a change for a long time but can't decide where to begin.
Only through our actions do we learn who we want to become.
A year of searching that turned up nothing
After business school, Gary McCarthy landed at a respected firm almost by accident and treated it as temporary. He was waiting to find his true calling. Then everything came together in one stretch of his life: a milestone birthday, changes in his personal life and the first poor review of his career. Gary decided it was time for a change, and he went at it thoroughly. He took career aptitude tests, met with more than one headhunter, talked to friends and family, researched industries and drew up two lists of options. A year went by. Not a single real option had appeared.
Herminia Ibarra studies how people change their work and themselves. Her field is organizational behavior, the science of how people think and act at work. She has taught at Harvard Business School and INSEAD. For this book she spent several years following people who had dared to make a big change. Among them were a psychiatrist who became a Buddhist monk, a literature professor who became a stockbroker, and a technology executive who became an executive coach.
Her main finding turns the usual advice upside down. We are told: first figure out what you want, then act. Ibarra saw the opposite. For those whose change worked out, action came first, and understanding followed. Who you can become is discovered not by thinking, but by trying.
The book is about work, but it speaks to a feeling many people know: the old life no longer brings joy, and the new one isn't in sight yet. You'll learn why long deliberation keeps you stuck, how to set up small experiments, who helps a change along and who quietly holds it back, and why the road from your old self to your new one winds the way it does. And you'll find out how Gary's story ended.
The more careful the plan, the longer you stand still
What Gary did, Ibarra calls the "plan and implement" model. It has three steps. First, know yourself: take the tests, get clear on your temperament, values and abilities. Then consult the people you trust. And finally, take one decisive step that solves every problem at once. It sounds sensible, and it's exactly what most career change advice teaches.
Ibarra watched this model fail again and again. Her explanation is simple: long introspection easily gets stuck in daydreams. You dig deeper and deeper into yourself, and the dream never meets real life. You don't get more answers, you just get more tired of searching.
There is a second trap too. While you are thinking, the world keeps seeing you as you were. Gary admitted that he had wanted to do something different and had realized with horror that people had already put a label on him. Every option he was offered turned out to be a version of his old job. Even his own two lists were telling: one held completely different careers, the other the same old work in a slightly altered form. He never managed to choose between them on paper.
The mistake isn't that you think. The mistake is believing the right answer is already lying somewhere inside you, just waiting to be found. Ibarra believes there is no such ready-made answer. It has to be created.
About the author
Herminia Ibarra is a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. Born in Cuba, she has taught at Harvard Business School and INSEAD, and she studies career transitions and leadership.
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