Why Conventional Advice About Career Building is Wrong

Doing self-reflection, establishing your core identity, and choosing a career path may be the wrong way to build your career, research shows.

It is a myth that to become great at anything, you must start early and specialize early. Studies show that most champion players spend a lot of time sampling a number of different fields before settling into one area. People choosing to specialize later, rather than early in their careers, are able to find the right fit with their strengths and personalities and thus have better incomes.

Organization psychologist Herminia Ibarra says that you need to discard advice given by conventional career gurus and step out, literally. Instead of doing reflection after reflection, try different things and use the feedback to build your path. Reflection is only valuable after you test yourself against reality. Her research shows that you can be more successful if, rather than working backward from a desired goal, you work forward from promising situations. Do not commit to anything right now; instead, choose from those options that are likely to give you better and more promising options going forward.

According to her research, a person’s working identity is not a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered at the very core of their inner being. Instead, it is made up of many possibilities defined by the things we do, the company we keep, and the stories we tell about our work and lives; some of these possibilities exist only in the realm of future potential and private dreams.

When we change careers, we change our selves and identities. Humans are comprised of many selves and a change in career is not about swapping one identity for another but rather a transition process in which we reconfigure the full set of possibilities. This means that doing reflection after reflection is not what helps- it is experimenting with the many selves and the consequent possibilities. Action, instead of planning.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the key to making a successful change lies in first knowing—with as much clarity and certainty as possible —what we really want to do and then using that knowledge to implement a sound strategy. The conventional process advised by career gurus is this: do a lot of self-reflection either alone or with the help of standard questionnaires given by certified professionals. Once we understand our core competencies, life purpose, and core values, the next step is to find a career or organization that matches our identity.

This is the wrong way to do career building, according to research in organizational psychology and the science of success. Planning is, of course required. But the conventional approach prevents us from moving ahead before we are fully prepared, armed with detailed self-knowledge and reams of SWOT analysis. This prevents us from making a move and discovering who we are, really.

We don’t discover who we are by looking deep inside. We discover it in practice, by testing reality. We discover true possibilities through action, by experimenting with new activities and reaching out to new people and rewriting our stories. We have to just do it.

Career building is not linear. Start by stepping out. Leave the SWOT analysis. Experiment with different paths and then learn what each path is teaching you. Make sure each path helps you take off to the next. In failing to act, Ibarra says, we are hiding from ourselves.

Here is a great tip from the celebrated psychologist: Resist the temptation to start by making a big decision that will change everything in one fell swoop. Use a strategy of small wins, in which incremental gains lead you to more profound changes in the basic assumptions that define your work and life. Accept the crooked path. Small steps lead to big changes, so don’t waste time, energy, and money on finding the “answer” or the “lever” that, when pushed, will have dramatic effects. Almost no one gets change right on the first try.

This means you don’t wait for an ‘Aha’ moment when the truth is finally revealed to you. Use everyday occurrences to find meaning in the changes you are going through. Practice telling and retelling your story. Over time, things will get clarified. Major career transitions can take years in the making. The big “turning point,” if there is one, tends to come late in the story. In the interim, make use of anything as a trigger. Don’t wait for a catalyst. What you make of events is more important than the events themselves.

Another tip: Don’t just focus on the work. Find people who are what you want to be and who can provide support for the transition. But don’t expect to find them in your same old social circles. Break out of your established network. Branch out. Look for role models—people who give you glimpses of what you might become and who are living examples of different ways of working and living.

Studies show that most people regret the career choices they make early in their lives. The average person ends up doing at least 12 different jobs. Career building is a lot like entrepreneurship; it’s just that here, the business is you.

(This is an excerpt from a chapter in my book, The Last Skill: The Science of achieving success and a fulfilling life with skills that matter.)

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