When career change is not just about you

Mid-career change can put pressure on others, not just you. Here are some tips to handle this

One of my favourite career change books is the seminal Working Identity by  Professor of Organisational  Behaviour at London School of Economics,  Herminia Ibarra. In it she flies in the face of common wisdom that we need to know what career we want before we do it, and instead says we need to do things backwards, experimenting with new careers by dipping our toes in fresh pools, expanding our network to gain intelligence on new areas, and then regrouping to make sense of what we have discovered.

 Full disclosure: I did none of this when I changed career from journalism to coaching. I met someone at a party who mentioned the masters I eventually went on to do, which then emerged to be highly-regarded and opened doors to my new career. You could say I relied more on chance and happenstance than a structured approach.

However, Ibarra recently cranked up her message around mid-career change and, in her Harvard  Business Review article Reinventing Your Career — When It’s Not Just About You, says those looking to reinvent themselves need to appreciate the anxiety, fear and in some cases, resentment, life partners might be experiencing about the career change and that their feelings could hold us back from taking risks and thinking truly laterally about the future.

As Ibarra says : It’s not fair only to rely on those close to you. Doing so won’t even serve you, because their desire to protect you and your family will sometimes push them into conservative mode; they’ll become ‘the voice of reason’ at precisely the time you also need to hear a freer and more imaginative case made for growth and self-fulfilment.”

She offers two solutions to this: talk frankly about your possible selves with your  “key stakeholder” ( life partner) and get them to open up too so the journey is joint and not diverging.

Secondly, expand your support group to those who are experiencing a similar transition to you, and network with them  as you would when finding a job. This is also where a coach is useful to act as a foil and a neutral observer who can challenge and have your back throughout the process.

Career change is never a quick fix. It also takes courage, and let’s not forget, the financial flexibility to compensate for that initial salary hit when we burst reborn onto the job market. But being a newbie doesn’t last forever, and the plus is our past experience, skills and strengths add a uniqueness to our reinvented selves.