Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career

This book is very good if you interested in developing your managerial career in a different direction, and want to hear the wisdom of someone with both relevant experience and academic credentials. It can also be useful if you are line managing and developing staff through their careers. Most of the examples refer to business executives that may have changed managerial roles or set up a new business, so I think it will have most direct relevance for this context. This book may not be for you if you are plunged into change and need to keep money coming in somehow. Nor is it for you if you are after a quick fix and some magical formula that will spout out your ideal career. Indeed, the whole concept behind this book is that successful change takes time and occurs through small iterative steps. She maintains that sitting in a room reflecting on past successes and experiences, or doing personality profiles, will only get you so far: ultimately you have to take a plunge, however small, and try things out so that you feel and experience which doors are right for you to open. Do you need a book to tell you this? Maybe not but why are you even reading this? Change is a strange thing, and it is easy to get caught up in day-to-day work and not look at the broader picture, no matter how organised or ambitious one is. I am very cynical about so called "self-help" books: I am sure the answer is never in a book but some might help illuminate paths forward if they are on your wavelength. I specifically searched for a reputable publisher (Harvard University Press) and author (from a good business school) to avoid the risk of evangelical preaching about one can really be a bullfighter or filmstar or whatever, just by reflecting on what you're good at and being brave. Life is not like that, and neither is this book. The author takes a calm and measured approach and gives case examples of how experimenting with change can be done in any setting in order to find out what really makes you happy. The answer is your answer and there are probably many. The book assumes you have time to experiment and being proactive in seeking change. It is not about reacting to change, unless you have time and money rolling in to carefully consider you next step. It is written well and authoritatively. You might also want to consider Timothy Butler's book "Getting unstuck". Similarly written by academic career psychologists, it takes you through a process of gradually arriving at options.

The central idea is that a change of this magnitude is a heuristic process. You must act before you are fully ready through a process of small experiments. Only through trying out new modes of behaviour do you come to see which routes will work most effectively for you. The book is an antidote to those processes and gurus who advocate deep internal self-reflection and then decisive and single-minded action. In line with Ibarra's background, the tone is considered and academic rather than breathless and strident like so many business and self-help books. This is refreshing and engaging and made the book so much easier to absorb. As other reviewers have noted, the book is short on prescriptive actions. The real benefit of the book is going on the journey with the characters she brings out in the case studies. Nevertheless, for those of you who like the key messages bullet point-style, they are teased out at the end in nine "Unconventional Strategies". If you are a career counsellor or just wondering how to make sense of a mid-career change, I'd definitely recommend this book.

Really enjoyed this book. Really helped me sort where I was going with my career by opening new thinking to possible opportunities. Only downside is almost all the examples in the book are for people already in senior positions. Would have been interesting to see her approach for someone middle management who previously didn’t earn well above the average.

Intriguing

This book raises a lot of good points (making iterative rather than wholesale change, getting the right support network etc) but the cases studies are mostly office based CEO levels & accademia. if you're looking for an escape from office based work, this is probably not the book for you.

Excellent book for people who are thinking about a career transition. This is a very readable and practical book. It is full of helpful strategies and case studies for how to make such a transition.

A real help in sorting out the muddle of thoughts and feelings going on in my head about my future direction. It encourages confidence in the process as it has somehow made 'official' things that I was already doing. Ms Ibarra's clear thinking is a tonic that so many business people need in order to help with probably the trickiest, most fraught decision of one's career. An essential read.

Great trangible stories relating to the working theory that drive the unconventional approachess summarizes at the end of the book. will be recommending to others!

I am not sure that I would have been ready for Dr. Ibarra's book in 2005 when I finally paid attention to the signals in my own environment that I needed a massive career change. I'm not sure that I would have heard its message, which is part of the point of the book as well. It would have helped me, however, realize that what I was going through was "normal". This book shakes up the myths that you need to discover what you are good at and make an educated series of career research actions and decisions. For most of us who have done the seemingly random walk through career and life transitions, she provides a backdrop of case studies to show patterns of uncertainties that happen to many other people as well. She illustrates well how the people around you signal and reinforce both change and drag factors, how the narratives develop over time in your new life, and how the new stories of your new life only start to make sense toward the END of the transition. I found the academic connections and endnotes refreshing, attaching this work to research and core theories in major thinkers. The examples were easy to relate to and memorable. I have recommended this book so far to a dozen friends over 40 who are trying to understand the smoke signals of change in their own lives, struggling through long transitions (exacerbated by the economic malaise), or staring at the tensions between their current work environments and the ticking timeclock of their lives. I have taken personal notes throughout my Kindle version of this on my iPad and keep rereading and thinking through the document -- nice way to enjoy this book!

"Working Identity" è un valido supporto per chi è in una fase di transizione lavorativa e ha bisogno di un metodo per scoprire e perseguire le alternative lavorative che ha a disposizione, adottando un approccio "fai e poi vedi" piuttosto del classico "pianifica e implementa". Decisamente consigliato.

I’m sure the examples in the new edition will be better, but Ibarra’s insights are leading edge. As an executive coach, I highly recommend this book when my clients want to think strategically about their careers.

Brilliant!!

Thanks to this book, I went from being a lawyer to becoming a set designer. To achieve this, I followed the one advice that emerges from this book: quit what you do for a while, your brain is not wired to imagine some of the opportunities the will arise and this is what’s blocking you. I quit my steady job to start an evening bachelor’s degree in set design “just for a while, to see how long I can enjoy it while keeping up financially”. To my surprise, my day law job accepted to keep me working part-time to allow me to pursue my dream (say what?!). Then, when I decided to fully quit my job, I received financial aid to finish my degree thanks to… covid. The day after I finished my degree, I was hired immediately on a TV series and this allowed me to acquire the “intermittent artist status” which allows you to receive financial compensation when you have gaps between projects. Some period of reference had gotten frozen by covid and I received this indispensable aid, much more easily as a result. Of course, I could never have imagined all this. I just decided to trust this book and go with the flow. On each step of the way, doors opened just as if I had a little star above my head. When people see you take such risks to go for your dreams, they also tend to want to help you and you feel so much gratitude. I spent 3 years working like a psychopath to get where I am now but that was so much easier than staying in the situation I was in before. Thanks to the author of this book! Follow your dreams!