”In front of five hundred managers, “I explained why four corporate officers were asked to leave during the prior year—even though they delivered good financial performance. . . . [They] were asked to go because they didn’t practice our values.” The approved way to foster productivity was now through mentoring, not through terror.

The positive energy that came out of my early days made some people - and me - think that we had that cultural issue fixed. The unfortunate fact, though, was that there was deep-seated resistance to change - a feeling of ‘This guy will be gone in three years and I’ve had my job for twenty, so why should I change?’ With three hundred thousand employees, the problem is inevitably in the middle. It was relatively easy to get to the top management in line - if not, I could fire them - but I couldn’t do that far into the organization. I couldn’t personally determine, for example, who in the tax or logistics department was obstructing progress.

At the heart of this book are the stories of dozens of people who changed careers. It analyzes their experiences through the lens of established psychological and behavioral theories. Based on the stories and extensive re- search in the social sciences, the book affirms the uncertainties of the career transition process and identifies its underlying principles. But it does not offer a ten-point plan for better transitioning, because that is not the nature of the process. Instead, it lays out a straightforward framework that describes what is really involved and some tried and proven unconventional strategies that will make the difference between staying stuck and moving on.

The book hinges on two disarmingly simple ideas. First, our working identity is not a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered at the very core of our inner being. Rather, it is made up of many possibilities: some tangible and concrete, defined by the things we do, the company we keep, and the stories we tell about our work and lives; others existing only in the realm of future potential and private dreams. Second, changing careers means changing our selves, reworking our identities. Since we are many selves, changing is not about swapping one identity for another but rather a transition process in which we reconfigure the full set of possibilities. These simple ideas alter everything we take for granted about finding a new career. They ask us to devote the greater part of our time and energy to action rather than reflection, to doing instead of planning. Hence, the unconventional strategies.

Like many who switch careers, Susan’s transition brought her back to her starting point: working full-time for a top consultancy. Yet her professional life—the way she does her work, the way she relates to coworkers and employers, and the way she balances her personal and professional life—has changed because of what she learned along the way. Making a career move is a chance to make fundamental changes in one’s life. Many people, like Susan, have long-held dreams about their careers but for one reason or another—including financial, family, or social pressures—have put them off. In some cases, like Susan’s, the issue is less the substance of the work than the lack of flexibility of the institutional structure in which the work gets done. In other cases, a person may have dreamed of becoming a writer, musician, or entrepreneur, but the practicalities of life were constraining.

Experience reveals barriers to change that we can rarely identify at the outset of a career transition, no matter how much self-reflection we do. What we see as feasible and appealing is always constrained by the limitations of our experience.