Website: https://herminiaibarra.com/

Thinkers50 profile: https://thinkers50.com/biographies/herminia-ibarra/

Herminia Ibarra is an authority on leadership and career transitions. She is the Charles Handy Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School and is ranked among the top management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. She is a member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Network, a judge for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award, and a fellow of the British Academy. She is the author of the bestselling book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, and she writes regularly in leading publications, including Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

Book: WORKING IDENTITY: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career

Popular advice cautions against making a career move before we know exactly what we want to do next. However, since its initial publication almost two decades ago, London Business School professor Herminia Ibarra’s WORKING IDENTITY has helped tens of thousands find the clarity they need to reinvent their careers by offering counterintuitive advice that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Based on Ibarra’s research of hundreds of successful job changers, she argues that career transformation is not an event; it’s a transition process that takes time and is built from small changes.

Now Ibarra is poised to help a new generation of workers emboldened by the pandemic and the Great Resignation to find a new career paths by testing their assumptions. In the book, she writes, “We learn who we are—in practice, not in theory—by testing reality, not by looking inside. We discover the true possibilities by doing—trying out new activities, reaching out to new groups, finding new role models, and reworking our story as we tell it to those around us. What we want clarifies with experience and validation from others along the way…. To launch ourselves anew, we need to get out of our heads. We need flesh-and-blood examples, concrete experiments. We need to act.”

According to Ibarra, in looking to make a career move, she discovered people no matter their age, will find themselves progressing through three stages:

Possible Selves - Although most of us would prefer to begin with a firm answer to the question, “Who do I really want to become?” for Ibarra, the best way to start questioning old working identities is by asking, “How can I widen the set of possibilities that I might explore?”

Between Identities - The transition period when we start testing new possibilities is the “messy middle.” During this time, our sense of identity lingers in a limbo-like state, Ibarra explains, because we are not yet ready to give up our old roles and networks and are still trying out various options.

Deep Change - The milestone that will show you that you have arrived, Ibarra argues, is not moving into a new career, but achieving greater alignment between who you are and what you do. The key to this process is small wins, which reduce fear, clarify direction, and encourage further action.

Ibarra then discusses the concrete things we can do to propel through the three transition phases:

Crafting Experiments - Testing the future means transforming abstract possibilities into tangible projects we can evaluate. Whether taking courses or agreeing to do a side project, these critical efforts allow us to gain knowledge, skills, resources, and relationships. Even better if we can take on several things at once, Ibarra adds, in order to compare and contrast.

Shifting Connections – Finding kindred spirits, mentors, role models, and new professional communities help us figure out what we want to do next. Sometimes, these people who provide psychological support or encouragement can matter more than contacts that produce actual leads for new roles, Ibarra reveals.

Making Sense –Arranging our life into a coherent story is one of the subtle yet demanding challenges of career reinvention, Ibarra declares. We all need to process what we learn and rewriting our story is essential to help us think through new activities and relationships against the backdrop of our life.

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