To Reinvent Your Career, Start by Imagining a New You

7 Sep 2023

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For most of us, reinvention—of our careers and ourselves—is an extremely tall order. As London Business School professor Herminia Ibarra notes, you might know what you don’t want to do any more but be unsure what you actually do want to do next. People “don't know how to search when they don't know exactly what they're searching for,” she says. Much more important than trying to figure out the next career step is thinking more broadly about your possible selves, and then exploring several of those possible selves simultaneously. This is where having a diverse network helps a lot. And while most of us hate networking, Ibarra has tips on how to become better at that too. For this episode of our video series “The New World of Work”, HBR editor in chief Adi Ignatius sat down with Ibarra, a prolific author who is an expert on career transitions, to discuss: • How to transition smoothly and successfully from one career to another • Being authentic in the workplace without limiting your own growth and evolution • How to break out of insular networks to truly connect with those who can link you to new opportunities. Two of Ibarra’s books are coming out next month in updated editions: Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career and Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader. Book links: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Identity-Updated-Preface-Unconventional-ebook/dp/B0BTMQ97ZG/ https://www.amazon.com/Leader-Updated-Global-Bestseller-Preface-ebook/dp/B0BTMQN19H/ This interview part of a series called “The New World of Work,” which explores how top-tier executives see the future and how their companies are trying to set themselves up for success. Each week, Adi will interview a leader on LinkedIn Live — and then share an inside look at those conversations and solicit questions for future discussions in a newsletter just for HBR subscribers. If you’re a subscriber, you can sign up for the newsletter here: https://hbr.org/my-library/preferences?movetile=newworldofwork. Follow us: https://hbr.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/harvard-business-review/ https://www.facebook.com/HBR/ https://twitter.com/HarvardBiz https://www.instagram.com/harvard_business_review Sign up for Newsletters: https://hbr.org/email-newsletters #HarvardBusinessReview #NewWorldofWork #CareerTransition #Reinvention #Networking #Career #YourCareer#Work #Business #Harvard Copyright © 2023 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.

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