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At a Pivot Point? 4 Steps to Pivot Your Career (or Business)

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Jenny Blake is a career and business strategist and international speaker who helps people build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. She is the author of PIVOT: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One. In this article, she explains…

Halfway into my tenure at Google, I hit a career plateau and contemplated leaving. I had been there for nearly three years, and had ascended quickly to the ranks of management within the Online Sales and Operations training team. However, part of the “reward” for climbing the ladder so effectively (the only way I knew how to operate my career at the time), was working on PowerPoint strategy decks rather than doing what I really loved: coaching others and interacting with people in the classroom.

A few months later, as a result of taking coach training on nights and weekends and joining a “ten percent project” to make drop-in coaching available to any Googler, I was perfectly primed to pivot internally when a role opened up on the career development team. I landed the open spot, and marvelled at my luck in landing this dream role. Until I hit a plateau. Again.

Two years later, as I was preparing to launch my first book, I started experiencing signs of burnout. I was mired in too much minutiae and bureaucracy, not leveraging my biggest strengths, and burning the candle at both ends. What is wrong with me? I wondered. If I can’t be happy at Google—the dream job of dream jobs—am I destined to be unhappy for the rest of my career?

Solopreneurship

After five and a half years at the company, I made the difficult decision to leave in 2011 to launch my first book, Life After College. I bet you can guess what happened next. Yes, two years into solopreneurship I hit another wall. I no longer wanted to focus on topics for recent grads, but I couldn’t see what was ahead. I had become the girl who left things—college, Google—but what did I stand for? This time there was no paycheck to fund the search for what was next, and I was getting increasingly despondent as my likelihood now depended on the answer.

I came to one of two conclusions: there was indeed a fatal flaw in my career operating system and I would surely be miserable and restless forever (or at least every two to three years), or this crisis state—this searching for what’s next—would be accelerating for all of us, given how rapidly technological innovation and globalisation are occurring, and as we move increasingly toward a project-based economy. As I started doing research for what became my next book, PIVOT: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One, the latter proved to be true.

Agile development is a collaborative approach to project management that emphasises continual planning, testing, and launching. One of my favourite sayings from this business practice is “Each time you repeat a task, take one step toward automating it.” Given that we will have many more career iterations than previous generations, it behoves us all to become better at the steps involved in answering the often daunting question, “What’s next?”

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The Pivot Method

To help us all become more agile in our careers, I reverse-engineered my most successful changes and those of many other pivoters who I interviewed for the book to develop a four-stage process, the Pivot Method. Through each of the four stages—Plant, Scan, Pilot, and Launch—you will learn how to systematically bridge the gaps between where you are now to where you want to be.

In basketball, a pivot refers to a player keeping one foot firmly in place while moving the other in any direction to explore passing options. Much like a basketball player, successful pivots start by planting your feet—setting a strong foundation—then scanning the court for opportunities, staying rooted while exploring options. Scanning alone will not put points on the board, so eventually you start passing the ball around the court—testing ideas and getting feedback, or piloting—generating perspectives and opportunities to make a shot—eventually launching in the new direction.

Here are the four stages in more detail:

  • First, Plant by creating a foundation from your values, strengths, and interests, and your vision for the future. The most successful pivots start from a strong base of who you already are, what is already working, and how you will define success for this next phase of your life.

  • Second, Scan by researching new and related skills, talking to others, and mapping out potential opportunities. This is the exploration phase: identifying and plugging knowledge and skill gaps, and having a wide variety of conversations.

  • Next, you will run a series of pilots—small, low-risk experiments to test your new direction. Pilots help gather real-time data and feedback, allowing you to adjust incrementally as you go, instead of relying on blind leaps.

  • Eventually it is time for a bigger move, or launch. The first three stages of the Pivot Method, repeated as many times as necessary, help reduce risk and give you a greater chance of success, often taking you 80-90% of the way toward your goal. Launch is when you pull the trigger on the remaining 10-20%. These are the bigger decisions that require commitment even in the face of remaining uncertainty.

The Pivot Method is a cycle, not a one-and-done process. Some pivots take one month, while others can take years. Sometimes it takes several smaller pivots to reach your destination. Just as an 18-wheeler cannot turn on a dime, bigger pivots often require several smaller turns. Repeat the Plant-Scan-Pilot process as many times as necessary to gain clarity and gather feedback before advancing to the fourth stage, Launch.

And remember, in this new world of work, don’t worry about planning too far ahead. Things are changing far too quickly for that. The only move that matters is your next one.

, published on 8th Sept by Portfolio Penguin (£14.99).

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