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.Thestyle, pace, and cycle time are not at all the same.When you goout to make a pitch, you can t be ambivalent about why theyshould give you a lot of money.In academia, you are supposed tobe a dispassionate observer, but now I have to be a strong advo-cate.And the feedback is immediate.You know right away: Theysay yes or no to a fund-raising pitch, as opposed to waiting a yearto get a reviewer s comments on an academic article.Tim reassured Ben that the challenges he was experiencingwere normal, that he had once felt those things too, and that itsimply was part of the reality of leading a group of professionals.Tim has great insight.He ll say, I know what you re feeling.That swhat I live with every day.My job is to maximize everyone s pro-ductivity. Or, when he sees me getting frustrated, he ll say, Thisis an exercise in character building. When I find myself in an ego 113-132 Ibarra CH6 3rd 9/24/02 11:29 AM Page 126oooworkingidentity126battle, I ask myself, Does this matter? His coaching has helpedme a lot because I m trying to figure out what is the right model of leadership in the professional world.It can t be run like a con-ventional business because partners won t be told what to do.They won t work for someone. Having a mentor in Tim was validation for the new but stilltentative identity Ben was constructing as a leader of a nonprofitconsulting organization.Since future steps are so unclear to the person who is chang-ing, a guiding figure can also be a reality check.As Julio Gonzalesconsidered alternatives to a medical career, his leadership profes-sor (who was also a psychiatrist) was particularly important, bothas a role model for the kind of work Julio dreamed of doing oneday and as a valued source of advice for managing the transition.He helped Julio set more realistic expectations and take the edgeoff the next job decision, telling him,You re not going to figure this out this year.A year is not longenough.You re going to have to consider doing something on theway to something else.So don t get obsessed about making theright decision.Make a plan to tide you over for the next threeyears until you figure out the longer-term plan.Julio s guide also broke it to him that there would be no easyanswers.Says Julio,My plan was, O.K., I can t figure it out, but I m going to stepback and take a year off at great financial risk.And then onenight at 3:00 in the morning I m going to be woken up and there sgoing to be a star and I m going to know what to do.I wantedsomebody to tell me, This is what you ve got to do, and it willbe all right. My professor helped me see my naïveté.Where does one find such a guide? In many cases, it is a simplematter of serendipity.Pierre Gerard was invited to a dinner with 113-132 Ibarra CH6 3rd 9/24/02 11:29 AM Page 127shifting connections127the Buddhist monk who became his guide; Lucy Hartman s groupbrought in the organizational development coach who became herown coach and role model.But from there, it was up to them torecognize the potential and pursue the relationship.Gary Mc-Carthy and June Prescott made finding people who might takethem on as apprentices their explicit transition goals: Gary madea list of entrepreneurs he admired and set out to network his wayinto their organizations; June wrote to a columnist whose writingshe admired, asking him to meet and advise her.Although a person with whom we have had a long-standingconnection can be a guide, he or she is seldom someone we havebeen seeing regularly.It might be an old boss (like Ben s) or aschool friend we lost sight of; often guides are completely newcontacts (like Harris s), with whom we feel free to try out newpersonas without violating anyone s expectations.Whatever theoriginal relationship, the strong bond that develops between theperson in transition and the guiding figure creates a safe zonewithin which the change idea starts becoming a real possibility.Anecessary feature of this relationship is that it develops outside theweb of routine professional interactions in which the person hasbeen embedded (and may be trying to break out of).Communities of PracticeThe term communities of practice was coined to describe akind of social participation that is crucial for learning to be. 11The argument is that learning any line of work is a social processin which we become active participants in the practices of a so-cial community, constructing new identities in relation to thiscommunity and its members.Apprentices do not learn a craft bygoing to school to learn abstract, textbook knowledge; rather, theylearn to function as a part of a community in which their initialparticipation is legitimate but peripheral.We change careers inthe same way.William Bridges, the best-selling author of the book Transi-tions, was a professor of English for twelve years before he became 113-132 Ibarra CH6 3rd 9/24/02 11:29 AM Page 128oooworkingidentity128a consultant, lecturer, and writer on topics related to personal de-velopment
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