Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:21: Understanding Outsight
00:06:15: Liminality - the betwixt and between
00:11:13: Have lots of possible selves
00:16:56: Being a network bridge
00:19:36: Getting stuck in competency traps
00:23:23: The importance of play
00:24:45: The essential skill to invest in
00:26:35: The challenging topic of pay
00:30:52: Mistakes to look out for
00:33:25: Herminia's career advice
00:35:03: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah, and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  This week is one of our Ask the Expert episodes, where you'll hear me in conversation with Professor Herminia Ibarra.  We've wanted to talk to Herminia for years, I think probably ever since Squiggly Careers was born, because her book, Working Identity, is definitely one of the influences that encouraged us, prompted us to think that perhaps we were heading in the right direction.  And more recently her book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, has made a real impression on me.  I really like her emphasis on action first, reflection second, and practically how do we learn by doing.  And I think from all of Herminia's work, what you'll hear from our conversation is a brilliant combination of research, but then applied in a very useful day-to-day way; whether you want to change career, I think we are all leaders in our own way, I think you will find something useful for you from today's conversation.  Enjoy and I'll be back at the end to say goodbye.

Herminia, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. 

Herminia Ibarra: Likewise, Sarah, I'm really pleased to be here. 

Sarah Ellis: So, I wanted to start with this idea of outsight, because it's not a word or an idea that I had come across until I read Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader.  And it both stuck with me, but also immediately made sense to me, based on my own leadership experiences and my own reflections.  So, I wonder if you could just explain this idea of outsight so that everybody can have that same realisation that I had.

Herminia Ibarra: Okay.  It's a made-up word, it's not a real word, and what it refers to is the fresh perspective that you get from doing new things and interacting with different people.  And it is meant to contrast to insight, which is much more internally facing, much more reflective, much more based on past experience.  And the idea is that when we get to these kind of "what got you here won't get you there" moments, when things are shifting or what you want to do changes, the old stuff that you have to reflect on isn't necessarily going to help you find the answer.  What you need to do is get some new experience and then reflect on those.  But it's more of an external experiential learning, learning-by-doing kind of perspective on what next.

Sarah Ellis: And I really liked this idea of you suggest a DIY sort of transition, so kind of a do-it-yourself approach.  And we often describe that as a "create, not wait" mindset.  So, you're not waiting to be told, "Well, this is what you should do", or, "These are the experiences you need", you're not passive as part of that process, you're really actively considering, "Well, what are the experiences that I might want to consider outside of my day job?  What are some of the relationships that I might need to build?"

So, if somebody listening now is thinking about one of these transitions, has got that kind of motivation, maybe they want to transition into their first leadership role or maybe just into a bigger leadership role with even more influence and impact, and perhaps they're in a position where they don't seem to be moving forward, you sort of know what you want to do, but you're not sure how to get there, where would you recommend people start, you know if people are feeling a bit stuck, we hear that word quite a lot from people, "I feel a bit stuck"?

Herminia Ibarra: Yeah, and the idea is that sometimes, I guess in the past people would think, "Okay, I'm going to get that promotion, I'm going to get that next job, and then I'll develop that skill set".  But in fact, it's really often the other way around, you have to get some new experiences and develop some new skills and new perspective in order to be considered for roles that are either adjacent or more senior.  And so, indeed, you have to make the transition yourself.  I guess just taking a step back, when I ask people what's hard for them about managing their career and about moving on and making transitions, the thing that comes up most commonly is they say, "I know what I don't want to do anymore, but I don't know what I want to do instead", so lack of clarity about what are the opportunities.  They could be either inside their own organisation, "What else is there, what else might I do?"; or, it could be about a new career, "I have no idea what the options are.  I know I want to do more or something more challenging or more interesting or more meaningful, but what is it?" 

So, if you really have no clue, a useful thing is to look around for, are there projects that are maybe transversal, or are there things you can volunteer for outside your organisation, or is there a professional association that has panels you could organise, or what are things that you can do that get you in front of different ideas, different perspectives, that get you playing different roles, that get you meeting different people.  And then from there, you can start kind of narrowing it down.  Now, some people do know, "I want to do something that's more in the sustainability space", and then that's easier.  You go hunt down who's working in that, try to see if you can volunteer, try to see if you can read up, is there a course?  Do those things, inform yourself.  It'll make it easier to network because you have a little bit more information, and take it from there.  But it's a one step at a time, you know that, it's a one step at a time.  And what kind of throws people off is they just want to go A to B, what's the leap?  And it's not like that.  And oftentimes, as you're taking those steps and getting involved in those things, you fine-tune your idea of what it is that you want to do, and it gets more clarity, and then it helps you figure out the next step. 

Sarah Ellis: And actually, that connects to another bit of your work that I was reading, where there's a brilliant article that you wrote for Harvard Business Review, which is a summary of some of the, I think you described them as, "unconventional strategies for career change", and it's probably the thing I recommend to people the most, because it just distils and crystallises so well many of the things that we talk to our Squiggly Careers community about.  And one of the things that you mentioned in the article, which we'll link to for everybody listening, is that it's perhaps surprising or worth remembering that really big career shifts or transitions, I think you say often take between three or five years. 

Then I was thinking about my own biggest squiggle during my Squiggly Career, and it took me seven.  Now, that isn't seven years of not enjoying what I was doing in the meantime, but it was seven years of exactly what you've just described, "I'm going to start doing some volunteering.  I enjoy this part of this new world of careers and career development.  Oh, but I don't think I want to do lots of one-to-one coaching.  I prefer doing big one-to-many things.  Okay, so I'm refining and I'm learning a bit more.  I don't feel quite ready to run my own company yet.  So, do you know what?  I'm going to do that in some of my time as a side project, but not for all of my time".  Those moments can feel quite tricky for people.  And I think you introduced me to this word of liminality, the betwixt and between.  You know those moments where you sort of perhaps do know where you want to go, but you're not quite there, but you've perhaps started to leave behind where you were.

Herminia Ibarra: Exactly, that's it, that's it.  You're moving away from something. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah. 

Herminia Ibarra: You don't know yet where you're going, and you're in between, and it's really, really hard.  And just as you say, it's not a big leap, and it's small steps that inform next steps that make you understand better what you want, and also position you better to get it.

Sarah Ellis: So, it sounds to me like actually, when you're imagining what you might want to go and do, it can then feel really overwhelming and our brain can get a bit, you know, there's lots of uncertainty for us to navigate.

Herminia Ibarra: I just ran a course for our alumni on career transitions, and one of them said that he has the methodology now perfected, because he's done quite a number of them.  And he said, "I always start with what is the cheapest, most noncommittal step".  He says, "If I'm interested in something, I buy a book.  It's £10".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!

Herminia Ibarra: Right?  "I just start there.  And if after that, and I've read it, I'm really interested, maybe I'll look for a Coursera course, or some kind of thing.  Ideally, by then, if I'm starting to get really intrigued, something that has a cohort so there's a community and there's other people who are interested in the same thing, in the same boat, that I can trade notes with, and that encourages me".  And so, it is that kind of step-by-step, but that liminality thing, people always remember that word because they really feel it.  It's so anxiety-provoking to have that sense of uncertainty, not just about what you're doing or what you're going to do, but about who you are, who you are when you're in this kind of shifting sands.  It can be exciting, but it can also just be really kind of nerve-racking.  And because it always takes longer than people think, then they think, "It's me.  What's wrong with me that I can't button it down sooner?  Am I being just too indecisive or too this or too that?" 

But it takes long because you have to figure out what it is, you have to network into the people and communities that are part of it, you have to develop some skills and some language into it, you have to understand that you would like it, that you might be good at it.  There's just a lot of things going on, and it's hard work because it's not like you're just hanging out, putting it all in place.  You're doing your day job, you're earning a living, but also the search for the next thing, it's a side hustle in and of itself. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think you've reflected there something that we hear a lot from people, "How do I make this happen when I already have a day job that I need to keep delivering on, as well as the rest of life?  I've got caring responsibilities and very occasionally, I might want to try and see my friends, or maybe I've got some hobbies".  And that's where we always encourage people, exactly as you've described, we also think, start easy and just experiment.  Take the pressure off yourself of almost where you might end up, but doing something --

Herminia Ibarra: Start easy, start enjoyable.  The thing is, you must have experienced this too, once this thing starts to take shape, it's compelling, it's kind of pulling you to do something that you want to do. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think then you get momentum.  Then I think it gives you energy, it gives you momentum, and it becomes something you really, really look forward to.  And one of the things you talk about actually in lots of your work, which I think is really useful for people to understand, is this idea of, it's okay for us all to have, and probably a good thing, to have lots of possible selves.  So, I sometimes see this search from people to really feel like, you know, we talk about clarity and confidence in your career, and because there is lots of change, maybe lots more opportunity and options than perhaps people have had before, people feel like, "Oh, there's pressure, I must anchor to one self and that's how I see myself", and see themselves in quite a fixed identity way.  So, perhaps you could talk to us a bit more about this idea of, what does it mean to have possible selves?  And personally, when I read about it, I thought, "Oh, that's a really freeing and useful way to think about who you are at work". 

Herminia Ibarra: Yeah, most people find it freeing, it's just unusual because they've been taught, "Figure out what you want first and if you don't know, just don't do anything until you've figured it out, figure it out ahead", which you can't because you haven't seen it before.  And so the idea of the possible selves is just to start with almost kind of a massive brainstorming with yourself, and what's freeing about it is that none of these things have to be feasible or money-making or developed or clear in your head, it's just an array of things.  So then from there, you can say, "Okay, maybe there's a common theme in a few of these to explore or maybe there's one or two avenues where I could start small and learn".  It's freeing in that sense, because it's not about having full clarity, it's about a place to start.

Sarah Ellis: And you mention about kind of other people, so spending time with other people perhaps outside of your day-to-day.  So, I think you reflect, and I hear this from lots of our learners as well, that we're all pretty good at building the relationships that we need right now for our day jobs, because that's how we deliver on those jobs, and it feels non-optional and it happens as part of how we get our jobs done.  What we maybe neglect or deprioritise is building the networks that we need for tomorrow or for where we might want to go.  How can we help people get better at that, because I see that all the time and I see people get really unsure about how to make that happen very practically?

Herminia Ibarra: Yeah.  So, look, the basic problem is that the people that you're in contact with often and frequently right now and that you're close to, they're seeing the same things you're seeing, so they're not going to be a good source of new ideas or insights or leads; you're going to exhaust that very quickly.  And so the question is, how do you get out maybe to the periphery of your network, people you know already but you don't know so well?  And oftentimes it's people that you have met before, but you've lost track of them as they've moved on to something else.  So, one of the biggest pieces of advice, practically, that I give to people is think about some of your dormant ties, people you know, but you've lost track of them.  You enjoyed working with them, they went to another country, they went to another company, and write to them on email and say, "Hey, I was thinking of you.  I'm looking at my options, or I'm thinking about moving into this area, I would just love to get your perspective".  And oftentimes that is really helpful, simply because that person is seeing different things than you, is in a different place, and maybe isn't going to pigeonhole you as much because they're not wedded to you remaining as you are and continuing in that role.  So, that's a good place to start, you know, people you've lost track of.

Then, it's very much like a snowball.  Everybody you talk to you say, "Who else should I talk to?" and they always have somebody to recommend.  And because so many people have gone through this, they give back, because they know when they were in this situation, they had to have lots of coffees and talk to lots of people, and so they're often happy to pay it forward and to help out.  And so you just start, you just start. 

Sarah Ellis: And I think often people don't because they're very empathetic and they put themselves in other people's shoes, and they say, "Oh, but everyone's really busy.  They've not got time to talk to me".  But then, when you ask people who've had those conversations about them, they're like, "Well, I felt so useful.  It was my favourite part of my week, getting that chance to make that reconnection, having that curious conversation".  And so, I think every time you're pausing thinking, "Oh, but should I ask?  I know everyone's busy and I'm not sure --"

Herminia Ibarra: They'll tell you no if they don't have time or they don't want to answer, it's okay.  I just had somebody reach out to me on something.  I said, "Look, right now I cannot, I just don't have any time.  Maybe in the fall".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, but also I think that links to, always ask more than one person, is always my other bit of advice because no one has a monopoly on wisdom, but also the more people you speak to, I often think the further away you get from the people who know the same things that you know, and you create those extra connections because exactly as you said, as somebody who's more introverted, I find cold connections very difficult, but I'm much better when somebody says, "Oh, have you thought about talking to this person?"  And I'll say, "Oh, no.  Any chance of an introduction?"  And as soon as I've got an introduction, I feel okay.

Herminia Ibarra: It's a lot easier, and it's also easier for the other person to say yes if they're introduced through somebody that they know, absolutely.  It's the old six degrees of separation.  You've got to keep going until you get where you need to go.

Sarah Ellis: And you describe the most effective leaders and some of the best leaders that you see, they act as bridges in terms of their network, and I think it's often an interesting dilemma for leaders, "How much time do I spend in my team, so looking in my team?"  And I see it now in terms of running a company, how much time should I spend looking inwards versus how much time do I spend kind of looking outwards?  So, what does it look like to be a bridge, because my reflection is, you don't need to be in a leadership role right now for that to be a really useful skill?

Herminia Ibarra: Yeah.  So, just in general, anything that has 100% of your time looking inwards to the team, to your company, to yourself is a recipe for problems, you've got to do something.  But we live in a big world with a lot of changes and lots of stuff happening, and we get ideas by being exposed to those things.  And so you can't.  And so bridging simply means, you know, it depends on the context.  If you're in a company and when it comes to your team, bridging means, are you managing some of the external stakeholders who are going to be providing resources, or kind of a political support, or can help you get the talent you need in there, all the things that you need, headcount to make a team work?  Somebody needs to do that role and it's often the most vital role, because it's what allows the team to survive.  But also, it allows the team to position what it's doing in a way that's relevant to those external stakeholders who are in command of the resources that the team needs to survive and thrive.  So, it's about what's useful, but it's also about understanding how your part fits into a bigger picture so that you can position it. 

Also, back to that DYI transition, so that you can understand if you kind of need to shift, how you're spending your time to do something that's going to add more value strategically to what you're trying to do. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think it's a brilliant thought.  One of the questions I often ask myself is, when was the last time I spoke to somebody who I haven't met before?  And it sounds like a really simplistic question. 

Herminia Ibarra: No it's not. 

Sarah Ellis: It's very easy to think, "Oh, actually, in the last two or three weeks, I've only spoken to people I already know, and I think that limits my learning".  And I see part of my job is to connect dots, is to have new ideas, to make sure that we're bringing our community the latest thinking or different perspectives, and I can't do that if I'm on a same-again mode.  And you described, actually, in Act Like a Leader, there was this brilliant paragraph where you talked about, it's much easier to learn based on what you already know, to get better from where you are today, because that is lower risk, you probably get shorter term win, you probably see the impacts quicker; but often when we are transitioning, probably whether it's career change, but probably particularly into leadership roles, actually you need to learn different things.  You almost have to have this beginner's mindset, was the way that I read that again.  And that is brave and feels hard, because it's so much more comfortable to just build on where we already are.  So, what advice would you have for people, knowing that that is probably what you need to do, but knowing it's also hard to do?

Herminia Ibarra: So, you'll find that no matter how you ask me the question, and whether we're talking about people trying to move up and expand their leadership impact or whether they're trying to move out into a new career, you have to get involved in new activities, concretely.  So, what you're talking about is how we get into competency traps, which is we favour, we use all of our discretionary time doing the things we already know how to do, and how important it is to carve out some slivers to do things that you don't know how to do, but you need to learn.  It's hard to do because you're not going to perform as well on them right away, it's not going to feel as good, you're going to think, "I need a huge chunk of time", because since you don't know how to do it, you're looking for a big block in your calendar that doesn't even exist.  But you've got to do those things.  The only way we learn is by doing. 

So the advice is, pay a lot of attention to how you spend your time and ask yourself questions like, "Have I talked to somebody who I don't know already?  What's the last new skill I picked up?"  Just recently, I had somebody from Microsoft, a senior executive, visit my students.  These are mid-career students.  He was part of their big shift towards artificial intelligence.  And my students are mostly generalists, some of them are engineers, but they're not necessarily tech people.  And I asked him, I said, "For this audience, who are not technical specialists, but are still concerned what does all this new world of AI mean for me and my career and how do I stay relevant, what would you advise?"  And he said, "Oh, it's really simple.  You need to use artificial intelligence every day in your personal life and in your professional life and you just make it a habit and you use it every day.  You try to find as many uses for it as you can.  You start small, but just use it, and that's the only way you learn and you can be part of the conversation and you can figure out what it's useful for, your own direct experience".  It's so much, it was such a great way of giving one example of many where you just have to do it.

Sarah Ellis: And also, such a great example of something that is on everyone's mind.

Herminia Ibarra: And everybody's stressed about it.  They're thinking, "Oh my God, do I have to take a one-year degree course in artificial intelligence or do I have to…?"  No, no.  Find out.  Find out how your kids are using it.  That's a place to start if you have teenagers like I do.  Ask them, find ways.  Start small, tell it how you should plan your vacation and use it that way.  I mean, start small, but use it and get more sophisticated, and by becoming a consumer, you become better able to see just the possibilities more broadly.

Sarah Ellis: I remember somebody once telling me that for anything that feels kind of new and scary, a way to sort of retrain your brain to look at that is think of it as something to play with.  When you play, you're just playing, you're just curious, but actually playing is a really good way to learn.  And so that, I just try to be really playful with it.  So, rather than putting pressure on yourself to think, "Oh, I need to use this AI to create the best piece of writing or the best article I've ever written", I just think, "Oh, well, if I played with it that way, what would happen?  Or if I, what happens if I put this in?" and just see.  I think if people play, and I think then added to that, I like the purposefulness of going, "Yes, but how do I add it in to what I already do?"  Because I think if anything feels like it has to be an extra or something you find time for, you never get around to it.

Herminia Ibarra: And make a big commitment to it.  And I use the word "play" a lot as well, as one of the three pillars of Act Like a Leader.  It's redefine your job, extend your network, be more playful with yourself.  And what I also mean by playful is, you're not making a commitment.  You're not saying, "I'm going to do this or I'm going to be that person", you're just playing around with it and see what you learn.  And you can always say, "Well, that's not for me".  You're not making a big commitment, you're not taking on a new role, you're not doing any of those things, you're just playing around with it.  Yeah, it's a good term. 

Sarah Ellis: And from all the work you've done over the years and the research that you've done, what's the skill that you think you'd still like everybody to invest in a bit more that you can see will help people?  Because I think everybody transitions in their careers.  You describe it, whether you call it squiggles or jungle gyms, we don't mind, but we do know now very few people will have a sort of straight line career in perhaps the way I imagined I was going to have when I started my career.  So, we all transition in kind of lots of different ways during our careers, and we're all going to work for longer, so we've got even more transitions.  And what's that skill where you think, well, if people invested more in that, it would help them with something that everybody is going to experience?

Herminia Ibarra: Yeah, so many things.  I mean, the skill of building relationships, building and maintaining relationships, and of course listening is part of it, but that's not the only thing.  It's really investing in a fabric of relationships, because our careers are not just skills, they're the relationships that help us learn them and put them to use.  So, I think that is a big one.  People tend to focus on the technical, and the technical comes and goes, it gets outdated; whereas relationship development, it involves listening, it involves giving feedback, it involves being able to coach people, it involves being able to really listen hard when you're being given advice, it involves reciprocity.  So really, the skillset involved in building and nurturing relationships is really vital.

Sarah Ellis: And then, I often describe other people are an incredible source of learning and possibility.  I think you pull learning and possibility and opportunity towards you through building brilliant relationships.  So, I love that one.  One of the questions that we had, quite a few people asked me, and actually everybody asked me anonymously on LinkedIn, so people said, "Was it okay?  I didn't want to put this in front of everybody", and I was like, "Oh, that's fine".  But I thought, given it was a common theme, I would ask you.  I think it's really important that we do talk about pay and money when it comes to career change and career transitions, that we don't ignore that, because it's often a big barrier for people.  Maybe even the further you're on into your career, the harder that feels because you've perhaps got, certainly if you're like me, you've got more and more commitments all the time and those things feel more challenging. 

So, quite a lot of people asked me for your advice around, they know they want to change, so back to your point when we were describing, do you know what you want to do?  So, they know they want to change, probably looking for more meaning in the work that they do, but they aren't in a position where they can sacrifice, significantly sacrifice their salary.  So, they couldn't take a 50% or 40% pay cut.  They could maybe earn a bit less, but it's a bit less around the edges rather than something dramatic, and you must hear that all the time from people. 

Herminia Ibarra: I do.

Sarah Ellis: What advice do you have?

Herminia Ibarra: It's on the top five --

Sarah Ellis: Okay, top five!

Herminia Ibarra: -- of what people find challenging, yeah.  One is, "I don't know what to do", another is, "I have a crap network", another is the financial, so it's in the top five, definitely.  Look, here's the thing, and this is where we get back to the inside and outside.  You could sit around for years thinking, "I can't afford to make less", and then never figure it out.  Or you can say, "These are my financial requirements.  Let me start talking to people and networking and investing and taking a course and building my skills, and see if I can't build a branch out to another career in which I am able to earn what I need to earn".  So what I'm saying is, it's a very serious concern.  And maybe it comes also from a naïve misconception that in order to have meaning, I have to go work in the non-profit sector or in developing economies or something.  There's lots of ways to get meaning, that's not the only way.  And a lot of times people try those things and find it's not for them, it's not always.  It's really about finding a path to what might meet your requirements of both money and meaning, it's not about a trade-off.  And you're not going to find out until you have investigated, until you've talked to other people, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and one of the things I always say to people about it taking us a while to run Amazing If and Squiggly Careers full time, is part of the reason it took a while was money.  Both Helen and I were really clear we needed to pay ourselves from day one.  We were not one of those companies where we're like, "Oh, we'll just not pay ourselves for a year".  We were nowhere near in a position to be able to do that.  So, what we did was we were like, "Well, let's make sure we've got some cash in the bank that means that we've got enough time to give it a really good go".  And do you know what?  That then meant it took a bit longer.  We actually did our transitions in stages.  So, Helen transitioned from Microsoft into Amazing If.  I waited a bit and then I actually transitioned into another role in between Sainsbury's and then I joined.  And so we did it sort of slowly and pragmatically, but then that really took the pressure off.  And then it meant, I think, once we'd made that transition, we probably had the headspace and the kind of freedom to then really enjoy it and go for it, without that panic of, "Well, am I going to be able to --", nobody wants to worry every month, "Am I going to be able to pay my bills, or am I going to be able to pay my rent?" 

So I think, as you said, getting really specific I think could be really useful, because I do wonder whether sometimes it's just a sort of, "Well, I just wouldn't be able to earn enough", and it's a very general statement or thought. 

Herminia Ibarra: It's not in the context of a real thing that I want to build or an area in which I want to invest.  Better investigate it first and then you can make a plan based on its own specific requirements.  Yeah, that's a great example of how you did it.

Sarah Ellis: Slow and steady like the tortoise! 

Herminia Ibarra: A lot of people do that. 

Sarah Ellis: And back to leaders.  So, when you look at leaders who have successfully transitioned into maybe their first leadership roles, or you actually give quite a few examples of people who are already in pretty big roles but wanting to go into kind of more senior, more significant leadership roles, what do you think are some of the mistakes that people still make, where our listeners can look out for those or watch out for those mistakes, and then maybe what can they do differently?

Herminia Ibarra: Right.  So, classic mistake, not investing in learning to delegate to other people when you actually have a team to whom you can delegate.  So, most of us are really bad at it because we get so much satisfaction from what we do ourselves, and we think we do the best job of anyone at all, which is often true, at least at the beginning, you have to invest in training.  But unless you invest in that, you're never going to be able to get any leverage on your time because you're going to run around doing it all yourself.  That's one of the big traps.  Another trap is focusing so much on the immediate team that you're not managing your boss and not managing up in a little bit the external environment.  That's another one.  This kind of whole idea of working through networks is new for a lot of people.  You kind of come up as a bit of a specialty expert or kind of technical.  It's more about the analytics or the stuff and less about the politics and the relationships, but as you get more senior, you do have to manage up a bit more.  Those are probably the two biggest ones.

Sarah Ellis: And I think with those that you've just described, I think you can anticipate that those are requirements for doing those sorts of roles.  And then as you've described, you do it now.  So you demonstrate, "Well, I do understand how to prioritise, how to delegate, how to build those relationships, how to bring the outside in", in whatever job you're in, because then I think actually when then you are looking to transition, people then have the confidence of, okay, you might not do it all of the time and you might be doing it more when you transition into these roles, but we can see some evidence that you've got those skills.

Herminia Ibarra: Yeah, we can see some evidence.  People want to know that you're doing it already, whether it is a big promotion or moving into a new career, nobody's going to hire you if they don't see some evidence that you're doing some of it already. 

Sarah Ellis: That's so useful, thank you.  Just before we finish, we always end all of our Squiggly Career podcast interviews with the same question, which is just your best piece of career advice.  So, sometimes this is just your own words of wisdom, or maybe it's something that someone has told you that's just really helped you in your career.  So, what would you like to leave our listeners with today?

Herminia Ibarra: Don't wait until you have it all figured out to get started.  Trust yourself to get on that squiggly path.

Sarah Ellis: I think that's very good advice, and actually something that, you know when you collect and connect dots, talking to so many different people, so somebody like yourself who has the research and the kind of academic rigor, and then I've talked to a few people who run and have grown massive companies who have the same advice.  So, I'm thinking about someone like Anne Boden, who runs Starling Bank here in the UK.  And again, she's the same thing.  She's like, "You need to do it".  She's like, "Learn by doing, you've got to do it, you've got to take action".

Herminia Ibarra: I'm a big fan of Anne's.  I wrote a case study about her that we used. 

Sarah Ellis: Oh, did you? 

Herminia Ibarra: Leadership in Scaling up Situations.  Yeah, fantastic person.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, well there you go, your advice delivered in a slightly different way, but essentially saying exactly the same thing.  And so, that's when you start to know something really matters, when you hear it from more than one very smart person.  Thank you so much for joining us today.  I've been a long-time reader, admirer, sharer of your work, and it's so brilliant to get the opportunity to talk to you today.  So, thank you so much. 

Herminia Ibarra: Likewise, Sarah.  Thank you so much.  It's really nice to connect and I hope we'll have another opportunity.

Sarah Ellis: Thank you for listening to today's podcast.  If there is an expert you'd like us to have a conversation with for the Squiggly Careers podcast, please get in touch, we always really appreciate your ideas.  It's helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  And all the links to Herminia's brilliant work, you can find in today's show notes.  And if you ever do get stuck, or you're looking for something that we mention, again please email us or connect with us directly on LinkedIn.  But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now.