Career Transition Coaching E-Book

Risto M Koskinen

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 253

Beschreibung

Drawing from over 30 years of coaching and training experience, Coach Risto combines academic research with real-world practices to provide a comprehensive roadmap for navigating career transitions. Whether you're seeking to enhance your coaching skills, attract more clients, or deepen your impact, this book equips you with the tools and strategies to thrive in guiding professionals.Explore practical techniques and insightful strategies tailored to enrich your coaching practice. Hands-on tools and transformative exercises help you guide your clients through career transitions with finesse. Whether you're an experienced coach seeking to expand your toolkit or an aspiring coach focusing on career transitions, this book provides invaluable insights and actionable steps to enhance your practice. Career Transition Coaching is essential for coaches committed to empowering individuals through meaningful transformations.

Leseprobe

My sincere thanks to all my connections on LinkedIn.

Your support has motivated me to curate this book.

Many of you have also shared insights and comments, which have been extremely valuable.

It would be a list of several pages if I were to thank you all personally – and it would be unfair to many if I were to list just the closest connections.

But there is one person I want to name:

Neha Parashar, PCCleadership and executive coach

You have kept me accountable for this process. With your encouragement, there is this book.

Therefore, this book is dedicated to you, Neha.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. SELF-DISCORY AS A STARTING POINT

1.1. Mapping Roles

1.2. Self-Reflection

1.3. Reframing Experiences

1.4. Values-in-Practice

1.5. Possible Selves

1.6. Life in Flux

1.7. Hidden Qualities

1.8. Starting With Why

2. FINDING A PURPOSEFUL DIRECTION

2.1. Framing the Career

2.2. Career Success

2.3. Possible Futures

2.4. What Do You Do?

2.5. Systemic Context

2.6. Springboard

2.7. Constellations

2.8. Tapping the Good

3. ASSESSING THE SKILLS

3.1. Skillset Compass

3.2. Skills in Context

3.3. Career Capitals

3.4. Hybrid Competencies

3.5. Becoming a Star

3.6. Quantifying the Non-Quantifiable

3.7. Building Up Expertise

3.8. Creating Impact

4. TRANSITION REQUIRES PLANNING

4.1. Assessing Current Status

4.2. Critical Career Review

4.3. Changing the Mindset

4.4. Charting Options

4.5. Anticipating Future

4.6. Transition Model

4.7. Positioning

4.8. Reviewing Change

5. THE ART OF GOAL-SETTING

5.1. Goals and Identity

5.2. Values and Goals

5.3. Systemic View to Goalsetting

5.4. Goals and Roles

5.5. Execution Systems

5.6. Cost/Benefit -Matrix

5.7.Feedback

5.8. Ethical Considerations

6. STRATEGIZING TRANSITION

6.1. Crafting the Narrative

6.2. Becoming Visible

6.3. First in the Hundred

6.4. Blue Ocean Approach

6.5. Personal Brand

6.6. Professional Network

6.7. Competence and Context

6.8. Regenerating Value

7. OVERCOMING ROADBLOCKS

7.1. Creating Momentum

7.2. Shifting Focus

7.3. Analyzing Obstacles

7.4. Understanding Stagnation

7.5. Recovering Relapses

7.6. Self-Sabotage

7.7. Working on Weaknesses

7.8. Impostor Syndrome

8. BALANCING LIFE

8.1. Domain Harmony

8.2. Managing Time

8.3. Setting Priorities

8.4. Maintaining Boundaries

8.5. Protective Structures

8.6. Balanced Network

8.7. Self-Care

8.8. Managing Uncertainty

EPILOGUE: SKILLS ARE NOT ENOUGH

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

I initially wrote this book for coaches interested in career management and career transitions. It is also helpful for anyone facing a career pivot – voluntary or forced.

The book covers eight dimensions, from self-discovery to a balanced life. Each dimension has eight sub-chapters illuminating different perspectives on the issue. They include some theoretical contemplation, but the emphasis is on describing practical approaches, tools, and techniques to tackle career transition challenges.

As one size does not fit all, I have collected several tools to help with most challenges. Please feel free to adopt the best ones for you – or create your own tools.

In recent years, the career transition of mid-career professionals has been my main interest. It also colors the contents of this book as I have written it, thinking about this target group. However, I believe the tools, techniques, and exercises can be applied to other target groups.

Chapter 1 SELF-DISCORY AS A STARTING POINT

In the dynamic landscape of today’s workforce, mid-career professionals contemplating a career transition can find profound value in self-discovery. This reflective process unveils untapped potential and aligns aspirations with authentic purpose. Self-discovery mitigates the risk of a mismatched career transition, providing a foundation for informed decision-making.

Ultimately, self-discovery is the cornerstone, empowering individuals to architect a fulfilling and purpose-driven career path amid the complexities of mid-career transitions.

In this chapter, I will introduce eight tools that coaches can use in their practice. Each tool is linked to a different context.

Mapping Roles is about charting and combining critical personal and professional roles.

Self-reflection is a crucial part of professional development. A classic approach is the Johari Window, but here is a multi-faceted version.

The cognitive reframing approach and the reframing matrix help reinterpreting setbacks.

Values-in-Practice are unveiled with the Six Items exercise.

Identity issues emerge in transitions. Possible Selves enables us to approach as well as desired marginal or even outdated identities.

Genogram shifts the focus from snapshot thinking to change process or - as I instead call it - to flux.

Many skills and capabilities are not noticed because they are not recognized or considered valuable. Seven Successes is a simple method for charting hidden skills, competencies, and abilities.

Starting with Why guides toward purpose-driven career choices.

1.1. MAPPING ROLES

Best used for:

When a holistic picture of the critical domains of the client’s life is sought after. The Role Map offers a perspective not only to crucial roles as such but also to values, objectives, and challenges.

The client lists their three (sometimes four) most important personal and professional roles in the diagram.

Usually, I start by asking my clients first to think about all the relevant roles they can imagine. The intent is to get a larger picture of their roles and discuss why they chose them. But sometimes, this also unveils a neglected but essential role they still need to address.

When my client is a mid-career professional in the middle of a career transition, we can focus on the intended new position and discuss the critical roles of that position. Some questions to ponder:

What is expected in those roles?

Which one of these roles is of utmost importance?

How well does the client think they fit those roles?

What skills need to be learned?

What characteristics support succeeding in these roles?

It’s also essential to consider personal roles (those in your private life).

A variation to consider is also a single capacity role map.

The client can build the role map around this professional role if they are to proceed into a specific role, say, a consultant. It should include 4-6 sub-roles and preferably have at least one unconventional role (or characteristic) that gives a differentiating edge. Such a role could be, e.g., a visualizer if the client excels in describing complex issues in simplified and easily understandable diagrams.

Further discussions considering role maps can include topics like learning agendas, value alignment, or role discrepancies.

1.2. SELF-REFLECTION

Best used for:

When the client seeks a deeper understanding of their interaction with others, the novel definitions of the Johari Window quadrants open up developmental and instrumental views from which the client can benefit. For the coach, the Johari Window offers a versatile tool to facilitate the client’s self-reflection.

In the graphic, I have described three versions of the Johari Window. Most coaches who apply this tool focus on the original Johari Window by Joe Luft and Harry Ingram.

The idea is simple: in the original Johari Window, the client looks at themselves and evaluates different quadrants.

What is known to me as well as to others is called the Open (or sometimes also public) Self.

What is unknown to me but known to others is called the Blind (or unaware) Self.

What is known to me but unknown to others is called the Hidden (or private) Self.

The last quadrant, unknown both to me and others, is named Unknown Self.

The simplistic use of Johari Window targets to enlarge the Open Self quadrant. The more aware one becomes of their Blind Self, the better in a sense of personal development. The key here is often openness to feedback. The less you need to hide or keep up a façade, the more authentic you appear. And the more one comes to terms with their unknown part, quadrant 4, the less their decisions or behaviors are governed by subconscious – often dysfunctional – scripts.

In the career transition context, applying Johari Window in another way can be helpful.

First, if we look at the quadrants from the inside (“me perspective”), we can define them as Public, Opaque, Protected, and Potential Self. While this relates not only to interpersonal behavior but also motivations and feelings, it opens up interesting questions that a coach can pose.

In the Public Self quadrant, the questions include, e.g.

What is the client willing to share?

What does the client have the courage to share or see as relevant?

To what purposes does the client use their Public Self?

The Opaque Self quadrant implies that we are not blind to how others see us; instead, our understanding of how others see us is opaque – we see an outline or a shadow but not a clear picture. At some level, we are aware of the potential image that other people hold about us, and it gets us defensive to their feedback. This quadrant can be examined with questions like

What characteristics or reactions the client is recognizing but unwilling to deal with?

What feelings do those vague, emerging issues bring up? Shame? Fear? Inadequacy?

What kind of feedback is difficult to receive?

The Protected Self quadrant concerns issues the client is not ready or willing to share. Hiding can be either for personal protection or a strategic choice to hold up a chosen professional image. A coach can ask e.g.

What do you feel you need to keep unveiled and why?

How do you balance protecting yourself and showing vulnerability?

When protecting the Self is a strategic choice, what is it for?

The last quadrant is in the original version the Unknown Self; it gets a different tone as Potential Self.

Unknown refers to ignorance, potential to possibilities, and development. In the original Johari Window, solving issues in this quadrant was supposed to require a psychotherapeutic approach. Potential Self -definition enables results from various approaches, not only therapeutic ones. Questions that help to explore this quadrant:

What undetected qualities allude to their emergence?

What has been surprising in the last days or weeks?

What underutilized resources do you recognize when you think about x?

From the outside (i.e., others’ perspective), the Public Self is seen as the Presentational Self, the Opaque Self as the Blocked Self, the Protected Self as the Withheld Self, and the Potential Self as the Unexplored Self. Again, each of these definitions offers novel perspectives, e.g.,

How should you appear in your prospective role?

How do you create permeable boundaries that allow you, at the same time, to keep your integrity and permit learning?

In which kind of personal attack do you find withholding immediate reaction difficult?

What have you not wanted – or have had no time – to explore in yourself?

1.3. REFRAMING EXPERIENCE

Best used for:

When a client cannot see any change and is stuck in a vicious circle of thinking, reframing techniques help to move forward. Reframing helps the client to make sense of their experiences constructively. For a coach, reframing also offers a tool to tackle situations where the dialogue is stuck.

I define reframing as a way to see the issue or problem from a different angle and see the issue or problem as positive. This concept of positive connotation originates in Milan systemic family therapy. Reframing is not just twisting negative to positive. A “good” reframing includes five aspects that should be present in every case:

it is suitably different, having something familiar, and something new;

it includes positive connotations;

it is resource-creating;

it increases self-esteem, and

it enhances the creation of new tools and models.

If the coach has a psychology or therapy background, cognitive reframing is a natural choice for an approach here. A non-specialist can reduce the approach to a repertoire of questions that guide to change the perspective (described in parenthesis):

What other ways there are to look at this situation? (alternatives)

Where else could this be useful? (context)

Is there a funny side to this? (emotion, humor)

What can we learn from this? (learning)

What else could this mean? (meaning)

How does this look to others? (points of view)

What opportunities does this “problem” present? (benefit)

What would we do if we solved this “problem”? (solution)

In psychology, cognitive reframing identifies and disputes irrational or maladaptive thoughts. The intention is to find more positive alternatives for patients and prompt beneficial changes in their mindsets. When applied to career coaching, the objective is similar but without the therapeutic intention.

On the other hand, organizations that compete in a globalizing world reframe “problems” to find new opportunities. A much-used tool for this is the reframing matrix.

The original reframing matrix places the problem (i.e., poor sales) in the middle and surrounds it with four perspectives: product, people, planning, and potential. In the context of a career pivot, these perspectives are replaced (in a spirit of positivity) with self-discovery, possibilities, reinvention, and repositioning.

Self-discovery is the cornerstone for a purposeful professional life and career but is often neglected. A layoff usually forces clients to look deeper at what they want from their work and life. Here, the coach has numerous tools, many described in these subchapters. For the client, self-discovery may mean clarifying goals and values, searching for the authentic Self, or taking stock of skills, capabilities, and other resources.

Possibilities refer to various options for different career paths, such as starting a business or freelancing.

Remote work opportunities and tools and technologies (e.g., video conferencing, project management tools, or online collaboration suites) open up entirely new possibilities. The gig economy and skills-based hiring offer opportunities for flexible and independent work arrangements. New industries, say digital and green transformations, open up possibilities for career choices that didn’t exist a decade ago.

Personal reinvention means stepping outside the comfort zone and traditional career definitions and career success definitions. A career transition coach can support the client in dealing with uncertainty, cultivating resilience, and recognizing untapped potential. At best, the result may be a sustainable redefined identity that creates a successful career trajectory.

Professional repositioning starts with skills assessments and market demand analysis to identify opportunities for career advancement. Positioning is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.7.

The cognitive reframing approach doesn’t change the facts but changes the client’s relation to those facts; the client will comprehend the incident differently. On the other hand, the reframing matrix for career transition offers a holistic framework for clients facing the challenge of a layoff to transform adversity into opportunity. Career coaches should know how to apply both approaches to benefit their clients.

1.4. VALUES-IN-PRACTICE

Best used for:

The coach must consider the client’s fundamental values to support a purposeful career transition. Six Items is an exercise that reveals the client’s values in practice instead of a conventional and ostensible list of espoused values.

Ask the client to choose six significant personal items as a pre-coaching task. Then, in the coaching session, discuss these items: what they represent, why they are essential, what the client is trying to express with them, what values the client sees in them, and so on. These values can also be prioritized or negotiated. What is the most critical value? What is non-negotiable? Digging deeper is relatively easy with this tool, often revealing unexpected insights.

My six items in the picture are

(1) silk tie

(2) book (professional)

(3) kuksa (a Lappish word for a trinket; this one is small and silver)

(4) board game (strategy game “go” or “weiqi”)

(5) black belt (in martial arts)

(6) wristwatch

For example, the silk tie means I appreciate well-groomed dress, quality, politeness, business-like manners, etc.… Combine this with the wristwatch: precision, quality, respecting my client’s time. Two issues surface: quality and respect. Similarly, I can combine the board game and the black belt. Issues like continuous learning, precision, strategic thinking, etc., pop up.

Going this way through all six items will give the client a plethora of insights and issues to ponder and maybe even expose some blind spots, too. The result is a deeply grounded and personalized description of their values, not just declared values but real values-in-practice. Even if the attributes were somewhat generic, your client has built up here the way they walk their talk.

If your client prefers a more tangible analysis, ask them to make a matrix. On the horizontal axis, they place their items; on the vertical axis, the attributes related to each item. After that, you look for the recurring attributes or themes, picking up the most important ones.

1.5. POSSIBLE SELVES

Best used for:

When the client does not know what to do and which direction to take, a coach can guide the client in reflecting on their identity by offering alternative perspectives of possible selves instead of discussing career aspirations. Using this approach, a client can chart their route from provisional selves to the intended identity.

Career pivot is not only professional or situational change; it’s also identity change. A simple example: an expert promoted to a leadership role.

As we shift from one Self (or identity) to another self, the change happens gradually through a provisional self (or selves). The shift is subtle: between old and new identity, there’s a liminal space where we still keep parts of our previous identity and learn the new one. We play with various possible selves, testing them in a new context. The term “possible selves” describes how people envision their futures: what they may become, want to become, or even fear becoming. In this sense, possible selves can support change. This is also a very fragile phase, so protecting ourselves from overkill and outside threat is essential.

A concept of multiple or possible selves may sound strange if your background is outside psychology or psychotherapy.

My understanding of this issue stems from

Tatiana Bachkirova’s Developmental coaching: Working with the Self,

Herminia Ibarra’s Identity Transitions: Possible Selves, Liminality and the Dynamics of Career Change, and

the constructivist principles described by late R. Vance Peavy in his manuscript Composing and Mapping my Life: A Counsellor’s Guidebook of Constructivist Principles and Guided Participation Activities for Use in Training and Counselling.

To keep this simple, let’s start by saying that our ego contains several mini-selves – and good so because the theory of possible selves predicts that the greater the number of selves, the better we function.

These selves are not fixed or unchangeable but are evolving, starting from unformed, developing to formed, and further on to reformed Self. Development happens in successive stages.

So, what’s the use of these multiple selves?

they function as incentives for future behavior; and

they provide an interpretive context for the current view of self, i.e., how we see ourselves.

Looking at things from multiple selves’ perspectives can open up, e.g.,

novel understanding,

unorthodox solutions,

expanded choices,

reflective and critical thinking, or

strengthened identity.

The value of this discussion also manifests later when the client is strategizing their career transition toward a purposeful and satisfactory career.

In the diagram, I have picked up several perspectives from where to look at the possible selves. It’s also valuable to notice that the possible selves have a negative connotation; such selves can be remarkable obstacles to our professional and personal success.

Using the multiple selves concept in coaching aims to heighten the client’s self-awareness. The easy questions a coach poses can be, for example,

How do you see your present self?

Does it differ – and in which ways – from your ideal self?

Is there a difference between your public and private self?

Do you see discrepancies between different selves?

The more challenging questions concern identities marked in red (most of them being so-called postmodern identities).

1.6. LIFE IN FLUX

Best used for:

When the client feels stuck and hopeless and doesn’t see any realistic change, The purpose is to influence the client’s explanatory style.

We frame our lives instead in snapshots as a video. Sometimes, especially when the client is either stuck or feeling hopeless, the coach can guide the client to put things into a broader temporal perspective to help the client realize that a change is not only possible but inevitable.

Pretty often, we use expressions like “This will never end...” or “We will never…” or “You are always…” These expressions see the current state of affairs as permanent and pessimistic, blaming either oneself or the other person or situational factors. The picture is fixed to a moment that seems to last forever. Another way to look at this is to put the issue into a continuum, a timeline, or a flux. I prefer the last word because it implies continuous change and life flow. To break the state of stagnation, a simple question such as “What will be different in your life in one (or five or ten, depending on the client) year?” is a good start. I usually draw a genogram if I work with a person with a family (spouse and children) to make the inevitable change visible.

The original purpose of this exercise is to steer the client’s way of thinking from pessimistic permanent to more optimistic temporary, to emphasize the changes that create new options, and to envision possible, more optimistic futures. However, it can also be used for a more general self-discovery to describe the client’s life course from a temporal viewpoint. Questions that the coach might ask include, e.g.,

When you look back at the year [x], how would you describe your life then?

What challenges did you face?

How did you cope with those challenges?

What resources did those hardships of life help you to create? What ambitions do you remember having then? What happened with them? And so on.

Projecting a few years ahead, I usually ask my clients to start by drawing the family situation as they anticipate it. The client begins by putting the family structure to the river of life (flux), adding ages and some anticipated changes like children moving to another town because of studies. The discussion with the client may include issues like

What options does the coming situation offer that you don’t have now?

What makes you think that [x] is manifested within this timeframe?

Look at the example in the diagram and see the fictitious Sarah Anderson, 42, who suddenly became redundant. Now, she looks at the flux diagram with her career coach.

Today, Sarah is married to John, who is 43, and they have two kids: Paul, who is 16, and Lisa, who is 12. In six years, she and her husband will be close to 50; Paul has moved to his own, and Lisa will probably be at university. The difficulties of today are somehow defeated. The discussion could deal with changes in the family structure (what options will open when the kids leave the nest), career aspirations, further education possibilities, relocating elsewhere because of work, and so on.

On the other hand, in 2010, they were a couple in their late 20s, and Paul was just two years old. A coach can inquire about their coping strategies as parents of a toddler, career strategies applied, values that have changed over the years (and the ones that remained untouched), and so on. The purpose is threefold:

to show in a concrete way that change happens,

to create feelings of hope and optimism, and

to chart (and bring to consciousness) existing resources and options.

Moving from snapshot to flux changes the mindset and makes the client more aware of the change process, but it also opens up a new framework for problem-solving.

1.7. HIDDEN QUALITIES

Best used for:

To chart not-so-easy-to-recognize qualities and strengths. This exercise can help determine valuable transferable capabilities when a client plans to move to a different industry.

When you plan a mid-career transition – be it a voluntary or a forced one – you are advised to list your skills. The problem is that the list too often is just a bunch of “technical” qualities without a more profound meaning or context.

To dig deeper and reveal some of the meta-capabilities, I have used a tool called Seven Successes.

Ask the client to list seven achievements that they are proud of and place them in the first row of a table. Below each achievement, ask them to list five attributes (features, characteristics, or skills) that have enabled this achievement.

The diagram shows an excerpt listing a black belt in martial arts and an MBA thesis. The “enablers” are not yet skills or capabilities but must be processed. The first task is to look for recurring themes or concepts. In this example, it is easy to spot systematic training and a systematic writing process. A not-so-obvious connection can be drawn between the ability to find a good teacher and access to good resources. Let us define the two capabilities here: a systematic mindset and the ability to acquire resources.

The coach then asks the client to process these meta-level capabilities according to their professional context, aspirations, job market demands, etc. Using descriptive tools like the STAR -method (situation, task, action, result) can provide an even richer picture.

In the Seven Successes exercise I see several benefits: it

reveals often unnoticed capabilities,

includes emotional aspect (of being proud of the achievements),

offers meta-level concepts that can be widely applied, and

enables describing a coherent, differentiating skillset.

1.8. STARTING WITH WHY

Best used for:

When the client is seeking for their purpose professionally. Reflecting on the question Why? the client intends to reveal their core driver: a single issue that guides all their choices. The core driver also carries the client across jobs, roles, and industries.

When a client builds their professional objective(s), one of the hardest things is defining the core or the why of their profession. The questions “how” and especially “what“ seem more accessible to tackle. The last section of this chapter deals with how a career coach can help the client to reveal their why.

This framework originates from Simon Sinek’s popular book Start With Why. He describes how most businesses think first about what they will do, then how they will do it, and after that, why they will do it. The same applies to a mid-career professional. Sinek’s advice is to reverse the direction.

Another perspective on this issue comes from James Clear’s Atomic Habits. He defines the why, how, and what as identity, process (or systems or routines), and goals (or outcomes). A complementary element we’ll come to later in this book is impact – the first-order and second-degree impacts (Chapter 3.8.).

To help the client to find their why a coach can start by asking three questions:

What excites you [personally]?

What excites you [in your client, work, or profession]?

What do these choices tell you about what you are good at?

This approach should open a view into the client’s signature capability (i.e., where they are very good at it), maybe in a way they have yet to be aware of. For example, one of my clients said she’s always been a caretaker and gets much satisfaction from helping people. On the other hand, she had a ”soft spot” for elderly people and felt good at working with this clientele.

We continued with these two questions:

What is the one thing that defines you as a professional?

And what are the core values derived from this one thing?

She defined her one thing as “dignified old age .” Her core is to provide services to help her clients live rich and valued final years of their lives. From this core, the values unfold, such as self-determination or appreciative treatment. These values guide the processes and the artifacts.

Sometimes, it might be challenging to search for the why, especially if the client needs clarification on their direction and has several options to ponder. A coach can help by asking their client to do this homework:

Ask the client to take two to three weeks to write down all the observations, thoughts, and perceptions they find in some way exciting and related to a possible why. The client should write down just one issue per Post It-note or whatever media they want to use (paper slips, file cards). Quite soon, they should have 150-300 such notes.

The next part is to classify those notes to unfold the main themes. The client can also do this with the coach. The client should use a wall or a large table to spread the notes. The next step is to group the notes according to two or three themes. Notes that do not fit in the client discards; in my experience, the amount of scrapped notes is between 5-10% of the total.

Finding out the two to three significant themes would parallel the questions “What excites you?” and “What excites you in your client?” Then, the client is to discover the next-level concept that includes both themes. Questions like “What is in common in these two themes?” or “What is the issue with these two themes representing different perspectives?” help in this phase.

Now, the client should have an initial idea of why. The coach can remind that it may be necessary to iterate the why several times. The client needs to toggle back and forth a few times until they combine the elements.

Finding the why is paramount to creating a purposeful career.

Chapter 2 FINDING A PURPOSEFUL DIRECTION