In this episode, we explore more of the practical details about reinventing ourselves to adapt within a changing world After the last episode, on ‘Reinventing ourselves’, several people asked me to go into more depth about the whole process. You know, how to actually
As we've discussed prior reinvention requires breaking free from the sunk-cost fallacy. Don't underestimate how hard this really is. But when done well it can be truly transformational. Think David Bowie leaving behind Ziggy Stardust.
"equires breaking free from the sunk-cost fallacy. Don't underestimate how hard this really is" - oh yes... oh yes... :-( :-(
That's what's been keeping me trapped in so-called 'enter[prise-architecture' for now at least six years longer than I should have stayed there. That and the guilt of walking away when the material is still not in fully-usable form. But yes, the bleakly foolish hope that year upon year of 'jam tomorrow' might at long last become 'jam today' is another kind of sunk-cost fallacy that's kept me trapped there. But I still don't know how to get past of any of these traps - yet until I do, I still can't trust that there'd be anything at else at all to move on to. Or to help me recover from the huge, huge, opportunity-cost that I've incurred from all of that unpaid full-time work in the enterprise-architecture space. Oh well.
A few days earlier Bob Hoffman's <https://www.bobhoffmanswebsite.com/> weekly 'Ad Contrarian' newsletter appeared in my inbox. After all these years he's hanging up his typewriter. I quote.....
"I've decided it's time for me to hang this thing up. The ad business has passed me by and I'm no longer very interested. I read a report recently about Norman Lear, the great producer of TV comedies, who at his 100th birthday celebration said that two of the least appreciated words are "over" and "next." I agree."
"For a few years I was energized by the fight to end the corrupt and dangerous influence of online tracking. But I've said everything I have to say about that. The "business" of the ad business is nothing more than huge corporations muscling each other. And the "art" of advertising is -- let's be kind -- uninspiring. We used to strive for new and stimulating ideas. Now we starting to turn our chores over to "machines.""
It feels like many of us have become exhausted by trying to point out that our respective domains are going to hell in a handbasket. That may be the case and sometimes you have to let things fail in order to then put them right again. But as Sleaford Mod's Williamson said "You've got a responsibility to be intelligent, and to thinking about things, be thoughtful and passionate." Some rise to that challenge, others just accept what's put in front of them. How to harness that though and have it dovetail nicely into where we find ourselves now?
To your final question: "How to harness that though and have it dovetail nicely into where we find ourselves now?" - there's no easy answer (obviously...). And yet there is, in the sense of the kind of themes we're talking about here, and that we'll go into in more practical depth in the next episode: how to take the _existing_ expertise whilst reframing the domain itself into something more human, more engaging, more real. I hope I've triggered off at least _some_ useful ideas and insights with these two past episodes: I hope we take it into more practical and _usable_ form in the next.
Interesting topic as always Tom, I prefer to look at this as a " variation on a theme" rather than Re-invention per se. The re-invention of oneself can lead to a period of self-doubt and a whole lot of stress when you enter a new direction, a variation however could employ skills learnt over years of experience and applied in a different area can lead to a win-win situation during the transition.
Just my thoughts and I am sure you will provide sage advice in future articles.
My short-answer would be "it's complicated...". You're right in that there's definitely a gradation here. At the low end, there's a change of direction within the same discipline, such as in my designer-colleague's example about revamping his business-model and more by revamping his perspective on the work - which actually was a reinvention in the sense that his whole demeanour and perspective on the world changed quite radically for the better. In the middle there's full career-change, though re-using so-called 'transferrable skills into that new career - which I've now done several times in my life (at least five fundamental shifts in career so far, currently working on my sixth). Toward the further end, there's a more fundamental breakdown and rebuild, which I've done probably three now (around age 18, 35 and 55) and am facing at present (and avoiding avoiding avoiding, with obvious results from all that avoidance...). And then there are the extreme cases, such as the transition from Stuart Goddard to Adam Ant over a single weekend.
All of those types _except_ the extreme-case are plagued with increasingly-extreme self-doubt, much as you say. (Variously-extreme self-doubt has been my 'normal' state for almost the whole of my life.) The Adam Ant-type extreme case may start off with severe self-doubt, but isn't self-doubt as such, it's usually something a lot weirder than that. From what I've seen over the decades. anyway.
To me the key characteristic of a reinvention (and that distinguishes it from a more everyday job-change), is a shift into a different storyworld, with its concomitant changes in values, standards, success-criteria and so on on, which then ripples down into everything else. It's actually much the same process as we do when we help an organisation go through that kind of shift - and, of course, what we're aiming to do at a more global scope and scale with the SDG/ESG work. I'll go into more detail on the 'how-to' for that in the next episode.
As we've discussed prior reinvention requires breaking free from the sunk-cost fallacy. Don't underestimate how hard this really is. But when done well it can be truly transformational. Think David Bowie leaving behind Ziggy Stardust.
"equires breaking free from the sunk-cost fallacy. Don't underestimate how hard this really is" - oh yes... oh yes... :-( :-(
That's what's been keeping me trapped in so-called 'enter[prise-architecture' for now at least six years longer than I should have stayed there. That and the guilt of walking away when the material is still not in fully-usable form. But yes, the bleakly foolish hope that year upon year of 'jam tomorrow' might at long last become 'jam today' is another kind of sunk-cost fallacy that's kept me trapped there. But I still don't know how to get past of any of these traps - yet until I do, I still can't trust that there'd be anything at else at all to move on to. Or to help me recover from the huge, huge, opportunity-cost that I've incurred from all of that unpaid full-time work in the enterprise-architecture space. Oh well.
A few days earlier Bob Hoffman's <https://www.bobhoffmanswebsite.com/> weekly 'Ad Contrarian' newsletter appeared in my inbox. After all these years he's hanging up his typewriter. I quote.....
"I've decided it's time for me to hang this thing up. The ad business has passed me by and I'm no longer very interested. I read a report recently about Norman Lear, the great producer of TV comedies, who at his 100th birthday celebration said that two of the least appreciated words are "over" and "next." I agree."
"For a few years I was energized by the fight to end the corrupt and dangerous influence of online tracking. But I've said everything I have to say about that. The "business" of the ad business is nothing more than huge corporations muscling each other. And the "art" of advertising is -- let's be kind -- uninspiring. We used to strive for new and stimulating ideas. Now we starting to turn our chores over to "machines.""
It feels like many of us have become exhausted by trying to point out that our respective domains are going to hell in a handbasket. That may be the case and sometimes you have to let things fail in order to then put them right again. But as Sleaford Mod's Williamson said "You've got a responsibility to be intelligent, and to thinking about things, be thoughtful and passionate." Some rise to that challenge, others just accept what's put in front of them. How to harness that though and have it dovetail nicely into where we find ourselves now?
All of that - yeah, so true, so painfully true...
To your final question: "How to harness that though and have it dovetail nicely into where we find ourselves now?" - there's no easy answer (obviously...). And yet there is, in the sense of the kind of themes we're talking about here, and that we'll go into in more practical depth in the next episode: how to take the _existing_ expertise whilst reframing the domain itself into something more human, more engaging, more real. I hope I've triggered off at least _some_ useful ideas and insights with these two past episodes: I hope we take it into more practical and _usable_ form in the next.
Interesting topic as always Tom, I prefer to look at this as a " variation on a theme" rather than Re-invention per se. The re-invention of oneself can lead to a period of self-doubt and a whole lot of stress when you enter a new direction, a variation however could employ skills learnt over years of experience and applied in a different area can lead to a win-win situation during the transition.
Just my thoughts and I am sure you will provide sage advice in future articles.
My short-answer would be "it's complicated...". You're right in that there's definitely a gradation here. At the low end, there's a change of direction within the same discipline, such as in my designer-colleague's example about revamping his business-model and more by revamping his perspective on the work - which actually was a reinvention in the sense that his whole demeanour and perspective on the world changed quite radically for the better. In the middle there's full career-change, though re-using so-called 'transferrable skills into that new career - which I've now done several times in my life (at least five fundamental shifts in career so far, currently working on my sixth). Toward the further end, there's a more fundamental breakdown and rebuild, which I've done probably three now (around age 18, 35 and 55) and am facing at present (and avoiding avoiding avoiding, with obvious results from all that avoidance...). And then there are the extreme cases, such as the transition from Stuart Goddard to Adam Ant over a single weekend.
All of those types _except_ the extreme-case are plagued with increasingly-extreme self-doubt, much as you say. (Variously-extreme self-doubt has been my 'normal' state for almost the whole of my life.) The Adam Ant-type extreme case may start off with severe self-doubt, but isn't self-doubt as such, it's usually something a lot weirder than that. From what I've seen over the decades. anyway.
To me the key characteristic of a reinvention (and that distinguishes it from a more everyday job-change), is a shift into a different storyworld, with its concomitant changes in values, standards, success-criteria and so on on, which then ripples down into everything else. It's actually much the same process as we do when we help an organisation go through that kind of shift - and, of course, what we're aiming to do at a more global scope and scale with the SDG/ESG work. I'll go into more detail on the 'how-to' for that in the next episode.