Lisa Wang, a 30‐something Chinese‐American from California, has had a somewhat nonlinear career path, moving from job to job and location to location. ‘I changed all sorts of functions and jobs and worked in big and small companies. I was prioritising gaining new experiences that were fulfilling to me as an individual’, she says.¹

As she got older, she began to worry about all this movement. Was it really so wise? ‘I would see other people who I had worked with previously, who had more direct paths, and they seemed to get promoted faster.’

In her late twenties, still prioritising adventure over acceleration, she moved to Asia. This move meant putting aside an interest she had in product management because most of the opportunities in Asia were in sales. She worked for me in Singapore (and was befriended by another young woman from San Francisco, Emily Huo, from chapter 1).

After working in sales operations in Asia for a few years, Lisa returned to the US to pursue an MBA at Harvard University. She graduated, took a job — and then quickly left it when she realised it wasn't for her.

Suddenly, faced with a break in employment, she stopped to think about her direction. She'd done so many things, yet never focused on moving toward her long‐standing interest in product management. Was it too late to make that switch? ‘Product management is pretty competitive and people like to hire employees with demonstrated experience. I thought: Let me just try. It could be my last chance.’

She had some interviews, but struck out repeatedly. She'd been working as a team leader at huge, multinational firms, and had great experience and education, yet even when applying for an individual contributor role in product development at Instagram — a role without management responsibility — she was rejected. ‘I'm generally a person who is good at interviewing. I could tell this was indicative of a bigger problem in terms of my experience’, she says.

Lisa sought advice from product managers who'd had nonlinear careers to learn how they'd made the transition. She came to an important conclusion: she'd have to target smaller companies with looser requirements for the role in order to switch from sales to product.

Taking this approach, after four months of looking, she finally landed a role as the first product management hire at a San Francisco–based start‐up with about 70 employees. Because of its small size, the company was willing to take a chance on someone without direct experience in product management. It also meant that she was thrown into all kinds of meetings and business areas that she would never have been exposed to at a larger firm.

During the pandemic, the start‐up faltered. Lisa once again found herself looking for a product management job. This time, however, she had experience. A product marketing lead for monetisation opened at Instagram, a more senior role than the one she'd pursued a year earlier. This time, she applied, and got the position.

Lisa is still at Instagram, and she loves it. She credits her success there, in part, to all that movement.

I think about things more holistically now, and look at things in different ways. If you prioritise exploration, it can make you more successful because you bring a different point of view, insights that are often lacking. It makes you a well‐rounded professional with a broader perspective. All of these things in your career accumulate, the people you meet, the experiences you have, and the skills you develop. Things have a crazy way of working out.

The ‘Ah‐ha!’ of Lisa's story: movement can maximise your value

While there used to be a stigma associated with job hopping — a notion that it implied a lack of loyalty or stick‐to‐it‐iveness — today, it is often part of rising and thriving. We evolve, and so should our careers — at the beginning, 10 years in, even 20 years in. (I switched almost 30 years in!) Careers are long, and you have time to try different jobs, firms, industries and sectors.

Even heading down what ultimately turns out to be a road to nowhere doesn't have the negative impact it once might have. As Lisa Wang says:

At Instagram, when we evaluate business decisions, we ask, ‘Is this a one‐way door?’ If it is, you have to very carefully evaluate whether you're willing to cut off all other paths. But the truth is, in your career, there are very few one‐way doors. There are very few decisions you can't come back from.

Trying different jobs, fields, industries and sectors is not only common today but also increasingly beneficial for you — and for the firms that employ you. While it is important to stay in a position long enough to gain from it and do well at it, in general, you're going to need a broad range of experiences and perspectives to rise. Moving around is how you gain them. A blog post on the Australian Institute of Business’s (AIB) site describes the benefits of new opportunities this way:

It affords you a chance to build up a wider network of professional contacts and exposes you to different functions, workplace cultures and management styles, which will stand you in good stead for when you move up the ranks yourself.²

Even people who got their start when long‐term loyalty to a firm was prized switch firms more frequently today than in the past. According to the AIB, in Australia, employees today change jobs 12 times throughout their lives, on average, with people over the age of 45 staying in one position for less than seven years, and those under 25 moving on after less than two years.³

In the US, the median tenure of workers between the ages of 55 and 64 is just about 10 years. While for those aged 25–34 it was just under three years.⁴ As Chris Kolmar, an internet marketer and co‐founder of Zippia, a US‐based career advice and job listings platform, puts it, ‘91% of Millennials expect to change jobs every three years.⁵

One reason that movement has become part of rising and thriving is that our increasing longevity means careers last far longer than they used to. Most people will have more than a few jobs in their lives, and perhaps even different careers. ‘As lives lengthen, at least two new decades have been gifted to humans and their working lives’, says Avivah Wittenberg‐Cox, CEO of 20‐first, a global consultancy focused on helping firms achieve gender balance and create intergenerational teams.⁶ You might work for 30 years in one profession, then work another 20 in something else. Movement helps maintain stamina for the long haul. As Wittenberg‐Cox says, ‘… increasingly fit and active fifty‐year olds are discovering they may have several more decades of working life ahead’. My own moves have kept me energised and excited about work throughout my career, and about the new challenges in my current stage: Aliza 3.0.

Another reason movement has become more common is that the velocity of change has accelerated in general, and this is true in jobs as well. New opportunities and entirely new fields arise with record speed. Many of today's roles didn't exist a decade ago. I could not have planned to work for Google when I graduated from college because it didn't exist. Likewise, some great careers of the future probably aren't around yet. Meanwhile, other industries have contracted and positions have disappeared entirely, rendering some skill sets obsolete and requiring practitioners to retrain to stay employed.

Moving geographically can be a great way to get more responsibility sooner. The increasingly global nature of work makes moving overseas with your firm or profession far more doable than in the past, and more advantageous for you and your firm. (See chapter 6 for tips on working overseas.)

Options for movement are influenced by a variety of factors; during the pandemic, international relocation became much harder, if not impossible in some cases. Then, as countries reopened after long lockdowns, dramatic changes in the world of work made it one of the best times to seek a new role or to push for benefits. As employers scrambled to fill vacancies, employees had far more leverage than previously. With people having had the experience of working from home, many firms were far more open to a hybrid work style and flexible hours.

In general, aim to leave your current job when there is something you want to go toward, rather than waiting until you want to flee where you are. You want to bring an open, adventurous attitude to vetting opportunities, rather than waiting until you're demoralised, and grabbing the first thing that comes along. I'm not suggesting you should pursue a new position when you love your current one, but ideally, you'll move on when you see something else you really like, even if your current job is more or less fine.

Sometimes you have to leave a job before you have a specific destination in mind — because it's become too bad to stay, for personal reasons, or because your position is eliminated. If you wind up moving when angry or really bored, try to bring an open, interested mindset to your job search.

You can change your mind about what you want to do for your day job, which sector or field you want to be part of, and even where in the world you want to work. As with everything else in your career, if you want to make a move — whether it's up or sideways or even down temporarily — you need to take charge of how it unfolds. Here's how.

Power Perspective #1:
Prepare for your promotion

The most common direction people think about when it comes to career movement is up, as in a promotion. Not everyone aims to rise from their current position, of course, and many people specifically don't want a life of constantly chasing the next big title or raise. As Simon Kantor (from chapter 1) says:

We spend so much of our life looking up and saying, ‘When am I going to have that?’ And so little of our life looking sideways and saying, ‘It's quite nice here. And maybe this is alright.’⁷

I think gratitude for what you have is very important. Sometimes you might even take a step back as part of moving forward. But if you are looking to move up within your organisation, there's one rule I always encourage people to follow: prepare for your promotion first, then ask for it.

Another way to think about this: ‘de‐risk’ your promotion for your boss by demonstrating that you can do the work. Even if it's clear to you that you're ready, it may not be so obvious to those above you. Also, others are probably angling for the job or title. Organisational life can be very competitive. Very often, there simply aren't enough top jobs to go around. Even within a huge global corporation, there may be only one senior position that's right for you at any given time — and a handful of other people eager to land it. Collaborating well, working hard and even having good outcomes may not be enough.

Promotions are nuanced, and the route to rising is not totally linear or transparent. Most businesses haven't established exact criteria; you generally don't get a handout with three specific steps to take to prepare for your promotion. Even within a company that has a framework for skills needed at each level, the assessment of these skills is not an exact science, and other factors are in play. The ambiguity around getting promoted is one reason people can feel frustrated in the business world and another example of how it is very different to university; you can't just do A‐level work and be guaranteed to rise.

Often, you need to prove you can do the job you are angling for.

Many managers encourage this approach overtly. They'll say, ‘We want to see that you're already doing the job before we officially give you the role’. Ideally, your manager will also help you figure out how to rise and find opportunities to demonstrate your readiness. A woman I know worked at a firm that had an internal framework for promotion, a list of a dozen attributes people needed to show to move up. She was doing a great job on some, operating above her current level in the customer‐centric part of her job. But as her boss pointed out, no one had seen her demonstrate other attributes, such as thinking globally and being strategic when establishing direction for the group or company. Her boss did what a good boss should do; he sought opportunities for her to practice these skills and demonstrate them. He found other managers who had upcoming projects she could work on to develop these attributes, and he invited her to help him develop the strategic plan for the following year.

Throughout my career, I've helped employees think through what they want to do next, and what they need to do to show progress toward their goals. A manager should do this, but if you aren't getting that support, take charge of planning yourself.

Start by really thinking about what you want to do next, and create a work plan to get there. Find ways to assume some of the responsibilities you'd like to take on at the next level. See if you can manage one or two people, for example, to gain demonstrable leadership experience. Take on a project involving higher‐level analytics. Volunteer to help out if a new role arises. If you have a good relationship with your boss, ask to meet to talk through your goals and strategise ways to achieve them. It's much better to get buy‐in and support, if you can, than to go it alone. After six or 12 months of doing the work for the next role, and succeeding at it, you have real evidence to show when you ask for a promotion.

Sometimes there just isn't a promotion available in your office or region. Ideally, your boss will tell you this candidly, though it can be hard for a manager to admit to a good employee that there is no room for advancement. If your boss does share this reality, you can ask for details, but then you have to accept the truth. As one leader I've mentored told me, ‘Sometimes I tell people that the company isn't investing in leaders at that level in this office, and they fight it, instead of listening’. If you want to rise and thrive, and there's no opportunity where you are, you have to take action, as in move to another part of the business or to another firm.

Or you can wait, in some cases, but you may be waiting a long time. I know a guy who was next in line to be country head at his firm, but the person who had that job wasn't leaving. There was one role, and it was filled. He had two choices: he could go somewhere else or he could wait. He waited for five years, and finally got the role. This kind of limitation is more likely in a small market, a small company, or a specialised division within a huge firm, like the legal department in a tech firm that may have only one general counsel role.

Perhaps it should go without saying, but you also do need to ask to be promoted. As the AIB puts it:

Many people make the mistake of deciding that they're not yet ready for a promotion and hanging back while their peers leapfrog them. It sounds obvious, but if you don't ask or apply for a promotion, it's unlikely that you'll get one. Even if you are turned down because you're not quite ready yet, it signals your ambition and willingness to learn, which can open up a conversation about what you need to demonstrate you're ready. A good leader will always support the career trajectory of their staff once they know who wants to go that extra mile.

Because getting promoted from within is often a challenge and takes time, when accepting a new job, really pay attention to the title offered, and try to come in at as high a level as you can. A woman I know working in Australia, who I'll call Justine, is a perfect example of someone who negotiated for a higher position than she was offered—and got it, even while changing industries.

Justine wanted to transition from an operating role into being a private equity (PE) investor. She got a job offer to be a sort‐of junior partner at a mid‐sized private equity firm. Her would‐be boss assured her that there would be opportunity to grow into a full partner role later. But Justine knew that she'd be better off entering at the level she really wanted, if she could. She countered with a suggestion that she be hired as a full partner—and she found data to support her assertion that she could do the job at that level. ‘I looked at what my peers in the U.S. were doing to bring in senior women to PE and found a job description online of a partner role from a very prominent U.S.‐based PE firm,’ she says. ‘It showed what a partner does and what kind of experience they want that person to bring.’

She shared the document with the managing partner, telling him that she felt she could do the role and had the requisite background. She also gave an impressive reference, a former boss of hers who she knew the manager admired and respected. ‘It's not like you can just show a job description and say how great you are. You have to think strategically about how else you can show them that you are at their level,’ she says.

Justine offered to help the firm find a junior‐level employee from her own network if the job they were offering her could not be recast at a higher level. She stressed that she wanted the firm to succeed and would do what she could to help, but that she only wanted to come in as a full partner. ‘I was being fair and open and not lying or playing games. I was being vulnerable but also being firm,’ she says.

All of this strategising paid off. She got offered the full partner role and is very happy with it and with the firm.

Power Perspective #2:
Be flexible and persistent

Of course, not all moves are directly up. Plenty of people seek to change roles, fields, firms or even sectors, and while this can be a valuable and exciting part of a rewarding career, it also may require some real flexibility. When I moved to Google from financial services in my forties, I accepted a lower title. I did this because I really wanted to learn about the Internet and had no experience in the field. Plus, I realised that tech had less ‘title inflation’ than financial services: equivalent‐level jobs would have one title in a tech firm, and a far more prestigious‐sounding title in banking.

I also took a salary cut, again because I wanted the job, and hoped that the equity (stock) portion of my package would more than compensate for the short‐term salary dip, which it did over time. These accommodations were a necessary part of moving into a new field that intrigued me, and I was willing to make them, though a woman at a top global executive search firm said I was ‘brave’ to make this transition. I think she meant ‘foolhardy’, but my decision worked out well.

I haven't had a senior VP title since, but my world greatly expanded, as did my influence and impact. I've had an amazing career and gotten access to board memberships and other opportunities that might have not come my way had I stayed in financial services.

Like me, you might have an opportunity that pays less at first, or one that is structured to include more risk, either in a higher percentage of variable pay or more equity versus salary. In general, you shouldn't have to take a salary dip, particularly if you construct your narrative well and can explain how your skills transfer, but you might be faced with a situation that makes it worthwhile. Don't limit your opportunity for adventure or dampen your enthusiasm by being overly rigid, even about pay. Making a move — and thriving from it — does not necessarily mean getting a more senior title.

A plan for advancement might require a move backward at first, even one you hadn't planned, something Sue Shilbury realised when she attempted to move into hospital management.

Another version of being flexible when trying to move is noticing when a small change might be movement enough. If you're looking for something different, it's easy to assume you need a wholesale career overhaul. But a smaller tweak might suffice, something my co‐writer, Wendy, realised in 2007.

After leaving WNBC‐TV in New York, she focused on freelance writing for magazines, websites and radio shows, and got a Master's Degree in Nonfiction Creative Writing from Columbia University. Over time, as technology ate into the ad structure of legacy journalism, and the economic downturn hit the industry hard, assignments for freelancers began drying up. Faced with declining revenue and a glut of experienced journalists, many places cut the per‐word rate (how freelance writers were generally compensated). Wendy loved reporting and writing, meeting new people and learning new things, but she found herself wondering: Was it time to get out of journalism?

She took a career transition workshop offered by the alumni association of Columbia University. One new insight she gleaned: maybe the solution wasn't so black or white, quit or stay.

One thing they suggested was looking for a specific aspect of your current work that you don't like and could change, rather than jumping to the conclusion that you must leave the field entirely. I realised that I loved working with magazines and doing feature journalism. What I didn't like was the instability of freelance, the uncertainty and constant pitching. I also wanted to be in more of a leadership role. All of this led me to look for a job as a magazine editor on staff rather than remaining an article writer, which was at the time almost entirely done by freelancers.

Wendy found a listing for a senior editor at Psychology Today magazine, based in New York City, near where she was living at the time, and applied for the job. She got the position and left freelancing without leaving journalism behind.

Sometimes, moving to a new, great job can require yet another kind of flexibility: being willing to reconsider a field you'd dismissed as not right for you. This is something Simon Kantor learned when he started looking for a new job after a year out due to the pandemic.

Changing jobs can also take stamina. If you're trying to change fields within your own firm, for example, there may be only a few positions that match your skills within your company, and others who are a better match. A young woman I know who wanted to move from sales into product management (like Lisa) applied for one role after another within her firm, and kept being rejected. She built up her product marketing skills by posting well‐crafted, thoughtful, product‐related content on social media. This got her noticed within the company, but even with that, and with her boss's support and guidance, she couldn't get a hiring manager in product to consider her. She'd been trying for 18 months, which seemed like a long time (especially if you're in your twenties). She felt discouraged and ready to give up.

But then, an opening came up within her company in product marketing that was not as big of a leap in terms of expertise and tenure as the other positions she'd tried for. She applied, and this time, she got the job.

If you want to switch roles, there may be more opportunities outside your company but also stiffer competition. So you will need to persist in either case. Your excitement and curiosity about where you want to go can generate the stamina you need to persist until you get there.

Power Perspective #3:
Make one change at a time

If you want to make a career transition, you'll likely have a better shot at getting hired if you switch one aspect of your job at time, rather than aiming for a wholesale career reboot. For example, if you'd like to move to a new role or function (one change), you'll probably have more success if you try to make that switch within your own firm, rather than also seeking a new employer (two changes). You're essentially asking a company to take a risk on you, and this can be easier among people who know you and already value your work.

If you're looking to change companies, industries or sectors (again, one change), applying for jobs similar to the one you currently hold allows you to bring your current skills with you. This is what I did when I went from banking to tech. I was still doing sales, a function in which I had a long, proven track record, but for a new sector. It's much less of a risk for a company to hire someone who has experience, even if it's in a different industry.

This is not to say that you couldn't handle changing your role or function and your firm, your industry or sector and your country of residence all at the same time, but you may have a tough time convincing a hiring manager to take a chance on you.

I was chatting with a guy in Singapore named Ningfei who really wanted to transition from communications to product management. He also wanted to leave his government employer for the private sector and relocate to the US. Ningfei is an impressive and ambitious guy, and he had completed a tech bootcamp, but this three‐changes‐at‐once approach did not generate any job offers. COVID didn't help either.

After repeated rejections, he realised he needed to rank his priorities. He decided that his first goal would be to move into content strategy for digital products. Product management and living in the US could wait. With this plan in mind, he applied for jobs in content strategy in Singapore. He finally landed one in a private firm. (He basically made one‐and‐a‐half changes.)

He's happy with his move and envisions making another change after developing a track record in this new field. I see Ningfei's current plan as an example of someone keeping his eye on his prize — and being realistic about how many moves firms will likely be open to.

Making a change might require additional training. This could be some form of self‐directed education, like the young woman who improved and demonstrated her marketing skills by posting product descriptions on social media. But it could also be more formal. During the pandemic, schools, universities and independent training programs all went online. This makes getting retrained easier than ever. You can earn a degree or learn an entirely new field without ever leaving your home. What you don't want to do? Get overwhelmed by the gap between what you know and what you need to know.

In some cases, training is free. After a year of remote counselling during the pandemic, Bianca Blakesely, a clinical social worker in Boston with a master’s degree in social work and significant student loan debt, decided not to go back to in‐person therapy. She took a coding class online with Code Squad, a free, intensive coding ‘camp’ geared toward women and people of colour.

She liked it so much that she began coding in her spare time. For her program, she created a directory of hair salons catering to people with Black and natural hair. That led to her starting her own freelance web design company. As she told Boston's local public radio station, WGBH, ‘It did take a lot to let go of a previous career, and realize it's OK to make a career change at any stage in your life.’¹¹

You may need retraining even at the very beginning of a career, something an aspiring engineer, Erfi Anugrah, learned when seeking his very first job.

People much further along in their careers retrain, too. Peter Tonagh, a senior leader with a long career, began as an analyst at BCG and rose to be a CEO. Today, he is a chair and non‐executive director at several firms. He doesn't need to learn new skills to succeed; he's already a star. Still, he recently did a training program in data analytics at Harvard, an impressive example of using lifelong learning to stay energised in a long career.

Power Perspective #5:
Create momentum where you are

Despite the popularity of job hopping, some firms still have a strong promote‐from‐within culture, and are large enough to offer continual opportunities to move and rise. You may be able to have a truly dynamic career while staying within one firm, something Korin Kohen has done at Procter & Gamble.

Occasionally, a person finds themself at the top of their field within their own firm, and yet unable to find a suitable role outside. In this case, you may be able to create a sense of momentum and agency by actively redesigning your current position to include new challenges. This approach is called ‘job crafting’, and it's a way of becoming a designer of your job, rather than a passive recipient of your title, role and responsibilities. If you'd like to move but can't, job crafting can be an important skill to develop, as Tim Liu has seen in his role.

Tim's efforts to stay challenged in his job are commendable. Making a clear decision to stay put is very different from settling into a state of low‐grade disappointment and stagnation, what author and University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School psychology professor Adam Grant calls languishing. Grant describes languishing as a slow ‘dulling of delight’ and ‘dwindling of drive’, an overall feeling of ‘blah’. As Grant writes:

Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of wellbeing … Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work.¹⁴

Languishing may have been one of the most common states in 2020 and 2021 as people dealt with ongoing fear, anxiety and pandemic‐induced limitations and restrictions. But rising and thriving means not letting this feeling overtake your career, even if you are ‘stuck’ in your current job for the time being.

Job crafting can help. As a 2020 survey on job crafting conducted by four professors in England and Australia found, actively redesigning your job can notably improve your engagement. To test how much job crafting improves engagement, and to provide guidance for managers supporting employees’ efforts, the researchers interviewed 1000 business leaders and 2000 of their employees in Australia, the UK and North America. Their findings are impressive. They revealed that, of the study participants who job‐crafted, two‐thirds ‘felt inspired to stretch past their comfort zones and engage in active cooperation with other colleagues, leading to a more connected workforce’; 92 per cent were more satisfied at work and at home, leading to a notable decrease in stress; and staff turnover decreased by 29 per cent within firms that used job crafting, because ‘Active crafters were more likely to stay put and adjust their role rather than move elsewhere’.

As a leader, you can help your employees find ways to put more of themselves into their work, and you should. ‘I'm asking my team to come up with new projects’, Tim says about his own efforts to help others do this. ‘People are very smart here; they get their job description done and then they're bored. So how do we keep them motivated? How can we get them to do different projects, things that are completely different?’