Why ‘career redesign’?

Why do I talk about ‘career redesign’ and not ‘career change’?

Partly because ‘career change’ is an ambiguous and sometimes scary term to use to describe what you’re going to do, want to do, or think you ought to do. It has an unhelpful touch of ‘go big or go home’ about it.

To me, it’s not the scale, the completeness or the radicalness of the change that’s significant. It’s the purposefulness of the change. It’s about the care you’ve put into the thinking, deciding and planning. It’s about knowing why as well as what.

Redesign is about understanding wants and needs (in this case, yours) and designing something that meets them.

So I prefer the focus to be on the process that determines what change is required, why it’s required and how it’s going to be achieved. Some redesigns are small. Others are a complete rework. The resultant change may be anything from a major transformation to something more like a significant adjustment. If you go about it the right way, you’ll know which is right for you.

So whether you love change or hate it … whether you’re crying out for it or afraid of it … focus on the redesign not the change, and take it from there.