Two unexpected events made her question her decision to take the new job. A close friend died, at the age of fifty, from liver cancer. Before she died, she advised Nathalie to get out of the rut and pressure of her business life. Then, a necessary surgical procedure resulted in a one-month medical leave. Nathalie suddenly had time to think through what she really wanted. Jolted by her friend’s untimely death, on medical leave she started considering things she never before found time for.

This month, I’ve had some ideas but they are not precise. I’m interested in doing a thesis on the sociology of eating behaviors, to understand the real barriers to healthy eating. When I was younger, I went to an arts high school and joined a dance company. But then I gave that up when I thought I’d go to medical school. I’ve been wondering about going back to something in the health field. I think I’d be happy in a medical setting dealing with real people rather than with dossiers and projects. I wonder if I can transfer my business school skills to a health-related NGO like Doctors without Borders.

Realizing that the proposed job change would only delay the serious thinking she needed to do, Nathalie decided to decline the “perfect offer” in order to buy some time to pursue a true career shift. Then, true to her own predictions, she got caught right back in the routine. Two years later, she was still at the first company, still not sure how to move out. Maybe she was not yet ready for change, or maybe one month was not enough time to build momentum. Or maybe failing to start something new in the window right after her leave kept her stuck.

Nathalie’s story is a cautionary tale. Windows of opportunity open and close back up again. We go through periods when we are highly receptive to major change and periods when even incremental deviations are hard to tolerate.[22] What we do in the period immediately following a time-out determines whether we will be able to use that experience to effect real change or whether, instead, old routines will reassert themselves, leaving basic problems unresolved until urgency builds the next time around.

[12]Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (London: Arkana, 1989), 113.

[13]Ibid., 112.

[14]Ibid., 108.

[15]Teresa M. Amabile, Creativity in Context: Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 83.

[16]In his work on leadership and corporate transformation, Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor Ronald Heifetz finds that successful change requires frenetic activity “on the dance floor” (such as crafting experiments, shifting connections) combined with a more distant observation and reflection from the “balcony above.” Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994).

[17]Koestler, The Act of Creation.

[18]According to a U.S. national poll conducted by Bruskin and Associates, close to seven out of ten people with incomes of more than $40,000 per year fantasize about taking a few months off, and one out of five thirty-five- to thirty-nine-year-olds fantasize about it daily. Reported in Hope Dlugozima, James Scott, and David Sharp, Six Months Off: How to Plan, Negotiate, and Take the Break You Need without Burning Bridges or Going Broke (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 2.

[19]Nancy Staudenmayer, Marcie J. Tyre, and Leslie Perlow, “Time to Change: Temporal Shifts as Enablers of Organizational Change,” Organizational Science, forthcoming (fall 2002).

[20]Marcie J. Tyre and Wanda Orlikowski, “Windows of Opportunity,” Organization Science 5, no. 1 (1994); Connie J. G. Gersick, “Making Time: Predictable Transitions in Task Groups,” Academy of Management Journal 32, no. 2 (1989): 274–309.

[21]John J. Gabarro, The Dynamics of Taking Charge (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1986).

[22]Daniel J. Levinson, The Seasons of a Man’s Life (New York: Knopf, 1985).

Taken From: Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career

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