Strategic Pivoting for your Next Chapter

Many students come to the GSB with the intent to pivot upon leaving the institution. Some students feel they have outgrown their position or business, or they feel drawn to a new area that better suits their values and interests, where they can make a greater contribution. Some students have no idea what they want to do after graduating, they just know they want to make a purposeful change. And finally, some students want to strategically change their direction for reputation reasons. The average U.S. employee tenure is only 4-5 years and job roles often change dramatically within that timeframe. Pivoting is an intentional, methodical process for nimbly navigating career changes. A recent Gallup study revealed that almost 90% of workers are either 'not engaged; or 'actively disengaged' from their jobs. A pivot is a change made of your own volition when you have reached a point in your career when you are ready for increased challenge and impact.Strategic Pivoting is a course specifically developed for any student who already plans to pivot in their career and wants to figure out how to successfully build and create their next chapter. In this course we will discuss four stages for how to best pivot: 1) Planting, how to assess and set a strong foundation of values, strengths and interests. 2) Scanning, researching new and related skills, talking to others, and mapping potential opportunities. 3) Piloting, students conduct small, low-risk experiments to test their new direction, as well as gather real-time data and feedback. And 4) Launching, pulling the trigger, fully committed, to your carefully plotted pivot.The ultimate pay-off to Strategic Pivoting is acknowledging and adapting to a rapidly changing society when it comes to career paths. Because our careers are so fundamentally tied to our livelihood and sense of confidence, purpose and meaning, changes can be traumatic without a road map for traversing them. "Navigating this accelerated pace of change and this transitional career state, and learning to embrace it instead of resisting it, can become an edge and advantage." Alex Rodriguez, Major League Baseball icon, ABC/Fox Sports/ESPN commentator, entrepreneur, and CEO of A-Rod Corp will be a featured Guest Speaker in this course. Alex has also had a history of successfully pivoting his career and defying expectations. He is presently getting ready to host his own ESPN interview show called, "Pivot."