Your Next Move: The Leader's Guide to Navigating Major Career Transitions

I have never read a book that more thoroughly spelled out the odd place a career transition can be, and offer tips to navigate the situation. If you are mid-career and are mulling over the options before you, you may find this to be an indispensable read. It helps to clarify and shed light on aspects you may not have considered.

There was a time not too long ago when we didn't have to worry much about changing careers and status. Why? Because it didn't happen often enough. Of course we've all been through one transition period or another, but in those simpler and relatively "stable" times, we trudged through relatively unscathed. Nowadays, however, when everything is in a state of constant flux and transition periods are more the norm for everyone, we need to learn not just how to cope with it, but more importantly, how to make the most out of these turbulent transition periods that will make life for us and for others better. In a time when professional careers are really a series of crucial transitions, Michael D. Watkin's //Your Next Move: A Leader's Guide to Navigating Major Career Transitions// shows us what to do with the changes we face on the road to success. The book offers beneficial wisdom, strategies, and tactics for dealing with the challenges of a promotion, leading former peers, adjusting to a new culture, and making everyone comfortable with change. Based on research, there are eight perennial transitions that we will encounter at various career stages. Watkin's //Your Next Move// (which serves as a perfect complement to his previously published bestselling guide, //The First 90 Days//) arms us with all the necessary know-how and skill to go through these crucial turning points with the greatest of ease. Reviewed by Dominque James

YOUR NEXT MOVE: THE LEADER'S GUIDE TO NAVIGATING MAJOR CAREER TRANSITIONS tells how to survive and thrive in all major transitions leaders can expect to face during their career, from promotions to leading former peers. Modern business leaders face new roles and responsibilities: YOUR NEXT MOVE provides the strategies and tools needed to identify and navigate major turning points.

I just read Your Next Move by leadership guru, Michael Watkins. This latest book of his shows how we can each diagnose our situation at work, then navigate through it (and the surrounding organizational changes that are inevitably going on) with much greater effectiveness. It's a practical, usable book. Watkins' voice rings so true with real work experiences that I believe he must have a dual life -- working in an office every day, while coaching others about how to REALLY move forward. This book is well-worth your time, for now and for later. Highly recommended.

If you've got a firm date for an upcoming significant career move, you're already in transition according to author Michael Watkins. Like it or not, you're being judged by others during this period and their support or lack of it depends on how you manage your transition. In this respect it's no different from the "first 100 days" that pundits use to define a newly elected U.S. President's term in office. The basic assumption of Your Next Move is that career transitions evolve through a series of predictable stages. Author Michael Watkins' lifelong passion is studying, documenting and coaching career transitions. Transitions are by definition high-stake periods where the subject sets the tone, the expectations and wins or loses support. Watkins feels that such moments are not the time to learn the hard way by making big mistakes, that career transitions must be handled well the first time and every time. Whenever we're presented with an "ideal resume," it always shows career progression with the subject moving through ever more challenging and responsible positions. This book targets the transitions themselves which last about 90 days and can set a person up for a yet better chance to get ahead. Disguised versions of real life transition stories breathe life into scariness of this unique time. The value of this book is that it can help somebody going through such a period to see what is happening objectively. Others have gone through it and the period evolves through stages. Your Next Move provides tools that few would think up on their own in the midst of surviving the transition. To name a few of these tools: formally mapping influence networks; tables to input information to assess how influential players are likely to perceive their interests and diplomacy checklists. Finally, Your Next Move gives prescriptive advice for different types of transition challenges. The turnaround challenge is a particularly difficult one to navigate. With the help of Watkins' material, one can remove some of the stress by viewing their own transition more objectively and using the many tools provided to manage their 90 days.