Career Change Strategy: Glass Cliff
High-risk projects and crisis situations can be excellent career change opportunities. How to make a risky move and not fall off a ‘glass cliff?
A few days ago I heard an interesting career change story. Bastien*, a successful executive in a multinational tech company, wanted to change to a business development role after a 15 years’ career in R&D. Overall conditions were favourable: his company sponsored his executive MBA, he had a very supportive mentor and a family who had his back. A vast network he had developed across the company helped him be the first to know whenever a chance to move presented itself. Yet the opening that finally helped him move was a high-risk project: a mission to develop his company’s coverage of a completely new market segment in Greater China - an uncharted territory not only for him, but for any of his peers firmly established in the business development roles. Bastien succeeded and put his career on a completely new trajectory, yet at the outset his move was not a sure bet.
We typically talk about a ‘glass ceiling’ when we refer to barriers that women have to advance to top management jobs. Yet a ‘glass ceiling’ also exists when we want to change our career, within our existing company or externally. Quite often, the way to shatter this ‘glass ceiling’ is to step onto a ‘glass cliff’, when you take a challenging and risky project or have to turnaround a team, a business unit or an entire company. As the chances of failure are high, other peers might decline the role, for fear of damaging their track record. Think about Bastien’s move. That risky project created a window of opportunity that he, as a career changer, would be more willing to exploit than other, less motivated and more risk-averse peers.
In her interview for Quartz at Work, Christine Lagarde encourages to go for ‘glass cliff’ opportunities to make a real impact. Although she refers to women, I think her advice is applicable to any career changer, irrespective of gender:
“When the situation is difficult, when it’s really challenging, when the financial situation is really poor, when budgets have been blown, then there are opportunities for women. I’ve always encouraged women to actually say yes in those situations.”
Think about another reason to go for a glass cliff project when choosing a new role: if you go to a role where things are working well, it would be hard to make a difference in a short period of time.
If a ‘glass cliff’ role is currently the only one realistically available to you in your company to advance into a new area, it might feel like the only choice you have is either to accept a risky promotion or to resign, which is another risk. I myself lived through such a situation 1.5 years ago. My story continues happily, yet the first few months in the new role were really challenging. So how can we minimise the risk of falling off a cliff? A few recommendations can help:
Build a trusted network across the company. Your network will help you identify opportunities, better calculate risks and maximise the chances of success - it’s naive to think that you can do it all on your own. It goes without saying that you’d better build this network before you make a move.
Define success. Before accepting the move, ask a few important questions: How success will be defined? How much time your top management and board will be willing to be patient for a turnaround? Has the role been offered to anyone else and if yes, why did they turn it down?
Include risk in your salary negotiations. Know your worth and use high risk factor as a negotiation point.
Don’t hesitate to walk away if, after all the considerations, you see that the risks outweigh the opportunity.
*first name changed
Illustration: Malika Favre