Just Five Rules

Book excerpt: This book is for Information Technology (IT) professionals who are thinking about changing careers and want to apply self-coaching skills to the process. Readers planning a career transition within the world of IT may also find the self-coaching model of some benefit. A successful IT career change can be a planned process with some predictable outcomes along the way. However, for many people it often turns out to be a very stressful journey into an uncertain and bewildering future. This is especially so when the career change is involuntary, there is pressure to find a new role fast, and beliefs about what may be possible are too limiting. It doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve been through two major career changes - one into the IT world in 1986 and another out of it in 2007 - and also coached a handful of IT people around various career obstacles. In my experience, self-coaching is a vital skill set in helping to navigate the uncertainties of an IT career path. This book describes that skill set and how to use it, in the form of a simple self-coaching model called “just five rules.” Effective self-coaching is not an isolated approach and the book also recognizes the contributions that mentoring and career counseling services can give to IT professionals on a career transition path. (ref:h280523v2a)