Your Path to a Fulfilling Career with Michael Horn and Bob Moesta

Foreign. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of what's Next. I am your host, Tiffany Bova, and this is a special show for me. I have two amazing guests. The first is Bob Mesta. He is a founder, maker, innovator, speaker, and professor. He is the president and founder of the Rewired group, as well as an adjunct lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and a research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. But what I love most about him specifically is he co created the famous jobs to be done theory, which I use in almost every keynote I have. So, Bob, it's an honor. But alongside Bob, not to be outshined by any stretch, is Michael Horn. He strives to create a world in which all individuals can their passions fulfill their potential and live a life of purpose. He is the co founder of and as distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit think tank, and teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Welcome you both.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

What would have been great is if Clay was here. That would have been great.

That would have been.

I would. I always say he's here in spirit. He's always here.

He absolutely is. Absolutely is. Well, before we get started, I. I would be remiss if I did not do bullish and bearish. Three quick questions. Bullish, you're for it. Bearish, you're against it. Are you ready?

Let's do it.

Y.

All right. This one's probably for. For Michael AI, composer of a great, I guess, concert.

Oh, I'm. I'm bullish. It'll. It'll happen whether people care, but I'm bullish.

All right, fair enough. All right, for Bob. I'm going to pass this over. So Grok generated paintings or images?

Oh, I'm into that all day. I wrote an algorithm almost 20 years ago to help me learn how to paint. So I think it's. I think it's going to enable people to become. Express themselves way better. So I think that's great.

You know, I tried it the other day to say, like, you know, please create an image of me and didn't look like me at all.

So, you know, it's. It'll get better. It'll get better. But I feel like the whole notion of expressing who you are through art is a really important skill for people. And I think if we can have AI help us along the way, that's great.

All right. And this one is more fun for both of you. Would you attend a board meeting in space? Bullish or bearish?

Oh, Ooh, totally bullish. Totally bullish. I'd be in space if I could be there today.

I'll go bullish as well. I wanted to be. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was growing up, so that would be a pretty cool experience.

There you go. All right, well, thank you guys for playing along. And, you know, they have a new book out called Job moves. Nine steps for making progress in your career. They have another co author as well, Ethan Bernstein. He couldn't make it today. And plus, I don't know if I could handle three really intelligent people that I need to get a conversation going, so I think I had to limit it to 2. But before we get going, you know, I. I just. I would like to pay a little bit of homage, just go back a little bit to jobs to be done, Bob, because I know that some of this is woven into this work. And so maybe you can start us on jobs to be done, because I use it a lot. And, and, and I'll actually ask people in the audience, like, how many of you are familiar with jobs to be done? Depending on where I am and what level I'm asking. Still, there's not a lot of clear understanding around it. And why not ask you as a co founder of it?

Yeah. Yep. Well, it really starts with the premise that people don't buy things, they hire them to make progress in their life. And that when you start to frame it that way, you start to realize that context creates value. And that context wrapped around you actually is part of the things that enable you to say, today's the day I need a new CRM, or today's the day I need a new car. And ultimately, it's those outcomes that you're seeking, not the product necessarily, that it's like, what can't you do today? That you, you know, or what. What do you want to be able to do that you can't do today? And so it's that notion of being able to understand the context and the outcomes, which we call the fuel of the change. But there's also this notion of the anxiety and the habit, which is the friction of the change. And being able to understand all of those things wrapped around you is at the premise of kind of this book as well, which is people actually hire companies more than companies hire them. And so ultimately, how do we actually get people to understand what progress are they trying to make by saying, today's the day, I need a new job? So that's the basic premise.

Yeah. And, you know, often it's, you Know, the. The job remains the same. The solution is what changes. And then they usually weave in the, you know, the drill or the drill bit and then the hole. And I'm. Yeah, and I'm always like, you know, I feel like, you know, if leave it, we're still alive, which he isn't either, you know, that I'd say, like, you can't. It isn't really the hole. We don't stand there and look at the hole in the wall and go, like, isn't that beautiful? Right? We're hanging a shelf or there is something that is going to happen because of it. So the drill and the drill bit is a means to the end. Right. And so, yeah, it's.

So the way. The way I say it is, because this is how I worked on it was like, you know, people. People want a hole, they want to drill. But let's say, why do you want a hole? I want a plug. Why do you want a plug? I want a lamp. Why do you want a lamp? I want to read better. Perfect. I'm going to work on the Kindle. And so you start to realize, like, it's. It's taking five steps back and looking at people's real life to say, what are they really trying to get done as opposed to what do they want? And what I would say is most people actually don't know what they want. And. And they don't even know what's possible, but they do know the outcomes they want.

Well, then that leads us nicely to job moves. Right. Because there are some pieces and parts of that that really led you to think about, like, what is that job? Or what does that change? And you have one stat that says every year an estimated 1 billion people switch jobs worldwide.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's a huge number. So this actually started almost 15 years ago, where I would ask entrepreneurs and founders, like, what are the three biggest challenges you have? And they would constantly tell me, talent, acquisition of talent, keeping talent, being able to see that. And our third author, Ethan Bernstein, in 2009, came to one of my classes that I was teaching with Clay at Harvard, and ultimately, he's the one who kind of pulled this into kind of building a class around it and doing some other things around it. But ultimately, it's that study of what causes people to say, today's the day I'm going to leave, and where am I going to go and why. Why now? And what's going on? And. And so it's studying people from all walks of life, but understanding that there are these common things that have to happen to you for you to be ready to leave. And then there's some common outcomes that you have to actually come to that actually says, here's what I want to. Here's what progress means to me. And that's really the premise of the book is it really starts by just talking to people about why they really left and where do they really. How do they really choose the next thing? And so it's sharing that knowledge is what the book is about.

And so, Michael, when you think about, you know, one. One thing I found interesting as I was sort of preparing for our time together today is in my 30s, I changed jobs every 18 months. And that was a minute ago, because I'm not close to my 30s anymore. But let's call it. Well, it was 28 years ago. I turned 30. Okay, so, you know, so 28 years ago to 18 years ago. Right. That block of time I was changing jobs all the time. And what people used to say to me is, oh, you're a higher risk, like, because you don't stay very long. Right? And I'm like, yeah, but there's. I'm not just hopping to hop. I'm hopping for personal reasons. And so, you know, Michael, what. What could you unpack that you learned from this work about why people go number first thing, and then maybe second is, and what do they get wrong and. Or right when looking for where to go from that. That job they're leaving?

Well, I'm glad you started with your example, because what we've learned fundamentally is when people change jobs, they're trying to make progress in their lives. Right. It's their way of making progress. And so the first thing to note. So maybe I'll start with the second half of your question, and then I'll back into the first half, which is one of the biggest things that people get wrong is that they listen to generic advice about what they should look for when they switch or that they shouldn't switch jobs at all. And what they don't realize is that your career and your life are not wholly separate, modular parts of your life. They're interdependent and integrated. Right. And so you're not necessarily switching to get the bigger promotion to get more money to, you know, those might be parts of it, but they're not necessarily the driving reasons that you're seeking progress. And when we studied this over a thousand individuals over a decade, what we saw was that there are four jobs to be done. Or in the book, we Call them quests for progress that cause people to say today's the day I'm actually going to leave my job. And only one of them has to do with that career ladder, that notion of progression, if you will, from the company's standpoint that so many people use to guide their choices. So I'll give you a quick sort of landscape view of what these different jobs to be done are. But the one note is that each quest or jobs to job to be done has multiple forces within it pushing you away from the status quo and pulling you towards something new. And we've sort of boiled them down into, I would say overly simplified taglines, but to try to get at the complexity. So the first one is what we call the get outers. These are people who are looking to get out of a job that feels like a dead end with a boss that's maybe micromanaging them with a company that's going nowhere or a career prospect that they can't see where it's going or they don't like the work they're doing on and on and on. And so they're looking to get out as quick as they can. The flip side of that is the people who are looking to take the next step. This is I'm looking to climb the career ladder. I want more of what drives my energy on the job today and I want more of what I get to do. I'm at a career personal milestone. It's time to take that next step. The third one we saw was what we call people who are looking to regain control. So they're leaving because they actually like large parts of what they get to do in the job, but they don't like how the job makes use of their time or energy. And so they're looking to regain control of that. A lot of times this is like the work life balance, but, but certainly not always. It could be I do my best work when I get to choose where I work. Right. For example. And then the fourth one we saw was what we call regain alignment. So these are individuals that are somewhat the flip of the regain control. They're they say, by and large I like how I get to work, but I feel fundamentally disrespected in some way for what I'm being asked to do. Like my skill sets are the skills I want to be known for. Don't get shown up or respected or asked for in the right ways in this job. And so I'm looking to regain alignment in my career.

Well, and, and, and if you take Those four, like, if I, you know, use myself as an example, I think in my 30s, it really was all about that alignment with the employment, like, just very specifically, like sphere of control, capability, learning, financial, you know what I'm saying? Like, it was a ladder. Those were ladder decisions. At that point in my career. When I hit my 40s, it was a different decision. When I hit my 50s, it was a different decision. And I just made another one recently. Right. And so the reasons that were, you know, what is the push and the pull, right? Pushing me out of whatever I'm in and then pulling me to wherever I'm going. How do people determine what. That. What those push and pulls are so that they can better. Well, so that they can make a more informed decision for progress. Bob, any thoughts there?

Yeah, I think so. The first thing is it's very hard to do by yourself. So one of the things we've done is we've actually built a. An assessment tool that's on jobmoves.com that allows you to kind of go through and helps to describe your situation of, like, what's going on and why you think about leaving now. And. And what do you. What are you actually seeking? Right. I think the, The. The. The thing we found most, though, is, is if you do this with a partner or you find somebody to do this with so they can ask you the tough questions. Because a lot of times we're lying to ourselves of why we're doing what we're doing, and we start to realize that we actually need a different way of looking at it. And so, you know, we recommend in the book that you actually try to find a partner to actually do this with who can actually ask you some of the tough questions and have you unpack it down to the causal layers of, like, you know, I want more money. Well, why do you. What's so interesting is if you take the thing of money, I want more money. It turns out that more money is. It turns out there's like five different reasons for more money. One of them is I want more respect. One of them is I have more bills to pay because I have children now. Another one is the fact this is like the. I'm comparing myself to everybody else. And the fact is I want to feel like I'm moving along with everybody else. And so you start to realize that money's not the reason they're leaving. It's these other things that are actually the reasons. And so money is a way in which to kind of show that they're getting the Respect or getting, you know, paying their bills or carrying their weight.

Yeah. And I think for me, again, I think money was definitely part of it, but it was really also learning. Like, I felt learning super stalled. Like, I'm not learning anything now. Maybe I was impatient, but I always made it. I always made a conscious effort where I literally went like this, okay, Mr. Ms. Boss, I love working here, but I'm feeling these things. I would love to see if there's a career opportunity for me to do something else or learn something. And, you know, that that was more limited as the company was smaller. Right. Because I didn't. There was very few places for me to go. Right. Or for things for me to do. Said. But I'm open to hear what you suggest, you know, maybe like, you know, in the conversation, take 90 days. Like, take 60 days and let. Let's sit back down and then talk about it again. And literally every time I did that, they came back and said, we value you. We love you working here. We just don't have anything for you now. We just. We'd really love it if you kind of hung on, you know, and. And Right. And in my head, I'm like, hang on for who? Right? Like, for you. Like, like, I've told you what I'm looking for, and if you think I'm going to stay, you weren't listening. Right. And so I don't just, like, get out, like, quit off the, you know, off the start. Like, I really try to find a way. Trying to weigh forward. And so, you know, as people may be listening to this and going, wow, you know, I really do feel frustrated or a. Get out. Go ahead, Michael.

No, no, I just was off of what you were just saying. It's so interesting because I think a lot of people, they come out and they make a sweeping statement to the manager. It sounds like they're asking for the sun, moon and the stars. You're just asking to learn more. Right. And take that next step. And so I think in some ways what we're hoping that the book does is give language to that so that when you make that ask, they can translate it. And. Oh, I get it. And either we are the place you can make that next stop, or, no, we're not. And then what Bob's doing right now is literally helping people who are interviewing with him if they're not the right fit for his company. He's helping them find a job because he's. They're effectively recruiting him into his corner because they're speaking the same Language, if you will. So I, I was just. I was jumping off that. When you, When. When you gave that example of them not meeting you with the progress that you needed.

Yeah, let me be really clear. I did not have the language myself, right? I didn't have the confidence. I didn't have the language. I was a little. You know what I mean? I wasn't. I wasn't yet sure even what I was asking for, but I knew what I was doing was not working. Right? And I think that, that comes over time, as you get more clarity.

I think the, the reality is that HR is not also equipped to listen to any of this either, because they want you to stay in the position as long as possible because they're trying to mitigate the risk of. Of turnover. And so the reality is, is at some point in time, the way we describe it is that, that, that when you make a job description and it's. It's pretty much made up, right? And then they add all this list. It's literally like a. A long list, a laundry list of all the stuff we want that person to do, and then we try to get that person to fit into that job. And what we're finding is the, the way this works better is if you actually start to form the job to fit around the person and start to realize, like, look, you're good at these eight things, but these two things we're asking you to do that you really suck at. And so, like, let's find somebody else who loves two things, because otherwise I'm gonna. I'm gonna literally weigh you down to try to do these other things that you. That just aren't in your wheelhouse. And so ultimately, the fact this is, you know, I was talking to somebody where they basically fired somebody because at some point they couldn't do the two things they knew that they couldn't do when they hired them in the first place, right? And it's like, well, why didn't you change the job description? And they just looked at me like, yeah, why didn't we change the job description? And so these are the kinds of things where you start to realize, like, we need work to start to fit people, as opposed to trying to change people to fit the work.

But I think that also happens, you know, again, to myself, like, as I started to make those changes and I had more responsibility and I took on the role of, quote, unquote, a manager, you know, it didn't mean that someone then trained me on how to recruit, how to hire, how to, you know, Career coach, how to motivate, how to all those things. And if I didn't get it right myself, then I'm not emulating. I had a really great manager who really did these things with me, and, and I'm going to do that to someone I manage next. It was, they never did it right. And so you never sort of get that opportunity to understand how best to do that. Bob, almost like what you were just saying, like, why didn't I think to change the two things? Or why didn't I then say, if you're not good at these things or it's not like, let's figure out a solution on how to solve it because the business needs it. And, and so you're not feeling frustrated that he keeps. Or she keeps asking me to do these two things I'm either not good at or I don't want to do.

Yep, yep. So one, one of the observations we had is like, you know, are you familiar with strength finders? Right. And so we talk about the top 10 strengths you're good at, but the reality is, is in that top 10, there's literally the bottom five of what you suck at. And nine times out of 10, they'll come back and say, oh, you need, like, so, for example, I'm an innovator, and I believe that innovation is a context where we got to argue to get there. So one of the things I suck at is Harmony. Like, I'm just not the person to get everybody to get along, right? Like, that's. That. That's actually really hard for me to do because I don't believe it's work. It works. So the fact is, if you tell me to get better at Harmony, you actually destroy my ability to be an innovator. And so part of this is what we realize is that when come along and start to tell people what they need to get better at, you're actually making them mediocre. Because at some point in time, you're taking their superpowers and negating them against the things that they actually can't do. And so it's this notion of being able to really understand you, understand what you're good at, understand your kryptonite, and realize how to shape the job description as you go in to basically make sure you're doing the work you love to do that gives you energy, as opposed to having to do the 40, 50, 60% of the work that you. That literally sucks the life out of you. So you only can get the 5 or 10% of the energy you get from the work you love.

Well, and Tiffany, you asked earlier, like, how do you really figure out what quest you're on? And this is actually a big piece of it, which is steps two and three of the process are to really get super reflective, if you will, about what really drives your energy when you're in work and what drains it. Like so that you can be really explicit about the things that Bob just named about himself. And then on the other hand on the, what you do, what are your capabilities today? What are their shelf lives like, when are they going to start depreciating? Because work is changing around us, the world is changing around us. Or you know, if you don't keep honing those, they're not going to be current. And which in the roles that you're interested in, all the different things you could imagine are those things valued or frankly not valued? One person we coached, you know, she was great at the technical side of coding and so forth. She found herself like you in a manager's job and all of a sudden those skill sets that made her a great, you know, individual contributor are less relevant. And she also has this faith, you know, this decision in front of her where it's like, oh my gosh, do I want to continue to invest in staying up on the technical chop so I can be a great individual contribut or you know, my managers and the other people, they want to pull me into these cross departmental meetings, I start wanting to interface with other parts of the company. That's a whole different skill set that's going to take away from my time. And so that's the other piece of it is what's the liability you have to incur in your time and money to keep skills up to date and how do they align or not with the different pathways you could choose so that, you know, sort of that frustration you felt as a first time manager, we make those trade offs and those things you need to do to be great in a role much more explicit for you.

Yeah, and I think if, if, if somebody is listening and they're like, wow, I never thought about it that way. You know, it's just kind of something I did a lot when, especially during my 30s when I was going through that sort of rapid transitioning every 18 months that I would literally go, what do I enjoy doing? What do I don't enjoy doing? What is it that I don't enjoy doing that I have to suck it up and figure out how to do it right?

Because there's some suck in every Job.

Yeah, there's certain things you just kind of have to do. And then how do I reskill, upskill myself? And I think with the pace of technology right now, that and the question of, you know, is AI going to replace me or is GPT going large language models on it? And I always say I don't think it will replace a full on job. That rarely sort of happens. It happens, but it, you know, rarely happens where it's going to be tasks. So even if you work at a warehouse and like the robots are going to now load boxes, it doesn't mean that robots are driving the trucks. Right. Or that they're doing the inventory or they're making the purchasing decisions. Right. So it might have removed the loading the boxes, which for a human is probably a good thing. Right. So remove the task. But as an individual, I feel like there's a ton of fatigue of you have to learn, you have to learn. There's a new skill like how do you do this, do this, do this? And unless the employer is making those investments as a individual, you have to kind of become your own learning, you know, hold yourself accountable for learning that.

That'S what side gigs are for. So one of the things we talk about is people are expecting everything from their employer. And the reality is like the employer can't provide you everything you want. You might, you might have to have a hobby, you might actually have to have a side gig. I mean, like when I grew up, the fact is, if you had two jobs, you usually had two jobs because you couldn't make ends meet. Now I find people who have two and three jobs because there's stuff they love to do and they start to learn new things. And so you start to realize, like I was talking, I was coaching somebody the other day and their employer, they wanted to learn a new language, a new computer language. And the company said, no, we really don't want to invest in that. But if, if you want to go find some work in that area and do that, we'll, we'll, we'll let you go do a side gig that has nothing to do with the business, but you can go learn that language. And so they allowed her to go do that. She made 40 grand learning a new, new language that since she brought back to the company. And so it's all of a sudden, it's a very different kind of world out there. And the thing is, is, but you got to know how to ask for it, you got to know how to frame it, you got to be able to Talk about it. And so to your point, you got to get the language.

Yeah. And I guess I would say I see a slightly different side of it sometimes from Bob on this one, which is because I spent two years at Guild, which is working with front that had multiple jobs because they had to, to make ends meet. And what was interesting about that at Guild was I found a lot of the employers, they were providing those benefits to learn. But to your point, Tiffany, they hadn't clarified what you were trying to build toward or why in many cases. And so it was like throwing, you know, skill up programs at them and putting all this pressure on the individual to sort of figure it out as opposed to the manager having a way to structure that conversation and figure out the right program based on where you're trying to go and what progress looks like for you.

And I think this lands on experience at work, in your job, versus the features and functionalities of your job. Fair.

Yes. Yes. It's all about what you do, not what you did and not the pedigree that you have. So part of it is to be very clear about what you like to do, what gives you energy. So it's, we actually went a little deeper than like, and don't like because sometimes there's, there's things you like to do, but you're, you're not really good at it, or there's things you're really good at that you really don't like to do. And so you start to realize that it's, it's about where, where do you walk into a moment and all of a sudden you have more energy than you did walking into it versus the opposite of where you walked in. And literally the life just gets sucked out of you. And people can be very explicit about those moments. And what we want to do is fill their day full of those moments where they get energy and minimize the amount where they actually get the energy sucked out of them.

And so is there a, is there a rule of thumb maybe that like, you know, in, in two job changes I've had, you know, over my career, I'd be like, look, 80% of what I do, I, I, I just don't like anymore. 20% of what I do, I really like. How do I flip that? How do I go find 80% of the 20% and 20% of the 80%?

So what I would say is, the fact is, what you start to realize is that I feel like it's almost 90% of the work you do is for the 10% you love and that's when it's the grind. And what I'll tell you is if you get above 50, 50, you don't even know you're working anymore. So it's not even that far that you have to flip it all the way. But the reality is once you actually can do that, like it can push you. So what I found is, for example, the work that I hate, I got to put process around. I got to put, I got to make it very structured. But the work I love to do, I don't want to put structure around it because it actually ruins it for me. And so you start to realize that you have to build your own kind of cheat sheets around these kinds of things and be able to understand what's the best way for you to work. But what I'll tell you is that for the people who are at 90% of the work they're doing, they hate to get to the 10% they like, that ratio has to change. But once you get above 60, 40, 50, 50, you're, you're, you're in, you're in a range where you, you will enjoy and your life will be a much better place.

And that goes to the thing, right? Like we're not saying you have to make like ask for the sun, moon and stars back to that theme before these subtle shifts that if you can get right, will bring you a lot more energy and progress on that job. And there's, you know, Bob's not just making up those numbers. Like there's a lot of cognitive science research that suggests you get over that 50% mark. Things flip around in that role pretty dramatically. And to your point, Tiffany, there's going to be some things that do drain your energy and suck. There's no like dream job on every single dimension. We make trade offs though, so that we can get the things that matter the most to us at any given point in time. And it's also okay if they change over your career, right? Like the things I valued 15 years ago in my, in, in my life are very different from the things I value at the moment with my kids and so forth, right? Those things change.

Yeah. And I'd say for me, people go, go. You know, you seem like you're, you've just found your dream job, right? And I'm like, I have like. But I absolutely know when it's, the things I don't want to do, it just drains me. Like, I just feel spent at the end of the week where if I, the, during the week, I'm doing all the things I love. I'm energized. Can't wait for Monday, you know, and I can definitely tell, you know, like when I'm in one of those hills or valleys of. It's been multiple weeks of drainage, I have got to recharge and get back to doing something, something that I love. So listen, we're, we are almost out of time and, and like Michael Bob, I could keep going, but just for those listeners, you can find their jobs moves assessment at their website, job moves.com and take that assessment to really help you out. But as we sort of wrap this up, you know, I'd love to get just sort of parting thoughts from each of you on if people are listening to this and they're like, you know, I, maybe I'm feeling a level of anxiety and I, and I feel very comfortable in my present job, but I know it's time for me to go or make a different progress decision. Let's say that, that you're not quitting, you're, you're, you're sort of voting for your own progress. What would you say to them? I'll start with you, Bob.

So one of the most interesting things is 53% of the people that we coached didn't actually get a new job. They actually got an appreciation for their job and actually loved it more. And was it made their trade offs explicit, like, I'm doing this so I can get to that. And it actually helped them just reframe the work so they could actually stop complaining all the time. And so this isn't necessarily about just moving. This is about actually taking responsibility for, for what you want and where you're at. Because at some point your job might be a great job, it might be two things that are bothering you, but two things out of, out of 100 that you love to do is actually a really good situation. And so it's not just for job switchers. It's for, it's for people like just trying to say, like if they have some doubt in their mind, they need to actually take a minute to reflect.

And because Bob used that one that I think is so powerful, I'll name something different, which is when we have used the jobs to be done theory and education to shed light on, you know, why do students do or don't do certain work and things of that nature. One of the things that we've concluded consistently is that it's not that kids are motivated or unmotivated kids, it's just that the work in front of them perhaps is not the thing that they're able to make progress on against the job to be done in their life at that point in time. And so to your point, you know, if you're quitting, reframe it. This is how you're making progress. But you can also make progress while staying in the same job and changing the mix of things you're doing or working with your manager to, you know, give get you that stretch assignment that makes you learning again. Right. It's just that small little shift. But really understand what progress looks like for you at this present time and understand that you're on a journey. It's going to change constantly. And that's the exciting part of it.

Well, thank you guys both so much. Mr. Bob Mesta, Mr. Michael Horn, thank you for joining us on this episode of what's Next. Again, go pick up a copy of their book Job Moves 9 Steps for Making progress in your Career. And thank you both for joining me. Have a great rest of your day, everybody.

Sa.