Before I was laid off from my last corporate gig, I knew something wasn’t working. I didn’t feel effective in my role. My position had been demoted to the point where I was no longer reporting to the CEO, and my team wasn’t performing as well as they had in earlier times. I recognized these issues and remember discussing with Sheila whether I should make a move—one day saying, “It’s time,” and the next, convincing myself, “It’ll all be alright.”
Then, one Monday morning, I walked into my new boss’s office and saw our HR Director. I thought, “Why is Sharon here?”
As you know by now, being fired turned out to be a great move for my next career, though it didn’t feel that way at the time.
Last week, I introduced the idea of the What’s Next space—that disorienting middle ground after something ends but before something new begins. It’s not a clean pivot or a pause. It’s messy, confusing, and aggravating.
We dislike uncertainty.
That’s why I created NextWorks—a model for recognizing and responding to these transitions more effectively. This week, we’ll explore the first two steps of the process:
- Recognizing the Signal
- Noticing Your Default Patterns
Step 1: Recognizing the Signal
Strategic inflection points don’t shout. They whisper. Listen early—or be forced to react later.”
— Inspired by Rita McGrath, Seeing Around Corners
Before a significant life or work shift becomes undeniable, it often starts with a murmur—restlessness, frustration, or quiet wondering.
Like the question I kept asking myself: “Is this still right for me?”
Several years ago, I attended a seminar at Carnegie Mellon where Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath discussed her book Seeing Around Corners. She described how these early cues are “strategic inflection points”—subtle signs that something important is changing, even if the world hasn’t caught up. If you ignore them for too long, you lose the chance to respond clearly.
These signals, in truth, are gifts—not threats.
They might show up as a drop in motivation (as they did for me), a shift in how others respond to you, or a sense that your energy is draining in ways it didn’t before. Staying attuned means asking:
- What is working for me—and what isn’t?
- How much am I enjoying what I’m doing?
- Are others responding to me in ways that feel respectful and engaged?
Recognizing the signal doesn’t mean you have the answer. It just means it’s time to pay attention.
Siphotography: Deposit Photos
Step 2: Noticing Your Default Patterns
When change occurs—even in small ways—our stress response increases. Our pulse quickens, anxiety rises, and we enter the fight/flight/freeze cycle.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls this System 1 thinking—quick, emotional, and reactive. It’s designed to keep us safe, but can also keep us stuck.
Here’s how it shows up:
- Avoidance: We look away and hope things will resolve themselves. “Everything is fine,” we say, even when we know it’s not.
- Overthinking: We ruminate endlessly, convinced we can think our way through it. Often, this only amplifies the problem.
- Procrastination: We keep looking for more data, waiting for the “perfect” moment to act—when, in reality, the core facts rarely change.
- Rushing: We act impulsively, hoping to relieve the discomfort quickly. In those moments, the best move might be to pause.
We all have default ways of responding to change. The goal isn’t to judge them—it’s to notice them. Because once we see them, we can choose something different.
That’s when we begin shifting into System 2 thinking: slower, more intentional, more strategic. (More on that later.)
This is the first real muscle of the NextWorks mindset: awareness.
The rest of the journey builds from there.
Next week, we’ll explore how to reconnect with your strengths—even when the ground beneath you feels shaky.
If this sparked something for you, I’d love to hear about it. What signals are you noticing? What patterns do you tend to follow?
This is a conversation, not a monologue.
