Episode 2. Self-Directed Career Development with Elizabeth Cook

Episode Description

In this episode of Office Hours, we explore what it looks like to take a more self-directed approach to career development.

I’m joined by Elizabeth Cook, a career strategy coach who helps professionals navigate burnout and career transitions with greater clarity. We discuss navigating uncertainty, building self-awareness, and creating more agency in your career. We also talk about the importance of creating the bandwidth for this work, and how practices like job crafting can help align your day-to-day with longer-term goals.

Together, we break down what it takes to actively shape your career from the inside out.

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Episode Mentions, Notes, and Links

Job crafting refers to a proactive process by which workers may redesign their process, relationship, or perception of work (i.e., their own jobs). While the concept of individual-driven work design is older, Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane E. Dutton introduced the term and model of job crafting – which includes three forms (task, relational, and cognitive) – in 2001, which have continued to inspire much thought and research since. 

World Economic Forum 2025 Future of Jobs Report: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/

Links to connect with Elizabeth:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-cook-

https://www.elizabethcookconsulting.com

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Music: "Feel Good (Instrumental Version)" by PØW⁠ via Epidemic Sound

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Episode Transcript

Hannah (00:08)
Hey, y’all. Welcome to Office Hours at the Alignment Lab, where we explore what it really takes to align values, strategy, and behavior at work. I’m Hannah Yung-Boxdell, an organizational psychology practitioner, strategist, and systems architect. In Office Hours, we take an honest look at the human side of work and offer practical takeaways for evaluating what matters, what doesn’t, and how to focus our attentions accordingly. Whether you’re mid-career or in the executive suite,

The things you’ll hear about in Office Hours can build careers and organizations that are effective, resilient, and aligned with what matters most to you.

Hannah (00:49)
Hi, Welcome to Office Hours at The Alignment Lab. Today we’re talking about career development and how our guest Elizabeth Cook helps working professionals approach this topic. A little bit about our guest. Elizabeth coaches mid-career professionals who have jobs that look great on paper but are headed towards boredom or burnout. She helps them get clear on their next strategic move and communicate their values so they stand out in the market. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Cook (01:16)
Thanks so much for having me.

Hannah (01:18)
Yeah, glad to have you here. And we’ll just jump right in. So career development is a pretty wide ranging subject. It’s a process of professional growth and evolution that can really take a lot of different shapes and can move people in different directions, whether that’s career advancement, pivots, or even jumps to new fields. So when people say they want career development, what do you think they’re looking for?

Elizabeth Cook (01:48)
Yeah, I would say most of the people that I work with don’t use that phrase. They often start by saying, I need a new job, even if that’s not where they end up. But by the time they get to me, they are often already frustrated to the point of thinking that where they are is probably not salvageable, though they’re open to the conversation, but

I would say that they’re normally using the phrase more like, think it’s time to do something different.

Hannah (02:21)
That makes so much sense. You know, just feeling a certain type of way, not always having the words necessarily to pinpoint exactly what it is and feeling like, well, I obviously must change something then.

Elizabeth Cook (02:34)
Yeah, I mean sometimes they it totally ends up in the career development space like they decide not to move at all or change within their company. But I by the time they reach out to me as a career coach, it’s usually because they are ready to do something different. And so they think that that’s a new job. And sometimes it is, but not always.

Hannah (02:56)
I know in your bio, you mentioned that like you really help people who are feeling either bored or burnt out. ⁓ So it sounds like a lot of times by the time people are reaching out, they’re really at the end of their rope in kind of some way.

Elizabeth Cook (03:10)
Yeah, I would say, I mean, that is part of when I first meet with someone, I’m kind of assessing like how much rope do we have. I would say they are usually looking to make a change within the year. So not like I need a new job right away, but they’re thinking, you know, within the year. And often they’ll say things like, I’ve been saying this for years and I’m ready now to do something.

Hannah (03:40)
Fascinating, really cool insight actually to kind of have an idea, little window. I’ve said those things myself. So as a coach, what do you see as maybe some of the most common struggles when people are trying to navigate their careers more intentionally?

Elizabeth Cook (03:47)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah, I think the biggest struggle at the start is for people to really name and embrace what they’re good at. And it sounds so simple. And most of the people I work with are 10 to 15 years in their career. So they’re not starting out. So they feel embarrassed that they can’t name what they’re good at.

But if you’ve been in a job for a while that isn’t the right fit, you’ve just kind of been beaten up a little bit by it metaphorically. And so the things that you thought you were good at, it’s just been shaken. And so they feel a little… lost and so I would say at the very beginning it’s really even they knowing what they want or knowing like being able to talk about what an ideal job would even look like like because they just mostly know what they don’t want at that first point.

Hannah (05:09)
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I know you work as a coach, which is a, you know, largely pretty much a client led effort, right? So when people are kind of figuring this out, you know, they haven’t answered this question necessarily on their own. where might you start? What’s a common place maybe that you start in terms of helping them start to answer those questions?

Elizabeth Cook (05:33)
Yeah, well the first thing that I always do when someone first reaches out to me is to ask a few questions around their timeline, know, if they are, most of them are either currently employed or if they’re unemployed, they have some bandwidth. Like they have a partner that is supporting them going through this process or they have a long severance. So when most people start with me, they’re not like, need a job right now. They want to… take some intentional reflection and decision making so that they’re more confident about the direction they’re heading in.

So the very first thing I do if they are employed is spend some time assessing how miserable they are. Sometimes I call it managing the misery because if someone is really at that point of approaching burnout or misery, it’s hard to do the reflective, creative, of experimental process of exploring transition in a way that’s productive.

So I’ll gauge that at first and depending on depending on how that goes, I might recommend we start with more of a let’s do a few sessions on managing your current role, seeing if there’s any shifts, any changes we can make to make this role better, even if it’s just short term, if it buys you six months of energy and helps you have more capacity to…

do the exploration part of a possible career change, it’s really worthwhile. So I have just learned over time that it’s worth me starting there because if we dive right into exploration and someone is really at a low point, it makes it really difficult for them to go through the steps of exploring something new.

Hannah (07:39)
Yeah, that is so real and really tactical, right? Because it’s almost not something you’d like really think about doing like, oh, do I have the bandwidth? Do I have the mental, emotional kind of bandwidth to take on this type of reflective work? how can we create the space for that? You know, while I have maybe relative stability, you know, in a current job.

Elizabeth Cook (07:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes.

Hannah (08:04)
So actually speaking about that, like following it a little bit further, we’re in a current moment and we have been for some time of just such uncertainty and disruption on so many levels in our society and technology and changing labor market, right? we hear some things about how those are also causes, they’re factors in burnout.

but can also maybe make what you’re talking about more challenging to create that space. Is that what you’re finding or is like not really?

Elizabeth Cook (08:38)
In terms of people not wanting to leave because of the uncertainty?

Hannah (08:44)
Or just having a harder time creating that space that you’re talking about.

Elizabeth Cook (08:47)
Yeah, well, I think that particularly people that I work with in fields impacted by AI, which, you know, arguably is every field, but ones that people who are in, you know, those typical knowledge workers, people in marketing communications, anything that involves writing design that it’s being hit already, I’m finding for those folks it’s particularly challenging because as we get to that options phase there’s such a sense of I want something future proof you know I want something that I don’t want to have to do this again in five years and I would like to still use these skills, but I don’t know which of these skills are going to be valued in the market two years from now.

[I] mean, like graphic design is one that just comes up so much because if you look at the World Economic Forum, they have like they had a report on increasing or increasing and declining job growth. And that is one that just over like a one year span, it drastically changed because of AI, where that field just tanked pretty quickly in terms of its projected growth. So ⁓ that’s where I’m seeing people that that is just a different part of the exploration process, because now we have this unknown. And yes, there’s things we look at

There’s ways we can try to manage that but we’re all just guessing and we know we don’t really know for sure There is so much uncertainty and it’s just changing. It’s growing so quickly that that is an unknown that we Have to just mitigate

Hannah (10:41)
Right, right. No guarantees, but just finding some way to kind of move forward anyway. Speaking of kind of related to that, Like there’s so many things that are outside the control of an employee or even an organization, right? You’re talking about shifts in entire industries. This is kind of a central question to career development, Or the career development debate which is who’s actually responsible.

for career development? Is it the employee or the organization? What do you think?

Elizabeth Cook (11:13)
I would love for it to be the organization in that, know, it is absolutely something that, ⁓ well, I think it’s obviously it’s both to some extent. my part of my work is helping equip people so that they can manage their own careers. They can develop their own careers because I think particularly in this uncertain future,

The only job stability is our own agility and our own ability to know what we bring to the workplace, know how we can solve problems, how we can provide value, even when the context changes. And so to me, that is how we navigate this uncertainty. We get really clear on our self-awareness, knowing what skills we’re motivated to bring and how we provide value.

So I definitely think it is the individuals ⁓ that the individual will be more in a place of agency and sense of control.

One of my daughters is almost 23. She’s in active job search right now. And she’s told me so many times because it’s been a prolonged job search. And she’s like, when I get this job, I am staying there forever. I’m never leaving. She’s 22. I’m like, yeah, that is very likely, unlikely. Like, that’s just not how we could think about careers anymore. So I think that owning our own career, thinking like an entrepreneur, even if you never desire to be one, is absolutely the way you’re gonna feel like you have some agency going forward and…

I also would love to see organizations embrace this because the cost of turnover for an organization is very high. And so the more they can, once they get people in the door, the more they can proactively work with people to help them shape their career path, help them recognize which areas they might want to lean into, what might be skills they want to develop and collaboratively work together to manage those careers. I think it’s a huge win-win.

And there are certainly organizations that are doing this. And I don’t think it’s just a nice to have. mean, if you look at the numbers from a profitability standpoint, just from retention, if investing in the career management helps you retain valued employees, that is absolutely going to also make the company more profitable. So I do think there is a business case for it.

And I don’t want my daughter to wait for her company to do that. So it’s a both and.

Hannah (14:10)
Yeah, yeah, 100 % agree. 100 % agree. In a perfect world, right? Everyone’s kind of working together. And the way an employee versus an organization or a manager kind of approaches the same person’s career development is going to be different. But speaking about agency, you kind of mentioned individual agency in this process.

Speaking about that, you’ve talked about job crafting as a practical tool for career development. So for listeners who may not know what that term is, can you start us with (A) what is it? And then also, how does that show up in real life?

Elizabeth Cook (14:47)
Yes, it’s not a term I came up with. it’s been around for a bit. Researchers who’ve done quite a bit of research on this are the ones that coined the term. You probably know the names off the top of your head. But the idea is that you take your existing role and you shape it in a way. And there’s a couple of different ways they have researched that people have tried to do this or people have done this and been successful and it’s a way of

Sometimes it’s done with the manager and with the organization supporting it and sometimes not. It’s definitely ⁓ when I use it with my clients. Well, I’ve used it both ways. Honestly, I have used it through the organization where the organization has hired me and I’ve used it with individuals.

But it’s about thinking about how can your approach to the role change. And there’s a couple different categories. One of the ones that ⁓ showed up in the research, I think is just such a powerful example, is they looked at ⁓ hospital staff, it was the ⁓ custodian staff, but they were moving the artwork around, and they noticed that the patients ⁓ were really enjoying the artwork when they moved in into the different room. So they those that the staff members felt so connected to making patients heal faster and just have a more enjoyable hospital experience, even though their job, like if you looked at the job description was about, you know, scrubbing toilets and cleaning the floors, they were connecting their work to the patient’s healing process. And so they had just such higher levels of engagement, which I think that’s such a powerful example.

Hannah (16:45)
Yeah, taking an expanded view on the job, connecting it with the overall mission of a hospital, which is to care for patients and to help them ideally get better, and how that trickles down to everybody in the organization. So have you worked with clients around this topic?

Elizabeth Cook (16:49)
Yes.

Hannah (17:13)
Do you have any, I don’t know if there’s anything you can share about, like, maybe an example of like when something like this has worked well or maybe hasn’t.

Elizabeth Cook (17:21)
Yeah, so ⁓ yeah, this is one of my favorite areas to craft around because a lot of the people I work with are mid-career and often as they have moved up in promotions, they have gotten farther from the impact, like the close impact. So, that is something that as we start kind of exploring what they…

are enjoying and not enjoying about their work. That’s something that surfaces often is that they feel disconnected from the end user, you know, or the impact or the mission. And I remember one case in particular. This was someone who worked at a major automobile manufacturing company, and she was very deep in the weeds of project management like she wasn’t when she first started. She was at the dealerships where she was interacting with customers.

but at this point in her career she was not at all. But the work she was doing was…

the point of it was to really improve the customer experience, but she was so far removed from it that she wasn’t feeling that connection at all. So, you know, one of the things that that we did is she had she had several reports of feedback surveys. And so she just made a point to go into those reports and

and position her work around what she was doing to make improvements there and then she would look year over year. She ultimately ended up changing roles within the company into something that was designing the experience for that customer at the.

dealerships so she she ended up using that insight to change her role in the company but initially in terms of kind of building her capacity in her current role. That’s what we did, you know, we dove in to to get as close to the customer. She also included just going on site so that she could interact with the customers more and honestly just even the recognition or like the awareness that that

is the friction point has been super helpful for some people. And then they can see, okay, even though I’m not feeling it day to day, I can connect my work to how it’s making an impact on the global mission or how the company is solving this problem for the end user. Even if they decide…

they’re okay with working on the problem at a more global scale, just recognizing that that’s the difference of why they are a little bit less connected to it than they were five years ago has been really helpful.

Hannah (20:11)
Yeah, it’s great to hear an example and, you know, concepts, but in real life, right? Cause there’s a few things that,

mentioning that, right? Like one of it’s like, it was a little bit about positioning, Like there’s some things that it’s just kind of like, well, I’m just gonna position the what I’m doing kind of in a different way, And that can be kind of an element of job crafting or like going on site, where it’s like, maybe that’s not in the letter of the job description. It’s not, it’s not not related. So it’s like, that’s where you have some opportunity to craft.

your experience and like the job. And then it sounds like this person has actually turned that, that crafting and, and that development that came from that crafting actually into another position, advancement, which is phenomenal.

Elizabeth Cook (20:56)
Yes.

Yes, because it helped her get clear on what she wanted in the new role. yes. And so she was able to articulate that in conversations with her manager, all of those things. Yes.

Hannah (21:11)
Clarity, man, we love clarity. ⁓ Go ahead, sorry.

Elizabeth Cook (21:14)
Yes. Yeah,

I was just gonna say another so that is kind of more the the attitude to know or like, you know, changing how you’re thinking about it. I have also seen I do a lot of work with strengths and used a couple different assessments. And that can be helpful to see how sometimes the frustration is coming from you trying to work.

in the way that your manager does or your boss does because that’s how they were successful in it. And sometimes just recognizing, ⁓ I see this a lot around like structure. Like sometimes some people need or prefer a lot more structure in how they do their work or vice versa than the person who trained them or the person they’re like modeling their work after. And in some jobs the role like

defines how systematic or how structured you work, but in a lot of jobs, as long as you’re getting that outcome, you have some wiggle room in how you’re doing the task. And so just recognizing, ⁓ I prefer.

To work in a very systematic way. So for me to like have a template to have the checklist I follow every time – or not. You know if the organization is willing to adapt or flex, you know understanding as long as the outcome is being met, we’re not changing the standard. But if we can give people flexibility in how they reach that outcome It is a huge

that has been really successful in organizations when the role allows for that. And it also just gives people permission to shape the role in a way that is gonna help them be most successful as opposed to everybody doing it the exact same way.

Hannah (23:14)
Yeah. So just even the realizing that like, just because this is the way that a certain task was taught to you or modeled to you doesn’t actually mean that you have to do it that way. And that you also don’t, I mean, every, every situation is going to be different, right? But a lot of jobs, as you say, have wiggle room and you don’t actually need to ask anybody. And that’s going to be somewhat

Elizabeth Cook (23:37)
Yeah. Right.

Hannah (23:41)
dependent, like it’s pretty much dependent on your organization, your job, you know, et cetera. But that’s, and that’s the nature rate of job crafting. And it’s that you are, it’s the employee who’s just like, ⁓ well, I’m going to take, I’m going to tweak this and make it better, I love it.

So speaking of, personal, approaches. For someone, if someone feels like their organization isn’t really investing in their career development, you know, what options do they have? Like, do they actually have?

Elizabeth Cook (24:19)
So I would say it’s worth investing in yourself by hiring a coach or so do you mean in terms of like career path planning or skill training or..?

Hannah (24:25)
Ha

You know, that’s a, I mean, that’s the heart of the question, right? Because career development is so broad and it’s not necessarily, a lot of people, when they say career development, they mean advancement or pathing, right? Some kind of way elsewhere, forward, up. Versus, you know, just, I’m just trying to expand my skillset and I’m not sure how, you know? And so I suppose I…

Elizabeth Cook (24:38)
Sure.

Yes.

Hannah (24:58)
I’m not trying to necessarily focus it in any particular way, but you know, when someone feels stuck and not supported by their organization. So like we’ve talked a little about job crafting, you know, as like tactic that they can use, you know, are there others that you, ⁓ help people realize they have available to them

Elizabeth Cook (25:05)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes. I would say the very first step is really increasing your own self-awareness around what is working, what’s not working and really diving into that. And an easy way to do that is having a More/Less List.

And this can just be a piece of paper you keep by your desk or in your planner; you could do it digitally. But at various points throughout the day or, at the end of the day, just noting anything that like, huh, I enjoyed that interaction. I would like more of that. I’m going to jot that down or, that was really frustrating or I felt really drained after that. I’m going to put that as I want less of that.

And at the beginning, you may not.

understand why, but if you do that over a couple weeks, you will absolutely start to notice patterns. And I would even say after like a couple of days of doing it, go back and look at it and ask some questions like, huh, what time of day was that? Were there certain people that were involved? did it have something to do with how much structure was required? I just keep bringing that one up because I noticed that is a point

that can make a job really feel like not a good fit one way or the other. If like your job requires a lot more structure than you naturally work, or a lot less. So asking some questions to kind of dig deeper into at first just write them down but then every couple days see if you can

pull the threads a little bit on what’s showing up and over about three or four weeks, you will absolutely start to see some patterns about

what’s draining and what’s energizing, what you want more of and what you want less of. And that can be just really helpful. What I love about that is it’s coming from you, from real world examples, as opposed to a lot of people want to go straight to some kind of external quiz or, which I use a lot of those too. They’re really fun. Or looking at job boards and seeing like, huh, would this fit me better? But if we start within

that data is really good because it’s from your work day. so really kind of building your own muscle around what you want more of and what you want less of because that can also lead to, know, maybe that’s a conversation you could have with your manager or maybe there’s a way to even get that yourself on your own to have more or less of that in your day. But once you start to see those patterns, now you know how to make

little degrees of change that can make big differences sometimes.

Hannah (28:11)
Yeah, absolutely. I love how simple and accessible that idea is, right? I mean, because it’s like we talk about, you know, building self-awareness or, you know, for some it’s like, well, if I don’t have it, how do I get it? Right. So, but like something like that is so simple. You don’t need to buy anything. You don’t need to give anyone else or a third party your information. You know, you can just, you know, jot a few things down and it’s also not

necessarily just asking the question, right? Because so often someone might ask you, you know, what do you find draining or what do you find energizing? And there’s so many things that don’t come readily to mind, but then seeing, basically a log or a kind of a active list where you jot things down here and there, not even like a full time log, which can also be helpful for other things, and then you can kind of find those patterns and start to notice,

Huh, like I didn’t even think about this or I didn’t even realize, right? And then you can kind of answer that question. I love it.

Elizabeth Cook (29:11)
Yeah, I’ve been trying to do it in my own career too as I’m in business for myself. So I get to decide who I wanna work with and how I structure my offer. So I try to at least quarterly go through a couple of weeks or when I notice that something’s off or something might need to change, I’ll track that too. And it’s so much easier to see the patterns when you do it that way. If you…

Google anything about career development, there’s often questions like, What are you great at? What do you want? Those what do you want questions are paralyzing if you’re stuck already. If you knew that, you wouldn’t be Googling these things. yeah, doing the in the moment tracking is just

like an organic way for those things to surface.

Hannah (30:05)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and speaking of just things that come from the self, right? How do you think that values play into career development and how, and this is a bit of leading question, but like, how do you think maybe people overlook that?

Elizabeth Cook (30:19)
Mmm.

Yeah. So I think it is probably the number one thing, though I don’t know that most people would say that; like describe it that way.

particularly with the people that I work with who are

you know, 10, 15, sometimes even 20 years into their career and are considering some type of change. They’re often not sure how big of a change yet, but it is almost always values driven.

Uh, as we start exploring it and I have seen it. I mean, I remember one week in particular, I had back to back conversations with mid career and one person said, I prioritize money and status my entire career. And now I feel empty. And now I want to prioritize meaning. And literally the very next day I had conversation with someone saying the exact opposite. I’ve prioritized meaning and now my kids are going into college.

and I want to be supporting that more and I want to go on vacations more. Now I want to prioritize money. it just made me smile because first of all, as a coach, I have no judgment on that. My goal is to help surface what you’re feeling and help you know what you might not know you know yet and then make choices in alignment with that. And what I notice is

often that shift in values is kind of happening at the same time they’re thinking about a career change and that’s why it can just be so disorienting because they haven’t necessarily stepped into that new value yet. They’re like testing it out or it’s still kind of uncomfortable and so it’s just a very vulnerable time.

And it can be just the dissonance of this is what I’ve always believed. now is it okay if I want to believe something else or value something else? And, if I of course believe it is, but that, that kind of, helping people navigate that and, recognize it and, and be okay that

that may cause some shifts that may shift their relationships. It may create a cascade of choices, which is very frightening sometimes. So it’s a lot, there’s a lot with that. Yeah.

Hannah (33:03)
Yeah, absolutely. when it comes to values too, it’s like there’s aspirational values and then there’s lived values. Like the really what your core values really are. And sometimes those aren’t the same. And so…

Elizabeth Cook (33:10)
Mmm.

Yes, that’s why I like to, ⁓ I’m so curious what you use for this because there’s all sorts of, you know, through all different trainings I’ve seen a lot of values assessments and what I tend to find most helpful is asking people either in a worksheet or in a conversation of like when have you

really enjoyed your work or when did it feel like you were in flow or thriving and then like what values were honored then and then the opposite of that because again it’s getting it from the data of your lived experience as opposed to the aspirational. I’m curious how do you identify values with people?

Hannah (34:06)
You know, it’s so funny because how you approach this in coaching is so different, So as a coach versus as someone who does this for myself or can advise or do this in consulting, right? And so I’ve been actually trying to figure out like, what is really the approach that I want to take around values development.

in coaching specifically, right? Where I’m not inserting too much of myself in that process. So I’ve been kind of working on this. And it’s a little bit ⁓ parbaked, I’ll just give that caveat. But I guess I try and come at it from a couple different points, So there are things that, and I kind of liken this to

Elizabeth Cook (34:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Hannah (34:50)
like leadership development, I borrowed this from that where, trying to figure out like leadership style, it can be really helpful for leaders to put into words what their leadership, like what their schema, basically, their vision of what leadership is into terms, right? And like choose their top one. When I did this, was, you know,

Elizabeth Cook (35:09)
Mmm.

Hannah (35:14)
told to choose my top seven. That’s an arbitrary number, but it’s a, you know, it’s like not too many, not too little, you know, you can, you can get some real substance there. And then that tells you like, well, really what matters to you. Right. And so doing some kind of exercise like that, but then even that feels it’s like, well, I wouldn’t start there because it’s, that’s like an activity. It’s not client

So the questions that, ⁓

I’m trying to, work with clients to answer is partially, you know, okay, we can talk about values, but then usually backing into it from decision-making. How do you make decisions, right? Because that will give you insight into like really what you’re valuing. And then kind of questions about like what energizes you, you know, and then like even backing it up, like using a…

Elizabeth Cook (35:51)
Yes. Yes.

Hannah (36:03)
an activity like you had mentioned before, it’s like, oh, that’s so useful without just only asking the question, right? And so it’s kind of, guess, triangulating this from a few different points is how I approach it. But I’m…

actually relatively new to coaching as like a standalone thing. I used coaching as like a tool in my toolkit as like a manager or as a leader, right? Which is beneficial. You don’t have to have relationship with somebody to like offer coaching, but it was usually about something very specific. It was maybe a conversation or a part of a conversation, not an entire.

Elizabeth Cook (36:29)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah (36:44)
series of sessions, right, which is fundamentally different. And so then my approach to this is kind of having to shift a little bit.

Elizabeth Cook (36:48)
Mm-hmm.

I am so glad you mentioned decision-making, because I think you’re exactly right. That is really where we see values in action. And I hadn’t really realized this, so you said it, but when I first started coaching people around career change, I would dive into values a lot in the beginning, because I just felt like that was really important to explore in order to figure out.

the next step. And what I now do, sometimes we would kind of get lost there, is I’ll touch on it in the beginning because it just usually comes up in the very first conversation, even if they’re not calling it values, I’m hearing hints of that in terms of what what’s motivating them. But when we get to decision making, I think part of my role as a coach is

reflecting what I’m hearing them say and what they said before and not that like again you’re always allowed to change your mind but I often find myself at that stage you know several sessions in once we’re in decision making where like for example in the first session someone might have said

I prioritize money all the way up to this point. Now I want to prioritize meaning. Money is not even the top five priorities for this next role. Then we get to decision making. And there’s an option that meets all of their criteria. But it’s like 20%, 25 % pay cut. And they’re like, OK, yeah, but that job doesn’t pay enough.

And I’m like, okay, so let’s just review what your goals were. I of course, the decision is always yours. Just when we first talked about this, one of your motivators was that you wanted more meaning. How is that feeling now? What’s the trade off here? And sometimes, sometimes people are like, yes, it’s just that is a that’s a transition to of their values, you know, in terms of

There can be some wobbling as you’re stepping into it. And sometimes it’s, well, once I get into it, that’s not actually what I want. So that is where it comes up, is in the decision making.

Hannah (39:18)
Yeah, so do you find that like then doing values work a little too early? Like that kind of gets you into that. That’s what you’re saying. Like, so how do you, how do you approach it now that with, you know, with that?

Elizabeth Cook (39:25)
Yeah.

Yeah,

now I mean, we definitely touch on it early on in terms of, you know, why what are you hoping to get out of this change? What’s driving it? So it comes it surfaces in those conversations, but I’m not directly going as deep into it early on because I find that it’s it’s just more productive when it’s coming up in a decision.

because that’s where it shows. And then we’re going into it deeper.

Hannah (40:07)
That makes sense. It comes up a little bit more naturally organically, you know, from where they’re coming from and then you dive in kind of whenever that happens.

Elizabeth Cook (40:10)
Yes.

I mean, I’m listening for it in every single conversation. So I’m like accumulating that. But in terms of explicitly, it comes up more in the decision making.

Hannah (40:30)
Awesome. Awesome.

Okay, so I have just before we wrap up, I’d love to shift a little bit from kind of strategy and the tactics of what we’ve been discussing to alignment for a moment. And so I have three questions that I like to ask every guest, speaking of values. What’s one value of yours that shapes how you make decisions?

Elizabeth Cook (40:53)
Mmm.

I would say growth. And for me, that often looks like kind of the opposite of safety or stability or how it feels like how it shows up for me in decision making. Because I’m naturally a pretty risk averse person. And yet I really value growth and just really

believe in embracing growth. so as I’m facing a decision and it feels like it’s a, this is the safe choice, but this is the choice that’s gonna allow me to grow. I really want to lean into the growth.

Hannah (41:38)
I love that. And that resonates with me personally. You know, as someone who’s been like, could be a little too sensible sometimes.

Okay, second question. Can you share something in your life or career that changed once you aligned it more closely with your values?

Elizabeth Cook (41:54)
Hmm, something that changed when I aligned it more closely with my values.

I would probably say the one that’s coming up is when I decided to leave employment and become self-employed. It was my oldest daughter had just left for college and I had two more at home who were freshmen. So I could just, the clock was ticking and I was in a role that

I didn’t have a lot of flexibility in terms of timing, like having to be there. And I could just see how I could do this same role from my home and from like the function of the job didn’t require me to be at a certain place in certain hours, but just the nature of where I worked did. And so I just…

wanted to have more time freedom and not to be working less necessarily, but to be able to have more control over when and where I worked, especially thinking of knowing that in just a couple years, all three of my girls are going to be out in the world and I wanted to be able to visit them and be more location independent.

So that was really my core driver of how can I do similar work at work. I wasn’t trying to work less. I just wanted to be able to have more choice over where and when.

Hannah (43:33)
Yeah, I love that. And it’s so, again, relatable. it’s a big, but that’s a big shift, right? Going from an employee to self-employed, right? It’s huge.

Elizabeth Cook (43:42)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes, now I was able to what kind of helped me get off that edge of the safety versus growth is I had a conversation with my employer who was willing to hire me as a contractor for the first year in that role. So I was able to have a little bit of both the security. But as a contractor, I could do it at home. I could come and go. I could set my own hours. and then I added clients from there. But that made it a lot.

easier for me to bridge into that.

Hannah (44:15)
That’s fantastic. And again, like kind of comes back to that earlier conversation we were talking about, just like being able to have sometimes conversations, know, think crafted yourself a whole new, whole new company. Okay, so last question. What’s one thing that you’re currently experimenting with or maybe just reconsidering in your own life or work?

Elizabeth Cook (44:23)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Ah, yes. So this one really relates to job crafting. and it’s brand new. I have been coaching the career space for several years, all industries, all ages, like literally last year, I had someone who was 24 and someone who was 74. And that’s part of that is, you know, when you’re coaching around career change, it’s kind of hard to

pick an industry because do you pick the industry they’re starting from or the industry they’re going to? But I have learned about one thing I really know about myself and this comes from a lot of awareness but also a lot of strengths assessments. I am someone who really likes to

dive deep to develop an expertise in an area. I’m not someone who’s like gonna wing it and having, know, I have last week, I had a week where I had.

when I looked at my calendar, clients in all different industries. And when I’m exploring career change with someone, part of my process is doing career mapping. And I love the research. So I research along with them. And in terms of alternative careers based on their skill sets, companies, you know, in those fields, people they could connect with to look at their LinkedIn profile. So

While I love learning about all these different things, when it’s too many in one week, it’s just it’s harder for me to feel like I’m getting traction and finding my footing. So I really am exploring, specializing by industry

or at least like core skills ⁓ so that even if people are pivoting kind of within using those most people I work with we’re pivoting based on their core skills. They’re not like totally learning something brand new. So it makes sense to kind of cluster around a skill set.

Hannah (46:44)
That’s awesome. Good luck with that. Niching is such You know, I get it.

Elizabeth Cook (46:51)
Yes.

Hannah (46:53)
⁓

Well, thank you. I know we’re just about out of time, but thank you so much, Elizabeth. Really appreciate you joining, sharing your insights. ⁓ For listeners who want to follow your work or maybe connect with you, where can they find you?

Elizabeth Cook (47:08)
Yes, so I am super active on LinkedIn. So I’d love for anyone to connect with me there. Say you heard me on this podcast. My website is Elizabeth Cook Consulting, but I’m not as active updating that. But LinkedIn, I’m there every single day and post several times a week sharing resources. So that would be the best place to connect.

Hannah (47:32)
Fantastic. And I’ll be sure to include links to all of that in the episode notes. But that’s Elizabeth and then Cook. C-O-O-K. No E. Correct. Okay. Good.

Elizabeth Cook (47:40)
Correct. Correct.

Okay.

Hannah (47:45)
That was Elizabeth Cook sharing her take on how workers can approach their own career development. I really appreciated how right at the start of the conversation, Elizabeth gave us a reframe. So if we take a step back from the topic of career development, she pointed out that employees may often not be thinking about their challenges in terms of career development. They’re just challenges maybe that they’re struggling with.

And I think this is a really useful reminder for folks in organizations who think about career and workforce development a lot. That might be, know, HR folks, learning and development folks, just leaders who are conscientious about the development of their people. That the entry point for these discussions, for navigating

Career development and growth opportunities finding those paths. The entry point is often somewhere else.

Some of the other highlights of this episode for me included one, that the idea that the key to navigating uncertainty and to creating agency is self-awareness. This idea came up several times during our discussion and we even got into discussing some tools and exercises that can help individuals who are interested in

developing more self-awareness. Also, I really appreciated the acknowledgement and discussion of the need for bandwidth, you know, in order to often do this work of reflection or development, specifically the mental and emotional bandwidth, and that sometimes…

it’s necessary to create that space as a first step before diving in. And I just think that that’s a really, both of these are just really practical insights.

There are also a few ideas that I’m adding to my own lab notes this week to explore more deeply at The Alignment Lab. And the first is the way we are thinking about careers.

is facing another shift as we navigate a new era, what some people are calling the fifth industrial revolution.

And orientation towards careers is something that I spoke about during the first episode introducing this topic. And I held up from really discussing our current era, our transitioning era, because I didn’t want to fall down a deep rabbit hole and just digress.

about talking about that, but this period of transition that we’re all in and the uncertainty that comes with it carries a lot of impacts. And that includes impacting the way we approach our careers.

Second, job crafting. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. ⁓ I have used it a lot in my own personal career journey. the fact that Elizabeth,

includes this in her approach to coaching was something actually that brought her to my attention in the first place.

I do think there’s room for more exploration of job crafting and the implications of leveraging it that we could delve into, especially where it relates to personal ownership and agency and adaptability.

Third, the intention of this episode was self-led career development, but there was also lot of information about the process of coaching, which occurs to me, could be useful for both people who aren’t familiar with coaching, as well as for coaches who are interested in the perspective of other

Elizabeth shared a lot of insights for how she approaches this process as a partner.

So if you would like to hear a deeper dive into any of these, please let me know. You can reach out via the message form at alignmentlab.online or send me a message directly. I’m currently planning some solo exploratory episodes for next month.

And

If this conversation sparked something for you or reminded you of an experience you have navigated, please share it with someone you know, perhaps someone who experienced those waters with you. And please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I would really appreciate that. And I think you will too.

Until next time, stay curious.