Unleashing Your Many Identities

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In the era of Web sites and online profiles, more people are describing themselves with a litany of slashes, but in each case it's about what works best with a person's particular mix of slashes.

What ever happened to the conventional wisdom that values specialization and becoming an expert in your career? Why would anyone want to go to a surgeon who has another job on the side?

Slash careers are entirely consistent with developing expertise. In fact, many slash professionals occupy the highest rungs of their various professions. Often they took on a slash at a time in their career when they had the luxury to slow down a bit after putting in their dues in a given field.

And many slashes tell me that having other outlets or areas of focus made them better at their original occupation. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who divides his time between his career as a journalist for CNN (TWX) and his work a surgeon, is arguably seeing a wider world of medicine by traveling the globe as a correspondent than if he never left the confines of his hospital in Atlanta.

You often refer to yourself as a former lawyer. Now that so many people go through career changes, how do prior careers fit in with the whole slash movement?

I rarely encounter someone who has switched careers who didn't carry forward and benefit from the training or perspective that came from the earlier career. The key with "starter careers" is to realize how they can complement or enhance your current career.

We are entering an age where the hybrids will rule the workplace, whether they're called hyphenates, slashes, or some other name. If you're an architect with an MBA, you'll see opportunities in the business side of architecture that few others will see. Careers at the intersections are where innovation is born.

You say throughout your book that slash careers require constant tweaking and reinvention. So what's next for you?

Just a few weeks ago, I started writing the online column, "Shifting Careers" for The New York Times (NYT). Writing a weekly column is quite different, both in pace and in style, from writing a book. So I am embracing being a beginner all over again as I immerse myself in this new kind of writing. I have a feeling my next book idea will come out of that column.

It has been great to interview you! I now realize that I am an executive educator/professor/coach/writer/columnist/Buddhist!

Goldsmith's new book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, was recently listed as America's best-selling business book in The Wall Street Journal. He can be reached at Marshall@MarshallGoldsmith.com, and he provides his articles and videos online at www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com.