I’m Renaming One of My Pivot Types: From Pivot in Progress to Experimenter

Last October, I wrote a piece called Cocooning or Leaping: Two Ways to Navigate Career Transition. I contrasted Resetters, who often step back and create space to reflect, with what I was then calling Pivoters in Progress.

Here is how I described that second group: “They experiment, test ideas, and learn on the go.” I didn't realize it at the time, but the better name was already sitting there in the definition.

Experimenters.

As I've continued my research and approached 100 interviews, I've become increasingly uncomfortable with Pivot in Progress as a Pivot Type. Everyone navigating a transition is, at some point, in progress. It describes a stage, not necessarily an orientation toward redirection.

What distinguished the people I had put in this group wasn't simply that they hadn't landed yet. It was what they were doing while they hadn't landed.

They experimented. They tried consulting. Took on projects. Explored different kinds of work. Learned new things. Talked to people. Tested ideas. Sometimes pursued several possibilities at once. Rather than waiting for clarity and then acting, they often acted their way toward clarity.

That's different from the Resetter, who deliberately creates space and spends time in reflection as they decide what comes next. And it's different from the Pivoter, who has redirected their skills and expertise into a new context, such as those moving from practitioner to vendor or vice versa.

So I'm changing my framework.

Pivot in Progress is becoming Experimenter.

Not because the original idea was wrong. In fact, when I reread what I wrote last October, I think the underlying insight was right. The label wasn't.

And perhaps that's fitting for research about redirection. The framework needs to be allowed to redirect, too.