How I Got Hired

138: Gianpiero Petriglieri: From Psychiatry to Executive Education, Exploring Leadership, Vulnerability, and Career Transformation

• Sonal Bahl

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Join us for an insightful conversation with the esteemed Gianpiero Petriglieri, fondly known as GP, as he shares his remarkable journey from a doctor in psychiatry to a leading figure in executive education. GP, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, unravels his career transitions with humility and captivating storytelling. His transformation highlights the unexpected links between mental health and workplace dynamics, offering listeners a perspective on how leadership shapes our professional environments and our sense of belonging.

Throughout our discussion, GP and I reflect on the universal quest for meaning in our work lives, emphasizing the significance of shaping our environments and personal narratives. We delve into the serendipitous nature of career paths, the role of influential mentors, and the courage needed to break away from conventional career expectations. GP's journey, from training at the Tavistock Institute to teaching at prestigious institutions, is a testament to embracing vulnerability and the power of community support in finding one's niche.

The episode wraps up with a thoughtful exploration of what constitutes a "dream career," challenging the notion by acknowledging every job's inherent challenges. Through anecdotes, GP and I discuss the value of taking risks and the importance of emotional and social resources in navigating unique career paths. Whether you're considering a career pivot or seeking a sense of agency in your current role, this episode offers a rich tapestry of insights and stories that encourage embracing the unexpected and finding fulfillment in your professional journey.

Learn more about GP:
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpetriglieri/
On the INSEAD Website: https://www.insead.edu/faculty/gianpiero-petriglieri
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Sonal :

Hey there, welcome to the how I Got Hired podcast. I'm your host, sonal Bahl, former HR director, founder of Supercharge and corporate survivor of an epic career roller coaster that started out in India, zipped through South America and landed in Europe, and it's been such a wild ride navigating visa, sponsorships, layoffs, recessions, all while working in Spanish and French, which I learned on the fly somehow, raising two kids somehow, and sometimes just trying to remember where I parked my car. Now, as a career strategist, I believe a fulfilling career isn't just for those with Ivy League degrees or fancy connections. No, it's a right we all deserve. That's why I'm here to bring you top tier career advice through coaching courses and this very podcast where we meet ordinary people like you and me who share extraordinary stories of career success, to prove that if they can do it, you can do it too. So buckle up and get ready to get supercharged. Hey, welcome back.

Sonal :

Today I have Gianpiero Petriglieri on the show, so what I'm going to do is first introduce him and then share the backstory and, fair warning, this is going to get quite personal. So Gianpiero, or GP, is Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, which has the second best MBA program in the world, by the way, where he directs the Management Acceleration Program, which is the school's flagship executive program for emerging leaders. He has also served in the past as vice chair of the World Economic Forum on new models of leadership and also taught at HBS, harvard Business School and IMD Switzerland and IMD Switzerland. So, before executive education, gp taught OB1, organizational Behavior 1 core course in the INSEAD MBA for five years, where he won the student's Outstanding Teacher Award and Dean's Commendation for Teaching Excellence. So this is where I first came in contact with GP. He was my OB1 professor during the MBA program back in 2008.

Sonal :

Now I've been open about this in the past the fact that the one year that I pursued this MBA was hard. It was freaking hard. Okay, I struggled a lot, both academically and even physically, because I was time poor. I had a newborn baby that I was still nursing and it was a lot, and I completely felt like a fish out of water. The one respite, however, that I used to look forward to during the first two months of core courses was GP's class. He somehow made me, and so many of us, feel smart, confident, and he made me feel like I belonged, something that I used to question every single day, and I still remember when his class wrapped up and he was done right, it was the end of the trimester. It was like, I think, the last Thursday of October 2008. Everyone went to the front of the class to shake his hand and thank him, and so did I, and when my turn came, to my horror, I felt tears rolling out of my eyes and I started sobbing like a baby. This is very unlike me, and now, looking back, I realized I must have been so hormonal, but also I was really, really sad.

Sonal :

I have followed GP's career since then and, oh my gosh, this conversation is so good, so good. You've got to understand this. Gp is a rock star, so when he's giving a talk I want you to visualize this. It is hard to find forget sitting like a seat. It's hard to find standing room. So to hear him speak with humility with me on this show, where we talked about career pivots, like moving from medicine to education, and how he got hired at NCI which is a story in itself, by the way, it was full of like. It sounded like a complete roller coaster to me. This is such a treat, honestly, and this is a slightly longer episode, so I am going to be dividing it into two parts. Okay, I'm done gushing, let's get started with part one. Parts Okay, I'm done gushing, let's get started with part one. Oh my god, the excitement is palpable. You can detect it in my voice, and my guest is trying not to laugh. So I have Giapiero here on the show. Giapiero, welcome to how I Got Hired.

GP:

Great to be here. Thank you for having me. So now I've been waiting. I mean, I follow the show all the time and I know I have to beg to be brought in, but I'm glad you said yes finally.

Sonal :

Oh my gosh, the pleasure is all mine. So GP, GP, can we say GP?

GP:

We go, of course we do GP.

Sonal :

I'm let's. I'm sounding like julie andrews and sound of music. Let's start at the very beginning, because I love retracing careers, especially now that you have the gift of time and hindsight right. So you were like the serious medicine guy in the 1990s and you were studying medicine and and, according to your LinkedIn profile, which I kind of stalked a lot the last few days, you branched out specifically into psychiatry and psychotherapy. I love learning about like the motivations behind these moves, because some of us are reinventing our careers or some of us are going through this journey with our kids. So I would love to know your motivations motivations I have a two-parter here behind these moves and the second part is that kid I want to say kid because we're kids in our 20s still right, if that we still have gp.

Sonal :

I still are, if that gp in his 20s somewhere yeah, exactly, if he could see you today, what would he say to you?

GP:

so yeah, um, that kid was, would have been a bit arrogant and insecure, which two things usually go together. So he probably would have made some joke, saying something like oh, you know, you stayed, you stayed, you're fairly fit for an old man, or something like that. And but he would have also said, wow, I couldn't even imagine that a life of this would exist, and certainly would exist for me, exist and certainly would exist for me. And so you'll be probably a little bit puzzled, impressed and, most of all, relieved, honestly, most of all relieved. All that worrying about am I going to be okay, what's going to happen and when is it going to happen. You know all that angst, that intense angst that you know, you and I know we work with people who go through it, but, god, I felt it all. I felt it all.

Sonal :

Can we stay here? Can you tell us more about that, because I think a lot of us can relate with it, but not a lot of us talk about it. Can you tell?

GP:

us more about that angst. Was it self-inflicted? Coming from outside, what was happening? I think the angst has always been a part of who I am. I mean, long before I was a kid, that was very, very reflective and very sensitive.

GP:

These days we have names and labels for these things, but I thought a lot from a very early age about things like I remember sitting in my bed thinking would it be better to be a rock, like that lasts a long time but doesn't feel anything, or to be a person where you have all these feelings and experiences and you can move around, but then you don't last very long and then you die. And so there was this existential part of me. I mean, I have thoughts about where it comes from, but they're they go into very personal, you know, but just this sense of precariousness and, um, and I had ambition and uh, you know, that combination of ambition and precariousness which, ironically, has become, you know, the center of pretty much everything I do, is something that I didn't. You know me, I'm not one of those academics that kind of looks at the world at arm's length, trying to be objective, and you know, I study and teach stuff that I've experienced. And so that combination of ambition, ambition for myself, ambition to do something good, and precariousness and sense of. You know, you have lots of dreams and lots of fears and and so you know, I would feel, I think the GP at 20, especially the GP at 24 to 28, which is when I was going through my psychiatric training, and it was perhaps one of the most difficult times I had.

GP:

It was really the beginning of my reorientation towards what I do now. I think the GP at that time would be immensely relieved that I have found my place, that I found my, as we say in France, my métier and I have a family, and that I have a life in which I can live inside my own skin and think my own thought and be with my people and, um, oh my gosh, I've got goosebumps.

Sonal :

I've got goosebumps. Listening to you all.

GP:

That felt like um, all that felt like a really long shot. I I felt like a misfit. I always felt like a misfit. I'm a big friend of the misfits. I now realize being a misfit is good for you, um, but it's not fun sometimes. No, it's not fun sometimes yeah you know when you look

GP:

when you look back, it's great and I'm not gonna romanticize it. I'm not gonna romanticize the angst, the anxiety, and want to do something different. But what if I do something different? What happens? And the worry, the worry my parents had, like, oh, you know, you're done all this stuff and now you're doing this other thing, and what is that about? And and the worries I had, you know that I projected onto everyone else yeah, my gosh.

Sonal :

Um, yeah, it sounds. When you said I wonder what it's like to be a rock, I thought you were gonna say star, rock, star. But you were really serious a cliff.

GP:

I know I grew up. I grew up between the volcano and the sea and that place, between this kind of very uncontrollable, beautiful elemental forces of nature. You know, so you're talking metaphorically and figuratively.

GP:

Figuratively I mean I grew up in sicily, between etna and the sea, literally. Wow, you know, and I could you know, from the, from the balcony of my parents' home, you can see both and, uh, and I could see both and, so and, and the sea is pretty, it's not. Beach is very ragged, you know. So I would, you know, see these cliffs hit by the waves. And there was something, metaphorically, there was something admirable for me, who was so insecure and I was so sensitive about what everyone thought and what everyone said, to see a cliff that's hit by these massive waves and doesn't move. And and yet I, even as a child, I realized that's really there's something wrong there, which is you're stuck, you know, and I think I was trying to rescue the value of my sensitivity, of my, you know, and trying to turn emotionality into mobility, which is, you know, sort of, I think, a lifelong journey for me but also, I think, for many other people. But anyway, you know, you wanted kind of I think I'm giving you the existential kind of intrapersonal thing, but the truth is I loved medicine, I adored medicine and I'm still a clinician at heart.

GP:

Nothing has changed, you know, the way of thinking, the way of understanding. You know, medicine seems so scientific but it's also so poetic, is so intuitive, and what it gave me was a scaffolding to kind of manage my intuition and a discipline a discipline to think about your intuition and prove them and disprove them, and always remember that you have theories, that you have knowledge, but then there's a body in front of you and and and a professional is always caught in the space between a body of theory and the body of an actual person. Um, and I, and all that I learned in in medical school. Then I went into psychiatry because I thought I would push the poetics and and honestly, I I did not enjoy that. I was, that was my most unhappy time, and why?

Sonal :

why is that?

GP:

because I thought it was, um, I had gone in as many people do you know, I mean, I guess this is really your field. I went in with an idealized version of what psychiatry was. I thought it would be like all psychoanalytic, psychotherapy, psychology, and it was hyper biological and very deterministic, and so it was really quite disjointed from from sort of my dreams. And so I did a lot of that stuff on the side. I was training in psychotherapy or doing a lot of workshop, I was doing my own um, I was doing my own work and uh, and all that.

GP:

And of course, in in Italy there was this um, there's this big traditional I call systemic psychotherapy, trying to understand how the way people feel, uh, is not just about what happens inside them but it's about what happens around them. And one of the things that I became interested in is we were speaking a lot in my training about, um, families of origin, right, and then romantic relationships and all the kind of stuff, and it seemed to me that we weren't talking about work, um, and it was obvious that I saw lots of people that, actually, whose mental health deteriorated dramatically because of what was happening at work, and I also saw people that seemed to struggle and suddenly they had a good spell at work. And I also saw people that seem to struggle and suddenly they had a good spell at work and their mental health increase. And so you know, I guess I'm not sure if you're going to ask me. People ask me all the time why did you switch? Why did you because it looks such a dramatic career change?

Sonal :

it does, it does. I just want you to pause for a sec because I don't want to quickly double click on one thing. You're such a a poet here, gp. I wanted to. This was the. I loved medicine. It was the scaffolding to manage my thinking. That is so beautiful and so poetic. I'm going to steal that and I think my listeners are going to steal that as well. That is such a nice way of describing either a body of work, thing you thought, practice, whatever the scaffolding, it just so visual. You know the way you, the way you explained it. So, um, yes, indeed, um, it was going to be my next question because you, um, you know, after uh, pursuing, you said, in your mid to late 20s, psychiatry, you worked at imd, copenhagen business school and then ITSEAD, and I want to hear more about this switch that you made, which, to the outside world, you know, people must have had opinions, right, I'm sure, your family, your friends and tell us what was going on in your head.

GP:

So let's start with the hindsight and then we do it progressively. Okay, so in hindsight you know I always make the joke. Maybe you've heard me make it like oh, you know I, you know I, I I found it was so difficult to move from a psychiatric hospital to a business school. Ha ha, ha, um, but the truth is I don't never feel I switched. I never feel I switched. Look, I was interested.

GP:

Then I became interested in my training, in the idea that work can basically rip us apart or it can hold us together and make us grow. And I'm still at it. Yes, I'm still trying to understand how people break or become whole at work, in the workplace. And the reason why I'm so interested in leadership is because I think leadership is a key factor in making workplaces more whole or more fragmenting. And I also think leadership is a word people use for their aspiration to live in the world in a certain way, A way in which we are not just objects of systems but we are agents in systems. We are not just products but we are shapers of the world around us.

GP:

And I think that's a fundamental psychological need, the sense that think. That's a fundamental psychological need, the sense that we might not be entirely able to. We're not omnipotent, we can't completely determine our life and shape our surroundings but at least write a few sentences in our story, have a saying what happens around us, that that ability to determine our journey, to build the space we live in, um which I think we in business we call leadership. But it's a much more fundamental psychological impulse. So I was always interested in that and maybe I was interested in that for myself, you know, because I was finding a while. I think I was. You know. I said you're making me think, you know, because I was finding a way. I think I was you know, I said you're making me think you know what.

GP:

it's funny. You make me realize you know, there's two things. I study how people find their way as they move around and now they kind of find a place, find a home, and I think it's because I was trying to find my way, I was trying to find a home and it took a long time and, yes, people. So you know, first of all, I mean I accept to come on your podcast, okay, because it's you, but I generally refuse to speak about careers because I feel I'm the last person I can give advice to anyone. I have no, I have no, I have no career plan. I freaked out for the most of the time I'm still kind of, you know, teetering on the edge, and and you know these people that say, well, you know, in five years I never had that. So here's what happened. I have one skill I am good at attaching to people that I find have something that can open a door, and I don't mean instrumentally, I mean intellectually, I mean emotionally. So here's what happens I'm doing some psychiatric training and one of my sort of psychotherapy.

GP:

The people I've met doing psychotherapy you know supervisors on the side is starting to work at IMD. So he says oh, you know, there's a colleague of mine there. His name was George Colerison, amazing, amazing professor and a clinical psychologist and professor at IMD. At the time he wasn't yet but he was doing, he was doing his transition. And so it's like oh, you know, there's someone that is a colleague of mine who was actually training in psychoanalysis and he's looking for clinicians because he was, you know, late 90s, early 2000 he was the explosion of coaching and so they were like they were looking for some people who had a clinical background so that we can look up. You know, everyone is a coach, but what's the line between coaching and psychotherapy? So I go there and meet this person jack wood, incredible, and I can still.

GP:

I can still picture it this 25 years ago in um, in a couple of months it's 99. You know he invites me for a couple of days to observe a course he's doing for um, for a company. It's the south of sweden and um, you know, he makes it his business to kind of take me for a long walk and we're sitting in this little harbor overlooking the sea yet again, you know this unknown, scary, inviting, and he's just telling me all about what he does and people in business and the kind of fact that people think people come to business school, just, you know, to make more money, but it isn't like that. People come to find themselves and kind of you know move towards. Coaching is really kind of a beginning of a recognition that there's there's more aspects to work than just the pursuit of efficiency. And I was like I, I don't know I understood anything honestly, but I just like felt I want, I want more of this.

Sonal :

I'm going to have what he's having. Yeah, I'm'm gonna have what he's having yeah, I'm gonna have what he's having.

GP:

I'm gonna have what he's having. He was, um, he was thoughtful, he was deep, he was smart, he was cool. He wasn't perfect, um, and there was, um, there was an emotional honesty that I aspire to, that I didn't have. And so, and I could tell you the first conversation of George, the conversation of Jack, and then so I started doing this half time and half time and for a long time. First I was kind of going back and forth between Switzerland and Italy, then I went to Switzerland for six months, then I went to Switzerland for a year, then I stayed on a stay another year, and meanwhile I needed more training. So I started going to the Tavistock Institute learning more systematically about organizational consultation, because I continue to have this idea and actually I've already changed my mind. I was wrong. It wasn't a scaffolding, it was a backbone. I think you know that it was a scaffold at the beginning. I I think academic training is a scaffold when you begin in a role, but then slowly it becomes a backbone. It's less something that protects you from the world, but something that holds you up while it allows your skin to encounters the world, and so that's, you know, that's the whole process in which I was training more.

GP:

I was going to the Tavistock. I was doing every kind of group dynamics work as a participant that I could get my hands. I wanted to experience what I was supposed to be doing and we were doing some cool stuff. We were doing some interesting coaching and I was starting to write and um, and so I was having a great time. I was a freelancer. I was a freelancer, I was economically, I was making enough money, but I was completely outside. Everything I knew and at the time it was fine because I needed to break from the culture in which I grew up, which is a steady job in an organization was everything was so important, and so I was really making a break from my, the world of my family, the world of my, you know, my culture. And, yes, everyone was like what are you doing? You know I was, I was learning, I was growing, I was branching out pretty much everything that I do. Now.

GP:

The seeds were all born in those five years. There's, there's really I don't know if I've had that thought since an original. I know I've had a few, but they're all, they're all sprouts, they're all sprouted, those seeds. But, yeah, my parents I mean my parents, bless them, they, they say that um, occasionally, but they're clearly distraught. I mean, I trained for 10 years and then I walked away and at the beginning, the first six months, first year, oh yeah, he's doing some kind of micro. There's all these words, words like a micro-specialization is learning about work psychology. But by year three it's not going back and there's no clear way going forward. Because I'm starting to want to teach. But so people in the clinical world are starting to say, well, this guy clearly left, he wants to do something else. You know, um, um, farewell.

GP:

But people in the business world remember we're talking about 2001, 2002, 2003. And, yes, this graduate from the university of catania, immensely proud, but you know it's not really. You know one of the names people are used to in top business schools and a graduate in what, oh, in medicine, as a psychiatrist, right. And you know this is pre the financial crisis. This is it's. It's difficult to imagine what it was like before people became so interested in all about the human, the spirit or work, now, the financial times, as a section of mental health in the workplace. This is not 2003.

GP:

Okay, in 2003 I'm lying in bed, having this dream that I'm on a train and someone abroad and I'm going to work somewhere which I always did, and I have my backpack, and my backpack has everything I used for work, like my laptop, my passport, and it gets stolen and I have no documents and I have nothing.

GP:

And I would wake up in absolute drenches of sweat. And I remember, you know, being in analysis at the times, but psychoanalysis as part of my training, as part of my growth, and we used to call it the lost backpack dream and the sense that, um, you know, and that's that's, that's how I felt. Yeah, I was just out there, on my own, on this journey, and this is why it's so useful to have coaching, to have therapy, to have any kind of systematic support, and it really took help and I was fortunate because I had a lot of help, I had colleagues, I had professional support to realize I needed to have that dream. I needed to let go of my baggage and see who was I before I was a medical graduate, before I was a psychiatrist, before I was. All these things that I, you know, I, I was taught made you a good person before I was a role.

GP:

You know, what did? What do I think about, what do I care about, what would I like to do? And I really like to do this and I really like to do this kind of coaching, consulting, teaching about the human aspect of the workplace. I realized this is really my niche. But people are looking at me and saying, but that's not, you don't really fit what template or what we have. So, in fact, at the time I applied at some point I applied for a job, um at IMD and I remember getting the feedback that you know people would like, really like, what you're doing, really thoughtful, really smart, but we don't think you're good enough to stand in a classroom ouch imagine that.

GP:

Oh, now we laugh about it what were they thinking? I wasn't I was, they were. They were thinking the truth, I wasn't based on their.

Sonal :

I was not. I was not.

GP:

I was not. I didn't have enough experience. I was trying to straddle too big a gap. I was too ambitious, too deluded about my skills. I had friends who supported me and therefore kind of saw the best in me. I didn't have enough experience. And so, you know, one of my friends said you know, there's um, there's a, maybe there's an opportunity to kind of go and teach elsewhere. And I, in Copenhagen Business School, was starting this MBA in English, and someone who this friend and colleague of mine and co-author, jack, knew was there, and so I started teaching there.

GP:

You know, I'm really breaking my bone and this is I've never. I've never. I don't think I've ever spoken about this in, in a, in a kind of uh, please tell us, do you know how GP was started? No, so, until I was um, until 2004,. You know, of course, I was working international, internationally and um, I never called myself GP, but everyone and these were the days when people were less sensitive about pronunciation and all that so all my Anglo-Saxon colleagues are like oh, giampiero Petrigliari, what's GP? You know, we'll call you GP. And I resented it. And I resented like you know, look, I can learn to say you know, oswald, why can't you learn to say Jumpeiro but?

Sonal :

fine, yeah, that's my identity, that's my identity and so I resented it.

GP:

And then I am at CBS and it's the opening of the first MBA class I'm ever going to teach there. And I remember, you know, we're all kind of brought there and there's a bunch of professors being introduced and the students are there and, um, you know, I get called to the front and there's this lineup and, um, I'm younger than probably half of the students, probably three quarters of the students at best, at best. Yeah, I mean like I'm um at best, I am um at best. I am 10 years younger than the youngest other person on that lineup. Everyone knows each other, right, I'm this person who flies from Switzerland and, you know, is clearly the rookie.

Sonal :

And his name is Giampiero Petri.

GP:

And no, no, no, and we all have to introduce ourselves. And so I find myself saying my name is Giampiero Petri, I go by GP. You said that, Gary. I go by GP. You said that.

GP:

Yes, I did, and I thought about what's that, what's that about? And then I realized shortly after I wanted to take my friends with me. I want to take my friends with me, the people that had helped me, got me there. Maybe they didn't take me seriously, they messed with me, but sometimes people mess with your identity because they imagine you in a way that you cannot yet imagine yourself, and I've learned that that's often what good mentors do. And so, yeah, and ever since I introduced myself, and every time I start a class and I say, oh, my name is Gianpiero Petrugieri, but I go by GP, you know, there's all the people I started with. There's all the people who kind of held me while I was shaky in this transition and kind of opened me while I was shaky in this transition and kind of opened the door to a field and opened the door to an opportunity. And CBS was great, and the CBS times were great and I loved teaching and I did well. And then we started doing more and more and at the time, though, I was really looking at a career. I have lots of work. The problem wasn't a lot of work, but you know what I was also realizing? It was good to about five years of freelancers. That wasn't me.

GP:

I did want to be part of an institution, I did want to be an academic. You know, when you're a freelancer, writing feels like a luxury because you're taking time from work that, you know, is revenue generating, and all of that. And I didn't think I could develop my intellectual agenda in the way I wished outside of an academic institution. So I did want a job and, you know, even if I had a little bit more experience teaching, that doesn't mean that I looked any better. And so, yet again, my friend Jack says you know, we're in Paris, and says, oh, I'm just going to go and have a drink with an old classmate of mine that just moved to Europe and she's working at INSEAD. She's the chair of the organizational behavior area. Why don't you come? And I introduce you. Okay.

GP:

And she's an INSEAD professor. So we go to the Amble, a beautiful, beautiful old restaurant at the top of the Gare de Lyon in Paris, and I meet Herminia Ibarra, who genuinely did imagine me, genuinely did invent me, and she was just, um, you know, certainly the person that opened the door to inset to me and, you know, and, and you know, really helped me. She didn't pave the way, helped me make my own way. Um, and an incredible scenario. We all have role models, an incredible role model of academic leadership sharp, thoughtful, deep, big-hearted. You know this idea that you know you can be very sharp and very embracing. The two things don't go, um, you know, are not, are not incompatible. That's, um, really, where many hours for me? And um, and so we meet and I I think you know I'm trying to say all I want to do and all this, and so she's like, oh, you should come to inset. Uh, you should, we should interview you. And I was like, right there, right there, I send a.

Sonal :

CV. Pause here. Oh my gosh, you have shared so much. First of all, I love the reflection you're having today and how there was a movement. What you thought started out as scaffolding moved to a backbone. Yeah, it's beautiful, it doesn't have to be one thing. You started out, you know, for all of us, when we're thinking like, yeah, it turned out to be the backbone Because, for example, my values, my raison d'etre comes from there and it has never shifted right just like that sort of cliff. The waves keep coming, but I'm still, you know, the back is erect. I love that. I also want to highlight objects when when you said, hey, I want to get into more business, because people get into business school. On the surface it looks like they want to make more money, you know, get more title, all of that worldly stuff which is, you know, which is which is important, which matters. But ultimately you said definitely matters oh yeah.

Sonal :

And then you said we, you know, are we all objects versus agents, products versus shapers? And that part, um, that that really touched me right now and I think that, um, one of the reasons I do what I do. Just on a side note, I think careers are immensely important to our mental health and I think when people are happy at work, I think there's less crime. I don't know if there's research on it, but things just, you know, no one has time to join a criminal gang because they're too busy having fun at work and taking care of their family and like, I don't need to do that. So, which is why I think that, right, yeah, of course, you know, you can argue spirituality and meditation.

GP:

I just think that this route, no, no, I I agree, yeah, yeah, I think careers, I mean my sense of careers and this is, I know, in some way I'm telling you my career, I'm telling you a story. Right, careers are one story of our body in the world, not the only story, but one story, of course. Of course, and and it's a pretty big story, yes, given how much time we spend and how much time we invest, and so if our body is busy living that story, of course it's not going to act out other stories that are incompatible with it, right? Um?

Sonal :

but that's exactly the point when we're living that, that dream, like that dream you had in the train, that your backpack getting stolen, like a lot of us have a dream, like I had a dream when I started work. I was 21, 22 in the early 2000s. My biggest nightmare was showing up to work like naked, like before I got to wear my clothes. Yours is very specific. We all have that. We've all had that right.

GP:

I have that too. Yeah, we've all had that right. I have that too.

Sonal :

I have that too, so yours is a backpack and your passport is gone, your laptop is gone, so you're like undocumented and you're figuring stuff out. And we're going to talk about that because we want to you know what I cherish it.

GP:

Now I cherish it. I go back to that dream. I cherish it because every time I complain it, I complain. It's not every job, a dream job. For me, a dream job is a job you don't have, you know for me a dream job is a job. You don't have Any real job. There's even a job. I love this job.

GP:

Okay, and maybe this is going to sound cynical to you, this is going to be a quite weird turn of GP. Any job, even the best job, as 20 of the stuff that you really kind of allows you to, you know, put, your, put your signature on uh, I love that on on a little piece of art, and 80 is the stuff you have to do for that. 20%, sure, but you know, every time when people say, oh, academia is so political, so difficult, and let's go there, the lost backpack dream, I will take everything. Yeah, the lost backpack dream.

GP:

Everything. Yeah, everything instead of the lost backpack dream.

Sonal :

No, and the sweat.

GP:

I will take all the burden and the complexities and the challenges of institutional life over that. And there's some people that I know, I work with, I love, I respect that say, oh my God, that for me would be. You know, that would shrink my soul.

GP:

Yeah, I really need independence. I have one of my closest friends, or my colleagues here. You know I've been trying a million times to hire him and say come here full time and he prefers not to, and I respect him and he feels like that's the way it is. So I think we all have to find our home, we all have to find out, as we say in France, our terroir, and for some of us it's within an institution and for some of us it's within a portfolio career, within an institution, and for some of us is within a portfolio career. And then you know, that's, that's kind of allows us to not tell but to live the story we are trying to live exactly, and it's a dream but it's a reality it's a reality and it's so personal, right, like you said.

Sonal :

Uh, I'm not the guy to talk about careers. I don't have a five-year plan. I completely love that. I'm not. I don't know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow. When a company says where do you see yourself in five years, I'm like stop, stop. Does the company know where they see themselves? Like, yeah, right. So it's more about you're doing what you enjoy and when you don't enjoy it, what are you doing about it? How you you know so this is this is this is, this is the beauty.

GP:

But this is the thing, yeah, and I find this is the thing that I feel the only way I can make sense of it, because, you know, I'm not, I'm not particularly brave person, I'm an anxious person. But you know, it's interesting that in those moments, if I think of, you know, meeting George and letting him Kind of disorient me, make me do something different, meeting Jack, meeting Romania, there were all moments where you know, I like how you, how you put it, I love what, I love what she's having right, that that I give credit to myself for I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid of falling in love. So now, that's what it is and that I think is one of my core skills. You know, in a classroom, in a piece of research, I'm there and if I see something that I feel is worth it, I'm willing to take a risk, to give it a go. And, yes, I've been hurt.

Sonal :

Sure, that comes with the vulnerability.

GP:

It comes with the territory I've never regret, you know, I don't know that I've ever regretted it and yes, I've been fickle, because that's what happens sometimes. But yeah, so that's how I got invited to interview at INSEAD. I love that and I want to know, you want to know, I want to know more.

Sonal :

I want to know more, but I do also want to say, when you said dream job is the job because I say dream job a lot, I love how you put it it's a job you don't have, or it's a job you've had and you know what it's like to wake up on monday morning and say happy to be alive, as opposed to sunday night. You're shivering and you're like I can't like the thought of monday morning gives me anxiety, right, so, so, so that yeah and and um, I like when you know, when you talked about objects, agents, products, shapers, I think of it as like we're not mere cogs in the wheel, we are actually driving. That, hopefully. And the wheel, yeah, we know we can steer the wheel, literally steering wheel where. I love that because a lot of people think they have no other choice.

GP:

It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of work to to recognize that and, honestly, I think it also takes resources, and not just and I don't mean just financial, practical resources, emotional, social resources social resources.

Sonal :

I completely agree. You don't do this alone we can't go.

GP:

You don't do this alone. I think I isolation is the best friend of the status quo. If you want people to feel they can't do anything different, that they're just coxing the wheel, all you have to do is just isolate them exactly, and this is a team sport, it's not an individual sport, right?

Sonal :

nobody wins if you're playing alone here, so I, I totally get that. I love that Erminia Ibarra is part of this story. I don't know if she's listening. I've had a huge girl crush on her Forever Forever. I was doing my MBA and she was there and we had a chat. She won't remember me. I would love to have her on the show.

GP:

And of course, her work on careers is so seminal she does their. Work on careers is so seminal.

Sonal :

She does, and career change is a big one. I've seen a lot of her videos on YouTube. So you meet her in this beautiful restaurant in Gare de Lyon and he said oh, you must come to INSEAD, so you send your CV. What happens, jibri? Long story short, then what follows is a year and a half where I get invited to interview at INSEAD three times. Did you say a year and a half? Like 18 months Over a year and a half?

GP:

Every six months I get an invitation to interview. I come, I interview and then I get turned down Three times, Like you know. Yeah, you know great, we love you and there's a misconception. So I'm sure you work with a lot of people that kind of say how do I stand out? How do I make them notice me? I had the opposite problem. I stood out too much, I was too different, and the question was how do I fit in, Fit in? So the feedback was always we love what you're doing, You're super interesting. But we have really two kinds of profile. You know, we have this really kind of young academics, pure research focus, coming out of a PhD. You are not that. Or we have this kind of 50-year-olds, you know, people who have finished their executive career. They want to come back and teach. They have a lot of corporate battle scars and you're not that either. So we like you, but there's no, we can't put you in a box.

Sonal :

There's no box for you. Hey, you made it to the end and that means a lot to me because you could have been listening to a bajillion other things, so this likely means you enjoyed the episode. So I recommend that you hit follow on the app you were listening this podcast on and share it with a friend who could use some career inspiration. Come on, sharing is caring, right. Thank you so much for spending time with me today, and catch you next time on how I Got Hired.