"La reingeniería de tu carrera" | Magali Bejar | TEDxBarrioSanNicolasSalon

Quick Overview

The speaker advocates for a career "reengineering" approach based on continuous iteration, contrasting it with the outdated, linear career ladder inspired by Frederick Taylor's early 20th-century efficiency models, urging the audience to embrace curiosity, focus, and courage to navigate modern, non-linear career paths.

Key Points: The traditional linear career ladder, rooted in Frederick Taylor's 1911 efficiency principles, is obsolete because over 20% of jobs will be destroyed or transformed by 2030 due to technological and energy efficiency changes. The speaker, a Systems Engineer and Product Manager, personally experienced career pivots, changing roles and companies multiple times, showing that careers are not linear. The speaker proposes a career evolution formula: Evolution = (Curiosity + Focus + Courage)^Iteration, emphasizing continuous learning and adaptation. The speaker cites examples like James Dyson, who created 5,127 prototypes before succeeding, and the initial negative reaction to the first Toy Story draft, illustrating the necessity of iteration over immediate perfection. Fear of failure is invisible; people often quit or stay stagnant because they fear the unknown, not because they failed previously. The key is to focus on pursuing curiosity and courage through continuous iteration, rather than seeking certainty, as career paths are now characterized by jumps and pauses, not straight lines.

Context: Magalí Béjar presents at TEDxBarrioSanNicolásSalón on the topic of 'The Reengineering of Your Career,' arguing that the modern professional landscape demands a shift away from rigid, linear career progression towards an iterative model. She draws parallels between product development cycles (Design, Prototype, Test & Evaluate, Learn) and personal career development, using historical context like early industrial efficiency models and modern tech examples to support her call for continuous adaptation.

Detailed Analysis

Magalí Béjar challenges the audience to reengineer their careers by abandoning the outdated linear model established by Frederick Taylor in 1911, where every worker had a super-specific role, noting that by 2030, over 20% of jobs will be destroyed or transformed. She highlights that career paths today are non-linear, full of jumps and pauses, citing her own experience of multiple role and company changes. She introduces a formula for career evolution: Evolution = (Curiosity + Focus + Courage)^Iteration, suggesting that iteration is the multiplier for success. Béjar uses the example of James Dyson, who created 5,127 prototypes before finding success with his vacuum, and the initial rejection of the first Toy Story script, to demonstrate that failure is inherent in iteration and should not stop the process. She notes that fear of failure is often invisible, leading people to stick to old paths because they fear trying something new. The speaker concludes by urging the audience to embrace their innate curiosity, maintain focus, and commit to continuous iteration, acknowledging that this process takes time and is not an overnight switch.