Career as anchor

Before setting goals, discover what you don't trade.

What it is

Edgar Schein, MIT professor, spent 40 years tracking careers across decades. He found a pattern: people change roles, functions, cities — but a small set of internal motivations (anchors) doesn't change. Every career choice that conflicts with the anchor ends in discomfort, quick exit, or stagnation. (📖 Career Anchors Reimagined)

The eight anchors

Technical/functional competence · Managerial competence · Autonomy · Security · Entrepreneurship · Service/cause · Pure challenge · Lifestyle. You don't choose one — you discover yours. The original instrument has 40 statements; we run it via chat in 15-20 minutes.

Why start here

Without the anchor, your OKR is a guess. You could spend 3 quarters chasing "become a manager" while being an authentic technician — bad performance and certain unhappiness. The anchor doesn't give the answer, but eliminates the false ones.

Next step

After the anchor, we move to BHAG (10-year vision) and OKR (quarterly execution). The anchor is the one piece that usually doesn't shift — define it once, revisit every 3-5 years.