Abstract

This study explored midlife career transition through facilitated dialogues. Transition seekers were interviewed to elicit systemic influences that shaped their career paths, instructed on active listening, then engaged in co-interviewing relatable completers. To capture changes in thinking, all participants wrote Future Career Autobiographies before and after interviews. Their career stories and dialogues were drafted as rich case studies, coded for concepts, then explained as evolving activity systems to highlight their changing strategies over time. In dialogues, participants who disclosed career dilemmas and related to each other had more interactions and problem-solving. Those who shared emotional losses had more relating, empathy and laughter. Without such experiences, seekers relied on probing, labelling and asking for negative stories. Completers expanded their roles with empathy, explaining, problem-solving and offering further contact. Seekers and completers who shared emotional stories became more confident or reconsidered their futures. Overall, participants shifted from passive desires for harmony to wanting colleagues for career help. They expressed new options for learning, collaboration, and kinds of work, and insights about self-blame, force-fitting, trust, building on the past, and talking with others. Participants had sought career change when they lacked balance between meeting needs versus working for others. Male seekers sought sensations and identity. Female completers sought to care for others and themselves. Career dissatisfaction related to exclusion; defining work narrowly in terms of tasks; passively relying on others for opportunities; expecting to trust or be trusted without evidence; acting without exploring widely or monitoring for changing circumstances; interpreting challenges as lack of belonging; and submitting to circumstances and the priorities of others. In contrast, career satisfaction related to belonging; performing according to personal values; and feeling encouragement despite anxiety. Satisfying transitions used training to combine enjoyed skills with a long-term interest, or experiences with a pressing problem. Helpful strategies included broadening scope to create opportunities and expand responsibility; surveying contacts to enter desired roles and overcome rejections; engaging with chance to create connections, explore options, practise skills and demonstrate ability; embracing personal development to overcome challenges; and pursuing change purposefully according to values. Guidance provided to conduct and analyze such dialogues.