The Opt-Out Revolt: Why People Are Leaving Companies to Create Kaleidoscope Careers

Using research both wide and deep, academics Mainiero and Sullivan get to the bottom of people's dissatisfaction with their working lives, and why so many are seeking careers outside of corporate America. For most career people, their perspective will be an eye-opener. The authors find that both men and women, seeking balance, feel trapped by societal and corporate structures and are forced "to make impossible choices between work and family." For cultural, psychological and biological reasons, men end up stuck in "the climb-the-corporate-ladder linear career pattern," and women have trouble finding footing on that ladder. The result: people are "revolting against organizations that don't permit them to be true to themselves or don't provide challenging work," and they are creating their own fulfilling alternatives. Toward book's end, the authors turn prescriptive, urging corporations to reconfigure jobs, to "change how work is designed, developed and distributed across the ranks" and "to allow project work to take place outside the boundaries of the corporate walls." Though its somewhat stiff and detached tone and language may put off some readers, this book makes a valuable contribution to the work/life debate. (Sept.)