Why mastery has to  keep moving

In a long working life, expertise must evolve. Lynda Gratton, Grayson Perry and Herminia Ibarra explore mastery, identity and reinvention.

Lynda Gratton, Herminia Ibarra and Grayson Perry

11 September 20266 minutes

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Two colleagues in white shirts having a conversation by large office windows, one holding a takeaway coffee cup.

In 30 seconds

Mastery is renewal, not arrival: staying effective across a long career requires continued experimentation and development.
Expertise can become a competency trap when rewards for familiar strengths make the cost of becoming a beginner feel too high.
Identity change happens through experiments, relationships and trying out possible selves, rather than through planning alone.

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Host:

Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour, London Business School.

Guests:

Sir Grayson Perry, artist, writer and broadcaster

Herminia Ibarra, Charles Handy Chair in Organisational Behaviour and Professor of Organisational Behaviour, London Business School.

For much of the 20th century, the idea of mastery was reassuringly linear. You chose a field, learned its rules, practised its craft, built a reputation and, with time, became known for doing something well. Mastery was a ladder: climb it for long enough and expertise would follow.

That model is becoming harder to sustain. Longer working lives, shifting technologies and less predictable careers mean that the skills that once made us distinctive can also begin to narrow us. The question is no longer simply, “How do I become excellent at this?” It is also, “When does excellence need to be reworked?”

Lynda Gratton explores the thread of Mastery in this episode of Life Threads Her guests approach the subject from different worlds. Sir Grayson Perry speaks as an artist whose practice spans ceramics, tapestry, broadcasting, performance, writing and public conversation. Professor Herminia Ibarra brings the research lens, drawing on her work on career transitions, leadership and professional identity.

Together, they challenge the idea that mastery is a settled state. For Grayson, craft matters deeply, but only when it serves communication, emotional force and the possibility of surprise. “The mastery is: are you pleased with it?” he says. Even after 40 years, the answer is often “a moment of controlled disappointment”.

That disappointment is not failure. It is part of the work. To remain alive, mastery has to contain awkwardness, risk and the willingness to try something before you can do it well. Grayson’s career is a study in this kind of renewal: the potter who became a broadcaster, the artist who learned to sing, the maker who keeps entering unfamiliar worlds.

Herminia Ibarra describes the same pattern in organisational terms. Expertise gives us credibility and opportunity. But it can also become what she calls a competency trap. We are rewarded for doing what we already do well, so exploration becomes more expensive. The immediate cost of being a beginner is felt more sharply than the future value of learning something new.

This is one of the central challenges of a long working life. We need depth – without it, contribution is thin. But we also need movement. Careers are less linear than they once were. Identities shift; networks change; partners, colleagues and mentors may not always recognise the person we are trying to become. Mastery, then, is not a possession. It is a discipline of renewal.

The episode also asks what happens to mastery in an age of AI. Grayson is not frightened of AI “as an artist”, because he sees it as retrospective: trained on what already exists, technically capable but rarely surprising. His concern is more human. If technology makes everything immediately available, it may weaken the muscles of commitment, embodied skill and intuition. A generation used to infinite optionality may find it harder to choose a material, an idea, a relationship or a path – and stay with it long enough to make something meaningful.

For anyone building a career across decades, mastery is therefore both an asset and a responsibility. It asks us to deepen what we know, while remaining alert to when that knowledge needs to be recombined.

The practical question is not, “Have I mastered my field?” It is: “What must my mastery become next?”

Living the 100-Year-Life

This episode connects to the Mastery thread in Lynda Gratton’s book Living the 100-Year Life. It offers a practical reflection: a long working life is not only about becoming good at something. It is about learning when to deepen, when to broaden and when to begin again.

Key takeaways

Mastery is renewal, not arrival. The master practitioner keeps developing, experimenting and surprising people – including themselves.

Expertise can become a trap. Being very good at something creates a self-reinforcing cycle: others reward it, we repeat it, and it costs more to learn something new.

Long careers require both depth and breadth. Deep expertise matters, but it has to be paired with new skills, side projects and networks that expose us to different futures.

Identity change is enacted, not planned. People often know what they no longer want before they know what comes next. That transition happens through experiments, relationships and trying on possible selves.

About the guests

Sir Grayson Perry CBE is an English contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foibles”.

Herminia Ibarra is the Charles Handy Chair in Organisational Behaviour and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. Her research examines leadership, career transition, networks and professional identity. She is the author of Working Identity and Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader.