The Career Lattice

Why the Lattice, Now?

by

That’s one of the main questions that career coach and radio show host Bonnie Marcus had for me in a recent interview for her show Career GPS.

It’s a good question. Immersed as we all are in economic uncertainty, concerned about the stability of our companies and of our careers, it’s easy to overlook the sweeping realignment that is crystallized in the lattice.

Three long-term trends are aligning to replace career ladders with career lattices.

  • Baby boomers have to stay on the job longer, effectively blocking promotions for 40-somethings. Strategic lateral moves can equip valued middle managers with operational experience while they wait for promotions  to open up.
  • Boomers themselves are finding satisfaction in late-career lateral moves. Some progressive companies, like Time Warner Cable, create internal consulting or project-based positions for pre-retirees. That creates a channel for sluicing the boomers’ knowledge back into training, talent development, and information systems, while opening up operational slots for rising managers.
  • Millennials, observing the two trends outlined above, assume that their careers will be just as much over and up. And, that feels right to them, the first workforce generation steeped in social media. They already know the power of peer relationships; latticing gives them a career structure for the connections and opportunities they gather through social media.

The Lattice in The Ladders

by

It’s a collision of career metaphors!  Veteran business writer Robin Madell wrote a comprehensive outline of lattice strategies for– wait for it — striver career site The Ladders.

The story is a terrific primer for those near the top who are wondering if a developmental lateral move is worth the risk. I especially like the advice of carer coach Darcy Eikenberg. Here’s her take on creating your own promotion:

With the collapse of mid-management roles in many companies, an employee with 10 to 15 years of experience may suddenly find there’s no next level in sight—their leaders may be in the same age range with no plans to retire or leave any time soon. Eikenberg said that in cases where you can’t expect a promotion, it may be time to orchestrate your own with a few key strategies:

  • Identify the pain in your organization and how you are uniquely suited to help calm that pain from your current position.
  • Build a business plan for a new role, department, or service you might lead.
  • Communicate with key players in your organization to let your intentions be known.
  • Take your efforts as seriously as you would a new job search.

 

Tasty Careers

by

Here’s the best definition of lifelong learning I’ve heard so far: “At the end of the day, everyone goes home smarter.” That line was delivered by Tom Walter, CEO of Tasty Catering, a Chicago-area food catering company that was one of two companies honored by Workforce Chicago at a recent breakfast hosted by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.

Tasty tips:

  • Based on entrepreneur Jack Stack’s philosophy of sharing financial results and responsibilities with employees at all levels, Tasty employees are in charge of contributing to their slice of the bottom line. With everyone from delivery vehicle maintenance staff to executives searching for ways to grow revenue and contain costs, Tastey saw 2011’s sales increase 10% and profits rise 125%.
  • Employees learn how to read financial statements, too, so that Tasty can become “A business of businesspeople.”
  • One Tasty employee detected a market opportunity for corporate gift baskets and developed a business plan for a college class. She presented her concept to her bosses…and walked out with a $50,000 launch fund, sparking a new division. That’s more than frosting!

Friends Beat Bosses

by

What’s more important to career happiness and engagement on the job? (Engagement being HR-speak for ‘giving a darn.’ )

Productive and collegial relationships with co-workers. That’s according to the latest employee engagement research from the Society for Human Resource Management. The top factors for engagement are:

  • 79% – Relationships with co-workers
  • 75% –  Opportunities to use skills/abilities
  • 72% – Contributing to organization’s goals

And the factors bringing up the rear? “Career advancment” and “Career development.”

The definition of satisfaction on the job is realigning — sideways. It’s a latticed world. That’s how workers are already operating. How long before most organizations catch on?

Lattice to a Higher IQ

by

Boost your intelligence through a lateral career assignment.

How’s that?

Learning itself makes you smarter, according to  Ken Bain, author of “What the Best College Students Do.”

The habit of expecting to learn, which leads to putting yourself in situations where you’ll be challenged, learn, and grow, actually rewires your brain to help you learn faster and better.

That’s why you feel ‘brain dead’ as you molder in the same job with the same responsibilities, and likely with the same results.

If your workplace is not open to a lateral move, construct one on your own time. Choose a skill — such as learning the underpinnings of a popular content management system — or a business experience — such as fundraising — you’d like to master. As you gain traction with this developmental self-assignment, you’ll not only act smarter. You’ll be smarter, too.

To have Career Lattice insights delivered into your inbox, sign up!

Lattice = Happy At Work

by

American feel cruddy about their jobs.

And that’s not me talking: that’s from the latest Gallup Wellbeing Index, which reports that employees are in a continuing funk.

That’s not good for employers, because workers who don’t care about their jobs are a drag on productivity, not to mention morale.

Plenty of factors need to turn around to perk things up — big, big factors like economic growth. But there’s one thing that bosses can do right away: to get more things done, understand how important it is to workers to get things done.

Harvard business school prof Teresa Amabile operates in the world of everyday work dynamics. I’m a fan of her work because she unlocks big ideas from insights that resonate with all of us. Some of her recent research pivots on the point that productive people find satisfaction in the process of getting stuff done. Bosses who want greater productivity need to actively remove barriers to daily accomplishments. It’s not the flowery praise or the sugary doughnut that prompts top performers to buckle down and get stuff done: they are motivated by the satisfaction of actually seeing the stuff get done.

This insight can help managers who are looking for ways to ensure that lateral moves are meaningful and developmental. Lateral moves are still shaking off the outdated image that moving over is moving aside.

As you are framing a lateral move, consider: what will the person in this new position actually get done? How will this position fuel this person’s innate desire to be productive, and how will he measure his effectiveness? Lateral moves need to deliver their own rewards. Otherwise, your attempt to recast lateral  moves as growth will ring hollow.

Education + Lattices = Growing Cities

by

I’m of the opinion that the Opinion section is the best part of the Chicago Tribune (and not just becuase it occasionally publishes my personal essays. Also not because one of the editorial page editors is my former neighbor Greg Burns, as fair a guy as you’ll ever meet. The Tribune is lucky to have him.)

Recently, a Tribune editorial reinforced the wisdom of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new plan to have each of the colleges in the city’s community college system collaborate with just one industry. The aim is to align each school’s curriculum with the skills that employers need immediately.

The editorial urges employers to get on board with this initiative. I’d add one more thing: that the colleges and industries also collaborate on career lattices to ensure that new grads have a plan to keep growing. Here’s a perfect example: The health information career lattice newly launched by my research partner, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.   Collaborative education is a start, not a destination.

Interested in having lattice news & insights drop effortlessly into your inbox, like a little random gift? Sign up for future magical moments!

3 Reasons Why Lattices are Here to Stay

by

A good question popped up in yesterday’s Lattice webinar hosted by Monster.com, the online recruiting supersite: Are lattices mainly relevant for a slow-growth economy, or will they evaporate once economic recovery truly takes hold?

Lattices are here to stay. Here’s why.

The traditional ‘ladder’ rewards managing vertical relationship. Your boss manages you. You manage your boss. You manage your subordinates. Your subordinates manage you. But peer relationships are the currency of the connected economy. From social media to peer lending to peer services, such as Air BnB,  economic relationships are realigning over.  Career relationships must follow suit, tapping a whole new arena of peer power for networking and growth.

The next era of growth won’t be like the last one. Organizations will have to quickly muster teams, and the teams that can get products to market first and best will be comprised of multi-faceted individuals. Sure, you’ll still need some tech geniuses, but those tech  geniuses will be worth more if they also have a working knowledge of marketing and customer service.  Lateral rotations within teams will become a key career driver; that’s how individuals will plot and pursue their next positions — lateral or not.

Employers like Chubb Insurance, represented for the Monster webinar by AVP of diversity and inclusion Sabrina McCoy, have handed career direction to employees, asking them to find and win lateral developmental moves as well as traditional promotions. Once that power is delegated, companies can’t take it back.

The future is latticed. Lattice….or let go.

To have Career Lattice insights delivered into your inbox, sign up!

 

 

Raise Your Hand

by

According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, most American employees are eager to learn new skills and take on new responsiblities. But about a third doubt that they will be able to make a lateral move at their current workplace.

Sometimes, a lateral opportunity comes disguised as a job that nobody else wants. If you are serious about ‘growing in place,’  consider taking on an orphan project. Such assignments are already on the radar with higher-ups — for the wrong reasons. You’ll get points for being willing to try, and more points for gaining traction with a problem that others have resisted.

This strategy worked for Michael Mogul, president of DJO Global, a medical device company. As he said in a recent profile in the New York Times of a management responsiblity thrust upon him, “That happened often in my career: I’d find something that needed fixing, raise my hand and be given the responsibility. I’d end up with more work, but it always helped my career.”

If the benefits of jumping in aren’t immediately obvious, talk it over with your boss, and possibly with another manager whose results will be affected by the adoption. Design a plan that includes skills or networking that you want to gain for your next career steps. That’s what they call a win-win.

To have Career Lattice insights delivered into your inbox, sign up!