What the Stuck!
“But how do I become a top performer?” asked Ulla, a project coordinator with 20 years of work experience, during our lunch appointment. She wanted to capitalize on some opportunities which were only available for the top performers in our company, but the criteria for becoming one were unclear to her.
Another colleague Chuck, a software development expert with 18 years of work experience, who had invited me for a coffee during a business trip, asked me “I have always been counting on my manager to recognize me for my work, but of late I am having doubts if I am being fairly rewarded. Should I be making firm demands?”
And a third colleague, Chet, a software architect, also with 18 years of work experience, whom I meet regularly, does exactly what Chuck is thinking of — making demands of his manager, but with no success so far.
These are three different colleagues (names changed), working in different roles, in different departments of my company. Other than being my acquaintances, what is common to all of them? They are all above 15 years of professional experience, aged between 38 and 45, and at, what we call in our company, the Expert level in their careers (I will come to that in a moment). They share a feeling of being stuck in their career, unsure if they can break free. They carry an expectation from their direct managers to recognize their achievements and promote them to the next level in their careers. And that not having happened yet, they are now disappointed in their managers, and in addition, are losing trust in the system. They have been waiting for a few years now, and indications are nothing might happen in the next few too. So they are unsure of where the problem lies and what needs to be done. According to them, they have been performing well as always — so they have ruled out their own performance as a factor. At times, they feel that their peers are getting more recognition than them, but for reasons that are not transparent to them. Hence they wanted to know my perspective as a line manager (my role back then), if there was something amiss in their achievements or in their skill sets. Should they be talk to their manager? Should they look out for new jobs? Welcome to stage 1 of the mid-career crisis. This is something which thousands of experienced employees all over the world go through.
In this blog, I would like to create awareness among such experts, as to why they are feeling stuck and what can they do to get unstuck. Why is it important? Because, if not addressed, it will lead to a mid-career crisis, after which professionals will give up on their ambitions. While this is not bad in itself, it might also lead ambitious professionals to give up on their strife for excellence, resulting in a drop in standards and a desire to learn. From this point onwards, it can be only a downward trajectory; and this, is not only bad for the individual, but also for the organization and our society.
To be honest, I am also at the same career level, and from that position, I might be not be considered qualified enough to give guidance to my peers. That’s precisely why, this blog will, in no way, provide a guidance on how to get promoted to the next level. But then I am confident from conversations I have had with the peers that thanks to my management experience and bookish knowledge, I am more aware than some others and can throw some light on the problems. Hopefully, the problems are explained clearly enough for my peers to figure out the way forward themselves. Additionally, I hope that this blog can also help senior managers have meaningful conversations with their experts whenever such topics arise. However, the biggest beneficiaries of this blog can be young professionals, so that they can anticipate and proactively address this issue much earlier in their careers and avoid feeling stuck in the first place.
Understanding the Expert Career Level
To begin with, let’s first understand where this career level lies in the grand org hierarchy. Typically, we all pass through the following levels in our early career (just a rule of thumb, not an absolute). We start as associates, over the next couple of years we get promoted to specialists, then over the next 3–4 years, we get promoted to seniors, and then over the subsequent 4–5 years we get promoted to experts, where we are expected to independently drive topics end to end, either individually or by leading teams i.e. figure out the what to do, convey the why to do to others and guide them in figuring out the how to do by themselves. This is the career level where the bulk of the organizational results are driven; by project managers, architects, sales managers, product managers, line managers etc.
Typically, one could assume that every independent performer reaches the senior or the expert level at some point in their career. For most professionals, this would be the highest level they ever reach. The outstanding performers would reach this stage somewhere around the 10th year (+/-2) of their professional career. This is the apex of organizational funnel — beyond which, it is the narrow pipe through which very few people filter. Given the funnel nature, one needs to understand that the growth path is not linear for most cases. During the early part of one’s career, the growth path is more linear in nature i.e. under normal circumstances one can predict the timeframe over which one would get promoted to the next career level. But at Expert and beyond, possibilities of linear growth becomes limited i.e. there are a very few exceptional cases of people who get promoted to the next level without doing anything different than what they have been doing all along. These cases are not part of the main scope of this blog, and hence have been included in the Appendix section at the end of the blog.
And for those aspiring the non-linear growth, they have no clue as to when in the future the next promotion would happen. Depending on a number of factors, several of which are not under our control, it could take anywhere between 5 years to never. And this uncertainty leads to the frustration, low motivation and low trust that my colleagues mentioned above are experiencing. And for those who experienced fast track promotions early in their careers, the frustration is even more, because this situation is the complete opposite of what they are used to — having a definite recipe for success.
Reasons for Slowing Growth Rate
There are various factors that influence growth rate beyond the expert level. Broadly, the most important ones could be categorized into organizational needs and individual competencies.
Organizational Needs
For multiple reasons listed below, the primary category is organizational or business needs. This means that one will be promoted only if the organization needs one to be.
1. The need for roles. Beyond the expert level, there are senior management and individual contributor positions which are very strategic in nature, both of which organizations need very few. When it comes to management hierarchy, the level of responsibility exponentially increases. For example, a first level line manager might have a team of 10 and responsibility of 2 topics. His manager, the director (manager of managers — not the title), might have 3 first level managers, a department of 60 and 15 topics under her responsibility. Similarly, when it comes to functional expertise, a large product organization might have a central security team comprising of many security experts, but might need only one security officer to define the overall security strategy. I am sure we can draw analogies in other job profiles or career paths.
2. The need for cross-organizational roles. Beyond the expert level, the roles get highly cross-organizational. Whereas until now one’s competitor was the peer within the team, for such roles, the competitor might be someone in a different team or different organization altogether.
3. The need for unambiguity in authority. A team cannot have 2 bosses, a product cannot have 2 Chief Architects. Technically they can, but then, conflicts would almost always need to be resolved by escalation to a higher authority, which is not healthy for the organization. Whereas higher level promotions are accompanied by increase in responsibility as well as authority, lower level promotions are accompanied only by an increase in responsibility i.e. for the organization, they are just changes in titles and salary.
4. The lower upper-limit for career paths in support jobs. In any organization there are only 2 mainstream organizations: production and sales. Production creates goods or services that can be sold by Sales to bring in revenue. The reason they are the mainstream in that their output has a direct impact on the end result of the company such as revenue and profits. All other jobs support the mainstream organizations and their impact on the end result is indirect. Hence career paths in these support jobs have a limit in the org hierarchy. For example, the Head of Quality rarely goes on to become the CTO, and the Head of HR rarely goes on to become the CEO. Support organizations are also smaller in size compared to mainstream organizations, have lesser investments and have higher likelihood of services getting outsourced. All of these limit one’s growth options.
5. The need for higher management involvement in promotion decisions. As a consequence of the above needs, one’s direct manager is no longer empowered to promote without requiring approvals from higher up. Perhaps only people in higher management have a good idea about a given role and who the best fits from different parts of the organization are. It could also be that, according to them, the required talent for a given role is missing in the organization and needs to be hired from outside. Until now one was always dependent on one’s manager for guidance on one’s growth. But now, given the limited influence of the manager, one is more or less on his own. At best, the manager might provide visibility and encourage one to explore opportunities, approach mentors and coaches, but might not be able to provide a roadmap with a checklist.
Once all organizational obstacles have been crossed, one would still need to have the right set of skills and characteristics to move up, which we will cover in our next section.
Individual Competencies
The 2 most important factors for careers are results and relationships. The higher we go in the organization, the more impactful our results need to be; and the better relationships we need to have to sell our results. Here are the implications for individual competencies:
1. Risk Taking appetite. In order to deliver more impactful results, one needs to have the appetite to take risks i.e. the boldness to take fast and timely decisions based on intuition especially when data is limited. This might mean accepting the risk of failure, resulting in the the possible loss of valuable resources of the organization, resulting in the possible loss of job, or reduction in responsibilities and power. Sometimes one might get only one shot at success. The cozy comfort levels of protection provided by bosses and seniors at lower levels of the career might no longer exist. Higher pay doesn’t come for free. So to move up, one has to take up riskier projects having higher impact. [1]
2. Appetite for Change. It is said that one gets promoted to one’s level of incompetency. Which means everyone reaches a certain level in their career beyond which they cannot manage the level of stress involved. At the early stages in the career, the growth curve is steep. We continuously find opportunities to contribute at a level higher than our career level, paving the way for our promotions. We can continuously enhance our functional skills, develop new skills and keep improving on our personal productivity. But for most people at the senior or expert levels, especially for the specialists, growth stagnates and the growth curve starts to flatten. One has already reached the peak of one’s functional expertise and personal productivity. When asked to think of taking up something new or drastically different, self-doubt creeps in about the possibility to contribute at the same level in the new area as in the current area of expertise.
3. Thought Leadership. ‘What got you here won’t get you there’ reads the title of Marshall Goldsmith’s bestseller. Beyond the expert level, one is required to bring knowledge into the organization. One is required to be aware of what’s happening in the market, what other companies are doing, what the thought leaders are saying, which latest books have been written, outcomes of research projects etc. In the earlier stages of the career, you always used to look up to someone else for direction. Henceforth, you have to be the one providing others the direction and making decisions for the organization to invest its resources into. In other words, one has to shift from reactive learning to proactive learning, one of the most difficult transformations for people. Most experts are simply not aware of the need for such a mindset shift, leading to lack of clarity and frustration. Even if they do become aware, they get overwhelmed by the amount of effort and change of habits required to make the transformation. Hence, they develop excuses to convince themselves that right now is just not the right time for change.
4. Awareness of Market Demands. If one has worked in a certain organization for long, from some point onwards they risk getting institutionalized i.e. they develop skills that satisfy only their current job or organization. The skills are not generalized for the market. If one hasn’t been keeping an eye out on the job market, one is most likely to have an outdated resume, little knowledge and practice of writing resumes and cover letters, and of course, little experience with interviews. This will come out as lack of professionalism, and can hurt one badly, especially if they have to go through a genuine hiring and interview process for the next step in the career.
5. Interpersonal Skills. Roles beyond the expert level being cross-organizational and cross-functional in nature also means that interpersonal and influence skills required at this level are significantly higher than those required at lower levels. Whereas earlier, one was responsible for their own results, now one is accountable for the results of others. Earlier one was rewarded for functional expertise. As a result, one focused only on functional competencies. One relied on expertise power while ignoring the relationship power that would be required as you moved higher. But going ahead, one needs to build a wide range of interpersonal skills such as enhancing network, maintaining relationships, influencing, deescalating conflicts, negotiating etc. In organizations, a 70% accurate solution which is widely accepted by all parties is considered more effective than a 100% perfect solution that has no buy-in. And it rarely happens that people trust the solution if they don’t share a trusted relationship with its pioneer. While this is the case with most , the good news is that, with growth mindset, one can develop these skills over time.
Conclusion
Getting promoted is the byproduct of great results and relationships at a higher level for long periods of time. It depends on several factors that lie beyond our direct control, such as organizational needs. While it’s good to know about them, it’s even more important to focus on those factors within our control, such as our competencies. These competencies ensure that we do not enter stagnancy and continue on the path of excellence — excellence that we owe our organizations.
As a byproduct, a promotion is a milestone along the journey, but not the journey itself. Let not the focus on the milestones take away from us the the joys of the everyday journey. For, in the journey lies the great joys of learning and contributing, and of making a difference to our society.
Appendix
Very few people make it past the funnel to the next level in quick time. Let’s examine what works differently for them, as compared to others. They
Consistently produce extra-ordinary results: The surest way to growth at any career level is by producing extra-ordinary results that are way above one’s peers year after year. It means, if quantified, one have been producing results that are at least 30% more than your peers. No executives in their right sense of mind can deny promotions to their prima donnas.
Have powerful sponsors: A sponsor is an executive in one’s chain of command who has seen him work and believes in him. She is that person who will put her weight behind him when he is one of the contendors for a particular opportunity, and tilt the scale in his favor. Furthermore, she will provide him the exposure necessary to ensure a steep growhth curve i.e. exposure to opportunities, decision making, risk taking, mentoring etc. at levels significantly higher than those available to him in his current job. She is also likely to connect him to other executives and mentors in the organization, with whom one would otherwise have no chance to interact. All this makes a significant difference in candidature. For example, many higher level management, project management and product management jobs require experience in presenting to top management and C-suite.
Have unique skills in an area the company wants to go into: This typically happens when the company wants to grow in an area of one’s functional expertise. When this happens, one gains a big headstart over peers from other areas and would be expected to lead them. For example, decades ago when Honda decided to enter the American market, their top management of engineers were replaced by lawyers who could understand American trade laws.
Be the preferred successor for a unique role: This typically happens when the person occupying an unique important role in the organization leaves and one is identified as his successor. In this case, one has been doing the same work for many years, has been the next best candidate for the role in concern and is available when the predecessor leaves.
Be at the right place at the right time: At its simplest, it’s the luck factor, which is then too complex to explain further. It’s a combination of several permutations and combinations working in one’s favor, and being right there to grab an arising opportunity with both hands.
[1]A caveat for taking up risky projects — they need to have higher management buy-in. Often they don’t, and then one ends up being a scapegoat, burning oneself and one’s relationships without gaining anything. One way to find out is to verify if the significance of the project has been equally communicated to all involved parties. If not, it might be just window-dressing.