Beyond the Climb: 7 Additional Dimensions to Career Growth

As a human-centered leader, you truly care about your team and their career growth. But what if promotional opportunities are limited, or you have team members who are just not interested in taking on more?

In this “Asking for a Friend”, I talk with Julie Winkle Giulioni, author of Promotions are So Yesterday, about the multiple dimensions of career growth.

Alternative Career Growth Options: Beyond the Climb

Navigating the Career Growth Conversation (with timestamps)

Source of Inspiration

1:30 What has been one source of inspiration/strength for you?
Family, friends, frontline workers – the grace I’ve seen extended among human beings.

Three Questions

2:45 How do you build careers and develop employees when promotions and opportunities are limited? Three questions Julie used in her research:
What does career growth mean to employees?
How do people want to grow?
What’s available in organizations to help people grow?

Eight Dimensions

4:15 While “climb” is one way employees want to develop, Julie discovered seven other dimensions to career growth.

• Contribution
• Competence
• Connection
• Confidence
• Challenge
• Contentment
• Choice

In aggregate, all seven of the dimensions other than climb were more interesting to people, with
contribution and competence consistently at the top. “Climb” is consistently at the bottom.

Helping Your Organization See the Value of Other Dimensions of Development

6:08 How do you help an organization to see and appreciate the other elements as ways to encourage growth?
These dimensions lead to a more abundant mindset. Encourage leaders to expand their definition of career development. Emphasize that these other dimensions are things that CAN be done whereas a promotion may not be available. Use the information to empower.

Is “Climb” is Losing Its Luster?

8:30 Why is “climb” losing its luster?
It may be more that it was the only thing on the menu. Having other dimensions creates an expanded vocabulary for career development.
Employees are savvy and often see that the life of a manager is not always pleasant and is often challenging or even daunting.
People are reprioritizing the relationship they want with work. They may not want additional stress, but tend to still want to grow.

Confidence / Meaning / Timing

10:25 Is confidence regarding the role or outside the role?
Both. Managers will do well to personalize this to the particular employee.

12:50 It’s never worth the extra money/prestige if you don’t love the work itself.
People are looking for meaning.

16:30 What if you have a “climber” who is not ready to move up?
Our default setting is to climb. With the expanded menu, managers can have a deeper conversation to find out what’s animating the desire to climb, and find other ways to boost and develop the person on the road to a new role.

13:44 How do managers help their team consider these other dimensions?
Use self-assessments to jumpstart the conversation
Link to Julie’s assessment: https://www.juliewinklegiulioni.com/book/promotions/assessment/

19:00 A quick look at Let’s Grow Leaders’ Confidence/Competent Model

Connection and Networking

19:37 Connection
Facilitate connection through the work people are doing.
Invite people to create and learn together.
Be strategic about how you organize the work to build connection. (It builds development organically.)
Encourage people to share their growth goals with one another.

23:52 Strategic Networking
Think about peers: Do you have an encourager? Do you have a challenger?
Develop a collaborative rather than competitive environment.

Measuring: A New Way of Gathering Numbers

25:07 What strategies do you recommend for internal measurements where metrics traditionally defined success?
Redefine the metrics. i.e. the number of people who have expressed interest in other dimensions, the quality of conversations between managers and team, etc.
Shift from meaningless numbers to meaningful, qualitative, and reflective numbers that look at the quality of relationships.

Contentment? Really?

27:34 Contentment
Contentment is not synonymous with complacency.
Contentment includes acknowledging that we will be working for a long time. We can’t climb constantly.
How can I do things with great joy, ease, meaning?

Last Piece of Advice

30:35 Last piece of advice
Start by taking the free self-assessment to reveal more about yourself and how you may want to grow.

Related Asking for a Friend Episodes on Career Growth

If you enjoy this Asking for a Friend video, you might also enjoy this article which includes an interview with Julie “How to Develop People When You Don’t Have the Time.”

And this conversation with April Rinne about building a “portfolio career.”

And you may also find our Developmental Discussion Planner handy as you help your team have deeper development conversations.