What does career advancement mean to you? What does it mean to support the career of someone who works with you? Did the image of a ladder just appear in your mind? If so, we'd like to offer some other images to reflect the workplace we all have now.
Up is not the only way. Promotions still happen. Up is still an option. But careers consist of a range of experiences—large and small—that ultimately come together to shape a career journey. Continuing to move up the ladder was never the only way or the best way or even the most satisfying way to navigate a career. For many years, though, continuous upward progression was the accepted image of a career. We offer a different image. In place of a ladder of promotions, think of career as a rich, flexible mix of experiences.
Our subtitle reads Rethinking Career Mobility. So what are we asking you to rethink? Careers today are mobile. That's not new. Sometimes the mobility is the traditional kind. Individuals move from function to function or take an assignment in another location. Other times, career mobility takes the form of identifying skills that are transferable from one role or profession to another.
Here's what's new. We have learned, in decades of studying careers around the globe, that career mobility can also mean growing, stretching, learning, and transforming, without ever changing the job title or even the chair you are sitting in! Career mobility is up to each individual to examine and define. I own just how mobile I will be in terms of how much, when, and how I will grow. I can create my own career patterns.
We will offer six experiences, six ways to grow, develop, and learn, that can be pieces of unique career patterns. How those experiences fit together over time is up to each one of us to decide.
One more thing. Up Is Not the Only Way is also about building a dialogue. It's about creating ongoing, two-way, formal and informal communication between individuals and their managers, coaches, mentors, and others to ensure that career experiences reach maximum potential and possibilities. We will offer ways to initiate, enrich, and engage in that dialogue. Whether the conversations are about your career, a direct report's career, or the career of a colleague or friend, you can use the questions you find in each chapter to drive your conversations deeper.
So, there you have it. The book is about building career patterns from all types of experiences, understanding what mobility means at the individual level, and engaging in dialogue that brings it all to life. Up Is Not the Only Way is for anyone who knows, in your heart of hearts, that there are multiple ways to grow. The book is for individuals who want to learn more about how to plan and manage a career in a world of work that is in a constant state of change. The book is for managers, coaches, and mentors who are looking for ways to make career conversations more productive and focused on options. In other words, this book is for anyone who has an interest in influencing career growth—their own or that of someone else.
How you read the book is up to you. You could:
read it and be ready for conversations with people you lead, manage, coach, counsel, or mentor.
read it and be ready for conversations with your manager, coach, counselor, or mentor about your career.
ask someone who is helping you with your career to read it so the two of you can talk about which chapters grabbed your attention and made you think.
read it straight through, or scan the table of contents and jump in where a chapter title catches your eye.
bring together a group of your peers to talk about the experiences the chapters describe.
read the mobility moments scattered throughout the book then share your career story with others.
pick it up whenever you have a few minutes to read a page or a chapter.
drill down deeper at www.UpIsNot.com [password: upisnot] to access Kickstart Mobility.
Whatever approach you take, we challenge you to watch for your I never thought of it that way before! moments. Jot them down. Mark the page. Mind-sets change when thinking shifts.
Some estimates say we spend more than 100,000 hours working during a lifetime. We believe those hours will be more satisfying and meaningful if we feel like we are progressing in whatever way we each define progress. So, whether you are focused on your own career, helping someone else, or both, you are building a future! We welcome the opportunity to help you do it!
Bev, Lindy, and Lynn