Even if you thoughtfully examine the match between the employee and the role, you’ve still got a problem. No matter what conclusion you come to, the employee will invariably want to move up. The employee will want to be promoted. Every signal sent by the company tells him that higher is better. A larger salary, a more impressive title, more generous stock options, a roomier office with a couch and a coffee table, all this and more awaits the lucky employee on the next rung on the ladder. No wonder he wants to move up.
These blazing neon lights are a damaging distraction. They not only tempt employees to jump from excellence on one rung to mediocrity on another, they also create a bottleneck—legions of employees all trying to scramble onto increasingly fewer rungs. Conflict and disappointment are inevitable. There has to be a way to redirect employees‘ driving ambition and to channel it more productively.
There is. Create heroes in every role. Make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession. Many employees will still choose to climb the conventional ladder, and for those with the talent to manage others or to lead, this will be the right choice. However, guided by meaty incentives, many other employees will decide to redirect their energies toward growth within their current role. Great managers envision a company where there are multiple routes toward respect and prestige, a company where the best secretaries carry a vice president title, where the best housekeepers earn twice as much as their supervisors, and where anyone performing at excellence is recognized publicly.
If this sounds fanciful, here are a few techniques that great managers are already using to build such a company.
How long does it take to become excellent in a chosen field? In a study called the Development of Talent Project, Dr. Benjamin Bloom of
Northwestern University scrutinized the careers of world-class sculptors, pianists, chess masters, tennis players, swimmers, mathematicians, and neurologists. He discovered that across these diverse professions, it takes between ten and eighteen years before world-class competency is reached. If you show some interest, he becomes even more specific. He will tell you, for example, that it takes 17.14 years from your first piano lessons to your victory at the Van Cliburn, Tchaikovsky or Chopin piano competitions. While figures like this can feel a little too precise, Dr. Bloom’s general point is nevertheless well taken: The exact length of time will vary by person and profession, but whether you are a teacher, a nurse, a salesperson, an engineer, a pilot, a waiter, or a neurosurgeon, it still takes years to become the world’s best. As Hippocrates, the philosopher and founder of modern medicine, observed: “Life is short. The art is long.”
If a company wants some employees in every role to approach world- class performance, it must find ways to encourage them to stay focused on developing their expertise. Defining graded levels of achievement, for every role, is an extremely effective way of doing just that.
Lawyers figured this out a long time ago. The young lawyer, fresh out of law school, selects his field of expertise—corporate law, criminal law, tax law—is hired into that field by a law firm and joins as a junior associate. Over the next four or five years he will be promoted to associate and then to senior associate. As a senior associate he will still be practicing law in his chosen field. He will simply be more accomplished. Over the next five years he will, hopefully, be promoted to some kind of equity position within the firm, where he will start as a junior partner, move up to partner, and then be promoted to senior partner. As a senior partner in the firm he will garner a tremendous amount of respect and earn a very generous salary, yet he will still be practicing the same kind of law as he was back in his junior associate days. The work will be more complex, and he will have his pick of the most interesting and most lucrative work. The only difference is that, by now, he will be one of the world experts in his chosen field.
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