Organizations that matters

Can we please abolish management levels?

Career system have evolved in a "Rat Race" that generates frustration, office politics and useless effort: how much time direct managers, functional leaders, human resources and many others spend trying to manage a puzzle that is not adding value to the final product for consumers?

I am not saying career progression models are wrong per se, just that organizations designed in layers do not work anymore:

1) Hello, it's XXI century:
In the past experience and knowledge were making the difference and vertical ladders made sense: the more experience you had and the more confident you were, the more and better you will produce. But welcome to the XXI century... we need different skills and knowledge in different parts of the processes, BigData are replacing the need to have people knowing little of everything, intuition is the weapon and flexibility the new killing-skill. Strategies change every six months in business... Are you sure have the same leader in place for years (knowing that s/he will be focusing 30% of time on climbing the ladder makes sense?).

2) Career has become a change brake
Continuous change is the new paradigma, but changeability decreases usually with time (and status): the more people have to loose, the less they are attracted by change and risk.

3) Motivation is a "just a little more complex":
Vertical progression in career, like in military ranks, was fitting perfectly the needs of a completely different generation: Baby Boomers. They made their STATUS a life goal, a purpose in itself. Does it work nowadays? Well, it depends: in corporate environments imprinting is still very strong and contagion clearly touched GenX as well, but every day more you see Talents jumping out of the ship because they think it's just crazy. This will not survive to GenY...

4) Aging will kill all career models
The most of career paths were created when expectation of life was shorter and people could aspire to have one successful vertical career in life up to the top. Today... with all of us having to work 40 years and more before retiring (if ever), one career is simply not an option anymore. Net, or we slow down careers (but GenY will not appreciate) or we reinvent them. And in the second case, layers are not really helping...

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Do we need vertical careers? Are you sure?
What if we design organizations without it

Jungle gym career model

Increasing longevity and longer time to pension are putting the existing career models in danger: most of them are already obsolete vs the reality and the needs of talents in the working environment. New models and new expressions are spreading, much less engineered than the current ones: such, for example, jungle gym...

Jungle gym career is a way to define a career progression which is not linear. It has become popular in the past years as definition for careers that are difficult to describe and forecast as a predictable paths in which people move ahead or horizontally in order to reach a destination job or position.

Definition could come from Pattie Sellers, Editor-at-Large of Fortune Magazine, “The most successful people I know don’t think of their career as a ladder, but rather a jungle gym.” An interesting example of it is Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO) “I could never have connected the dots from where I started to where I am today” (*): she worked as a management consultant for McKinsey than joined US Government as Chief of Staff of US Secretary of the Treasury and finally joined Google.

What are the implications of a jungle gym career model?

[**] the next move is not necessary upwards, infact, it could even be downward (and than upward again or not);

[**] flexibility is a must, both ways, from individual and employer;

[**] there is not just one career, there are multiple careers in a life time, on multiple subjects;

[**] work-life balance is different in different stages and times of life, it changes;

[**] learning and network are more important than earning and promotions;

[**] passion leads more than status;

Why it’s important?

Having to imagine 35-40 years long careers, usually in dual-career situations, the old models do not apply anymore to the vast majority of people: most of career models corporations, firms or institutions can offer do not fit this situation (think about P&G promise of the 90s to grow talents to Director position in 12 years… with current retirement timings, people would need three careers at least to have a sustainable work experience in lifetime)

Are we ready? It depends: many talents already are, GenY and women in particular. Corporations, firms and institutions? Governments? Mmmhh.