4 reasons why I no longer believe career paths

Reflecting my own experience

Up until last year, I had been on a fast track or path (depending on how it is seen) to the highest level executive in HR in my country. Most of the time, my name had remained in the short list of the talents for next higher level positions. I was so delighted on many praising and commitment look-alike statements in my career documents and was quite confident on the realization of my career plan that had officially been written down in those papers. The plan showed me the concrete action items by a well-known sequence to lead to the next position. I had diligently fulfilled all the check boxes of the required career elements. For instance, I realized a functional move, international assignment and leadership and expert role experiences. For sure, I didn’t forget to add a commercial ingredient to my career-MBA-to be the executive. On my career path, every next step was logically structured based on the corporate standard and superiors’ recommendation. I declined to take so-called ‘unrelated’ opportunities that I thought were derailed or dragged me backward. The intent of my career path planning was to move me up as economically as possible.

1.     It made me blinded and rigid.

One day, I noticed unfortune situations started looming in my career. Those superiors who had supported my career changed their job and moved away from me and the financial situation of my company became bearish. It started downsizing many positions and shifting resources to relatively better area. Going a way to the emerging or growing work fields was very congested with many movers from shrinking areas. Almost all talent pipeline was full or even overloaded across the entire organization. During that time, some superiors approached me and offered lateral movements or strategic step-backs for a bigger leap in better timing in the future. I rejected them all because I thought they were unfair deals. I didn’t want to be sold to them with a discount price. I believed, actually, wanted to believe that the plan in my career statements would be legitimate and binding conditions despite of the situational change, because it was a signed document. Those beliefs made me hesitate to react. However, the next position that had been planned in my career didn’t come eventually. The superiors around me kept echoing 3 statements: ‘the situation changed.’, ‘It’s very pity not to offer any good position for now.’, ‘I will call you later if I can find something nice for you.’ The call had never rung. At the end, I realized that the path made me so blinded and rigid that I couldn’t adapt to fast changing environment. I said to those people who concerned about uncertainty of my career time to time, ‘it’s ok. I have a plan. it was agreed’. 

2.     It led me a hierarchical trap.

As usual, my path was linear and hierarchical. That sounds very reasonable from the thought that we are up here not to stagnate but to grow. The problem was that it hooked me to a hierarchical trap. It lured me to stay focused on climbing up the ladder and made me obsessed with vertical achievement in each hierarchy. I anticipated the glorious moment on the top of the career ladder. However, eventually, flatter or leaner structure of the organizations didn’t demand as many leaders as they once did. Fewer ladders I could climb up. Those people who nailed down on a linear leadership career path like me were not so welcomed. Ironically, the more I was obsessed with my vertical movement, the more I fell behind the movement. Moreover, I realized that I had had subconscious bias that the vertical movement outweighed any other career options. I carelessly looked over many jobs by the reason that their pay grade was not progressed. After some years, I sighed for some lost opportunities that I shouldn’t have missed to grow further. But I didn’t know it then.

3.     It harmed my salary increase.

Maybe some of you scratched your head when you hear this. But it really happened to me. Usually, our career path consists of two aspects- time and pay grade. It is drawn with two axis: X axis is time and Y axis is pay grade. Our kind path visualizes very nicely which position is most recommended in a specific timing. For sure, it doesn’t show the age range per stage but we all are able to calculate it back from the end until when we should finish the step respectively in order to reach at the final goal before our retirement age. Thanks to the diagram, many associates flock into a handful number of well-known positions to obtain a certain pay grade at a certain age or length of employment. It applied to me without any exception. I was like a work-in-progress product on a production conveyer belt which flows through a defined process very effectively until it faces a bottleneck. The bottleneck moment that I experienced was like a long queue of crowd on the street to get their job: so many people stood for limited jobs. Every talents including myself had to pass hyper-competition to take the higher level position stated in the standard career path. It was the moment when supply of labor outpaced its demand. Our economic model of price determination in a market unexceptionally applied to my case then. My salary almost for 2 consecutive years were very negligibly increased as the consequence of the price determination rule. I was told, my organization were struggling to take care of overloaded talents. To them, I was one of the crowd. No need for them to pay more.

4.     It tamed my motivation to be a machine not to be a human.

Following my career path, I knew well what I had to do to be selected for next higher level position: I had to fulfill the required career elements as quickly as possible. Practically, the best way to be nominated for another promotion was to show an eye-opening achievement of my individual targets as well as to minimize critical mistakes. Most of my targets were cascaded from the top. For sure, I could make bottom-up proposals but they were marginal. I looked much like a machine being evaluated by my robustness- quick and accurate production of intended subjects without defects. Moreover, the hyper-competition to which my path led me often swirled me in an anxiety about whether or not I fell behind the competition. Looking back then, most of the time, I was in the state of tension to sense who would occupy my next position. My tension to win the hyper-competition shifted my focus to how to grasp the next opportunity faster than any other competitors. I didn’t allow enough time to ponder what I wanted to do or what I was most motivated in. Afterward, I realized that the path actually tamed my motivation in a way to comply with what organizations expected. I read through my previous career documents again and found that almost all of my comments stated in those documents were very identical to what my superiors stated then. To make it worse, those comments are very similar to what other equivalent colleagues say, even until now. 

Now, you might wonder what I am doing now for my career after my reflection or why I didn’t quit and searched for another better company. Honestly, I wanted to quit and joined some interviews. But you know what? I noticed during my interviews that all the company except one IT company managed linear career paths similar to my experience. I thought, moving to there wouldn’t solve my fundamental issues but just changing to another racing track. At the end of my despair, I was somehow lucky that a friend of mine in my company (actually she is one of the highest executives in my company) raised out her hand and suggested me to stand up for one more leap. She told me to close the previous bad chapter of my career and to open a new one with my motivation and story. I didn’t believe in her saying at the beginning. But it is real to me now.

I stopped following the path and have tried to erase its trace from my head. Instead, I map my ‘journey’ with my heart. For sure, I equally use my brain and intelligence to come up with an idea of additional value creation to my organization- which roles I can advance or create for the new value contribution to my organizations. I don’t blame any superiors and top management around my previous path who ever supported me to move on as if I can’t blame the market for why it decreases commodity prices. Actually, they did their best from their respective situation and position. It was all about me and my decisions. I no longer aim at the defined position but design my roles in my journey which are fluid enough to find an equilibrium between my calling and organizational purpose.

I will update my current story soon.