How to love your career’s squiggly ‘straight to the top’
For all the hype the business world gives the so-called career ladder, the truth is nobody’s career looks like the staircase it’s supposed to.
Here, the United Kingdom’s top business podcaster and new TEDX speaker Sarah Ellis, co-founder of award-winning career development company Amazing If, offers some rethinking on your direct route to the top.
Sarah Ellis: (My cofounder) Helen and I were having a coffee one day in London, and I was doodling a staircase and thinking about the ladder, and I made a joke like, this is what it really is. Then I scribbled a line in all different directions, a bit knotted, a total mess. We both looked at it and thought, although this wasn’t a new idea, it was the visual we needed to describe something we were already feeling. We just didn’t have the word to describe it.
FP Work: Why did you choose the word “squiggly”? It’s so funny and very British to me.
Ellis: Is it really that British? I think the word squiggly just strikes a chord with a lot of people. Anyone who’s had many types of careers, or gone back to school or changed directions, instantly recognizes the squiggle. You don’t have to use the word squiggle, though. I’ve also heard “beehive” or “jungle gym.” It’s not really about the word.
FP Work: I really like squiggly now. I’m feeling squiggly.
Ellis: Lots of people are. There’s a real democratizing quality when you show people this visual and just acknowledge and validate that lots of people’s careers have been and are squiggly — even if they’re not talking about it. Schools and work and everything try to tell us that the ladder is what we should all be doing. You should be working hard until you get a promotion, step up and then do it again.
FP Work:: Sometimes it feels like if you haven’t been promoted lately, or made more money, you haven’t actually done anything.
Ellis: That is a complete myth held by so many ambitious people. We want you to question it and, ultimately, let it go. There are so many different ways of developing and progressing and only one of those ways is a promotion. If you’re too focused on that, if that’s all that matters to you, you will miss all the other ways. It’s very narrow-minded and limited to equate progression to something so obvious.
FP Work: Gotta say, tapping out sounds very appealing. Is it as fun and easy as I’m imagining?
Ellis: Actually, no. It’s very easy to wrap all of your identity up in status and titles, and it’s very hard to let go of all that. It’s a huge mind shift for most people and it takes confidence and bravery. We’re not saying a squiggly career is easy. It’s not. It’s busy and stressful and overwhelming sometimes. It’s also energizing and full of possibilities.
FP Work: How can people who are stuck in status and titles get themselves unstuck? Ellis: Take a closer look at why you’re good at your job. If your first answer is “my technical knowledge,” you’re selling yourself short. I promise you’ve got loads more transferable talent than you’re probably giving yourself credit for. It’s not always great to have super-specific skills; it’s always great to have skills like problem-solving and relationship-building and embracing change.
FP: Those almost sound like squiggly skills. How can bosses and organizations foster them?
Ellis: They can rethink the job by making learning the job itself. You don’t go to work to learn to do a specific job; the learning is the job. What you’re working on doesn’t matter as much as how you’re working. If and when people are curious, jobs should be flexible and make space for people to move around, no promotions necessary. You should be able to squiggle internally and find meaning within the organization, rather than sitting there waiting to move up. People want to work in organizations that let them develop in different directions depending on their personal experience. Nobody wants to be in a box. Or a beehive.