Burn Ladders. Build Bridges

Alan M. Patterson

Description

“Patterson doesn’t offer tricks, gimmicks, or slogans of ten-steps-to-happiness. This is a book of deep wisdom as well as practical advice. Anyone who reads it will be wiser—and happier on the job—for it.” –Mark Walters, Professor, University of South Florida

Burn Ladders. Build Bridges. undoes the status-quo of career enhancement. Tearing up the playbook and finding breakthrough ways to create impact, build meaning, fuel your passion to do bigger, greater things–while enjoying the entire journey. No matter what stage you’re currently in.

Maybe you’re going from college to career and wondering how on earth you’re going to unlock all the business world has to offer.

Or maybe you’re the experienced professional who wants more out of their lot in life and to make work abundantly more fulfilling.

Or maybe you want to be that leader–the one who connects. Engages. Inspires. But haven’t had the mentor or the training to set you up for success.

No matter what your goals, what lies on these pages can put you on a path. An enlightening one.

Unlike other career wisdom, you’ll find the balance of theory and practicality. Of success and connection. And be able to demonstrate leadership and find your purpose in whatever position you’re in, organization you work for or business you create.

Burn Ladders. Burn Bridges. is ready to help you find the inherent joy in it all. Are you?

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• développement personnel
• Success
• Self-help
• Personal Growth

Informations

• Publié par: Business Expert Press
• Date de parution: 06 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781637422144
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Burn Ladders. Build Bridges.
Burn Ladders. Build Bridges.
Pursuing Work With Meaning + Purpose
Alan M. Patterson
Burn Ladders. Build Bridges: Pursuing Work With Meaning + Purpose
Copyright © Business Expert Press, LLC, 2022.
Cover design by Jenny Knuth
Interior design by Exeter Premedia Services Private Ltd., Chennai, India
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in 2022 by
Business Expert Press, LLC
222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017
www.businessexpertpress.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-63742-213-7 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-63742-214-4 (e-book)
Business Expert Press Business Career Development Collection
First edition: 2022
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To brothers Larry and Bob. Two characters. Remembered and loved with all my heart.
Description
Burn Ladders. Build Bridges. undoes the status-quo of career enhancement. Tearing up the playbook and finding breakthrough ways to create impact, build meaning, fuel your passion to do bigger, greater things–while enjoying the entire journey. No matter what stage you’re currently in.
Maybe you’re going from college to career and wondering how on earth you’re going to unlock all the business world has to offer.
Or maybe you’re the experienced professional who wants more out of their lot in life and wants to make work abundantly more fulfilling.
Or maybe you want to be that leader—the one who connects. Engages. Inspires. But haven’t had the mentor or the training to set you up for success.
No matter what your goals are, what lies on these pages can put you on a path. An enlightening one.
Unlike other career wisdom, you’ll find the balance of theory and practicality. Of success and connection. And you’ll be able to demonstrate leadership and find your purpose in whatever position you’re in, organization you work for or business you create.
By connecting with others, and more importantly, with yourself, this book will help you find a new way to contribute to the people and opportunities around you. And, in the process, discover that connecting with others is not what you do–it’s who you are.
Welcome. Let’s burn. Let’s build.
Keywords
career coaching; career advancement; professional advancement; employee engagement; success at work; key to success; success ladder; business success; workplace leadership; leadership development; dream job; happiness at work; career books; job skill-building; career guidance; career change; self-help career book; college to career
Contents
Prologue
Foreword
Acknowledgments
What People Are Saying
Chapter 1 To Swim in the Pacific Ocean
Chapter 2 Achieve + Advance
Chapter 3 The Road to Not Good Enough
Chapter 4 The State of Stuck
Chapter 5 The Pursuit of Meaning
Chapter 6 What Ladderburners Do
Chapter 7 Build a Base of Competence + Credibility
Chapter 8 Build Context
Chapter 9 Build Relationships
Chapter 10 Create Impact
Chapter 11 Create Meaning
Chapter 12 Onward
Chapter 13 Miss Hughes School for Little Folks Commencement Address
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
Index
Perhaps some detours aren’t detours at all. Perhaps they are actually the path.
—Katherine Wolf
Instead of asking, “How can I motivate people,” we should be asking, “How can I create the conditions within which people will motivate themselves?”
—Edward Deci
 
Prologue
Why Would I Do That?
Emma’s Dilemma
I met Emma in a small conference area, and the expression of pain on her face sucked out what little fresh air was left in the room. Emma—not her real name—was a member of an engineering team in a biotech company I was working with several years ago. She found out she did not get the promotion she was “promised.” The most frustrating part was that she had met all her goals that year. As I recall, this was not a situation where several people were competing for one job. This was about moving to the next level. She was devastated. She felt this was not fair. When I asked if she had ever talked directly with her boss over the past year about what it would take to get promoted, the answer was a resounding “no,” followed by complete silence, then after a few moments, “Why would I do that?”
Not getting a promotion is a big deal. It’s a blow any way you describe it. Some people back up, take stock, and figure out what it will take to move forward. Others quit and go to another organization, hoping to get back on the bandwagon someplace else. Some jump and become entrepreneurs and business owners. Others are stuck and feel defeated, depressed, and uncertain about what they really want to do. And some people will carve a nontraditional path forward, motivated by something more deeply personal.
Success contributes to our need to feel valued . Striving for success in the workplace—what we “do for a living”—plays a major role in how we define personal success. We need to feel good about who we are. We need to know that we matter and that people see us, acknowledge us and our contributions, and appreciate us for who we are and what we do. Without this, we are forced to run our own race, to do our best to separate ourselves from the pack, and to constantly take note of who’s ahead of us and who’s behind us.
Did Emma think she failed to get a promotion, or did she consider herself a failure? I suppose the only way to know for sure is to have asked her at the time. I was too busy trying to give her a pep talk about what to do rather than understanding her personal situation. In hindsight, it’s that understanding that has inspired me to write this book.
My purpose is to:

1. Validate the hazards in climbing the corporate ladder.
2. Propose a different approach to career development.
3. Describe the principles, practices, and skills needed to engage in work with meaning and purpose.
We will also explore the broader challenge issued by Clayton Christensen, former professor at Harvard Business School, to consider “how will you measure your life?” 1
Our sense of success and value is tested in times of turbulence. We couldn’t share a more common experience than what we lived with in 2020. We climbed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, moving from safety and security to feelings of self-esteem and purpose, only to get pushed off and start over. 2 Jobs were lost, living situations shattered, and livelihoods destroyed. In times like these, feeling valued is a distant second to survival. It’s hard to dig deep when you’re digging out.
How we navigate our careers and sense of success is tested through a more enduring and treacherous type of turbulence—the climb up the corporate ladder. The climb requires accumulating and tracking personal accomplishments, much like a person collects wine or baseball cards. We refer to these achievements by many names—goals, objectives, outcomes, deliverables, results, and resumes. These are manifestations of our American belief system. Put your shoulder to the wheel. Persist. Work hard, and you can be anything you want. The sky is the limit.
The problem is—the ladder is a mirage. It is based on a set of material rewards that, over time, lose their motivational power. It is an illusion, where the top is invisible to all but a few. Different rungs are all too similar in their exclusivity , especially at the higher levels. Women and people of color have known this and experienced this, forever. 3 The climb itself is treacherous, often an expedition into territory where mergers, acquisitions, restructures, natural disasters, economic upheavals, and leaps in technology render certain jobs useless and skill sets obsolete. At one time, ladders were images of certainty and predictability. Today’s social awakening and economic uncertainty expose the ladder for what it is— the road to not good enough .
There’s no fixing the Ladder, no industrial strength glue to put it back together, no pregame motivational speech like, “it’s time for the tough to get going,” something I was attempting to do with Emma. No. This is a new era, a time to challenge and support individuals who want to, who need to, and who will contribute to something bigger than themselves.
Look to the horizon of the workplace and you will see two groups of people. One is a group of recent college graduates with different expectations than their predecessors. 4 The other is a group of employers engaged in a war for hiring and retaining them. Graduates are looking for engaging work. And they aren’t the only ones. Are organizations able to deliver? Will signing bonuses and double lattes sweeten the deal?
Amid the flurry of different expectations and the havoc created by the pandemic, here is one principle everyone needs to frame and steady their situation: Only one person is responsible for your career development. You . Your boss and your organization may have your best interests at heart, but they can’t control what’s important to you or make future promises about where your career will head. Neither can your significant other, friends, mentors, or your mother.
We will discuss how to find other options to waiting your turn to climb the ladder. Moving forward doesn’t mean moving upward. You’ll see how people with different backgrounds and interests have pursued purpose and meaning wherever it has taken them.
Looking at success in the workplace started long before you walked through the door to your first job and stared up at the Ladder. For most of your life you have been engaged in two games—the game of Education, which I refer to as Achieve and Advance, and the game of Climbing the Corporate Ladder, the Road to Not Good Enough. After a brief background on American beliefs and the construction of the corporate ladder in Chapter 1 , Chapters 2 and 3 discuss these gam