The confusing career ladder arc

The career ladder — or career development, career arc, job growth, etc. that you want to call it — is a big deal. Take a look at this visual:

That was the basic first-world life path for much of the time after the Industrial Revolution. Now it looks a bit more like this:

That obviously impacts your individual career ladder. But there’s another thing you need to take into account, especially if you’re a decision-maker who can promote others.

The career ladder and the dirty little secret

Let’s start with two things that I mostly believe to be true about workplaces:

• Very few people understand what exactly their salary represents
• Very few people understand how/why others are promoted

If you add those two together with “We tend to put people in teams to do work, but we promote individuals,” you kind of explained a major lack of clarity for many about work. That’s when you come to…