What Lies Beyond

Turning the corner in your career journey.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on March 12, 2024

I have two cats, of the same litter. One is sweet and playful by nature, the other is savvy and cautious. Savvy cat has a stronger sense of object permanence – meaning when an object is beyond her field of vision, she understands it is still there, and will seek ways to find it based on logic rather than visual perception.

Photo by Paola Andrea on Unsplash

I play hide and seek with savvy cat in the basement of my house, where I have a series of interconnected rooms, in which the last room connects back to the first. As I go through these rooms one by one, she will initially follow and chase after me. But eventually – since she has a strong sense of object permanence – she will tire of chasing me and go in the opposite direction. The result of which is she stands ready to confront me as my route leads right to her. She detects where I am going to end up and repositions herself to intercept me rather than chase me indefinitely. Though she is a house cat, I imagine having the ability to visualize or imagine what lies beyond is an important survival skill.

When I engage in career conversations with members of my team, I often emphasize what lies beyond their current role. Sometimes this is a role on the same team, or perhaps same company, but just as often it is a role in another company or even another industry. I don’t constrain the conversation to immediately adjacent opportunities because that would constrain my perception of their true potential. Should I not at least consider this person may one day be my peer or my boss? Who am I to say?

Approaching the conversation in this way allows me to engage both our imaginations. Why should I be afraid of this person’s potential – rather than excited by it? I only need fear if I am in competition with – need to “beat” – you. But if I am in competition with you, how can I have your best interests at heart? And if I do not have your best interests at heart, how deeply can our trust be rooted? And if our trust cannot be deeply rooted, how can I ask you to do difficult things without invoking the sense that an aspect of our relationship is predatory – rather than us simply having to do a difficult thing together?

Talking about what lies beyond can be scary. I tell people not to freak out, that I am not trying to suggest they cannot succeed here. I’m sure they freak out a little anyway. Over time I think they get used to it. After all we can spend all day running around in circles, or (like savvy cat) we can simply stop, meet each other where we stand, and assess our opportunities adroitly.

If you haven’t sought out this level of authenticity in your workplace engagement, consider why. Do you distrust your manager, your enterprise, or yourself? What does that mean for your prospects this month, this year, and this decade?

J