Climbing your way to the Top?
- By Gautam Nath
Think you know the way, look again.
While we were youngsters we all dreamed about rope ladders and tree houses and during the rainy days stayed indoors and played snakes and ladders.
Did we grow out of that?
No, not really, it’s just that our ladders got redefined. From snakes and ladders, we now played on the corporate ladder.
It was our management school professors who told us all about corporate life and that is why we studied hard each year as we worked to score good marks and join the corporate rat race.
Those were the easy days, the corporate ladder would stare you in the face and you would strive hard each year to go up the next rung.
The Corporate ladder was steep, you would run into the occasional snake and falter but it was clear. The way forward was up.
Then life changed, the ladder disappeared and your corporate race changed its rules.
The way forward is no longer up, the way forward is no longer using the ladder, but the way forward is now dictated by, what I coin, ‘The Corporate Trellis’.
Yes, you heard me right, the corporate race today is not on the ladder but has been replaced by ‘The Trellis’. The way forward is sideways.
Corporates hire and value cross department exposure and this is fast becoming the HR department’s new toy to play with. How you move using ‘The Corporate Trellis’ dictates when you will reach the top. This cross-functional movement brings fresh energy and innovativeness hitherto much sought after into the Boardroom.
A.G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor and Gamble, mentions that “I learned to think, to communicate, to lead, to get things done.”
Jim Collins in his book From Good to Great was one of the first to dispel the myth that successful leaders rise to the top because they are naturally out going. More often, leading CEO’s are humble and introverted.
What is important is to be able to put yourself in the others shoes and how better than having had experience working in various different departments of the organisation. This lateral movement also means that you do not have to wait for your boss to move up or move out before you progress. ‘The Trellis’ brings with it, this great opportunity and more and more senior executives are now crawling all over it.
“If you’ve not been there, how can you understand it yet alone lead it”, said one management guru.
Once seen as solely the Marketing domain, today how many companies we know are led by people from the Finance Stream or the Human Resources or Operations Stream.
Edward Neville Isdell, Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company spent half his career on the Bottling side of the business. Before joining Coca Cola, he ran his own investment company in Barbados.
Before joining Pepsi as senior vice president of strategic planning, Indra Nooyi worked in strategy-oriented executive positions at Asea Brown Boveri, Motorola Inc. and the Boston Consulting Group. Today she sits proud as the Chairperson and CEO at PepsiCo and in her travel up the Corporate Trellis, has held the portfolio of Chief Financial Officer.
David Lowden, CEO of TNS PLC, the leading provider of market information and business insights, took on this role coming from a Finance Background, as the Group Finance Director.
So throw away the notion of the corporate ladder and bring in the concept of ‘The Corporate Trellis. This relieves boredom, ensures sustained retention, gives many executives a way forward and creates managers who are more aware and with far greater perspective.
So remember the way forward is sideways.
The Author is Executive Director, TNS India.
