Not everyone wants to climb the corporate ladder

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Dear Joan:
I read with interest your article on staff development. Good advice for us managers.

I am a manager over several financial people. I've managed people - professional and clerical - for over 20 years. Encouraging people to advance their career has always been my challenge. Most people respond to my encouragement. Given that a supervisor takes the initiative, the responsibility for response shifts to the employee.

What suggestions do you have for the supervisor who does his or her part, but the employee is slow or unresponsive? Here is a case in point: At age 35, Harry ought to get going on his career, or else he'll be stuck with a $25,000 salary and a growing family. He listens intently, works extra hard for two weeks; then settles into routine. Loving sports, there is not time to study to advance his career. Ten years from now, he'll be very sorry - but the baby boomers will have past him by.

How do I convince him he needs to invest time now?

Answer:
You've led this fellow to water, but so far he's only taken sips. Judging from the seven pages of documentation you've enclosed, I'd say you've done a good job of being specific and candid with Harry.

The problem could be that your definition of success may not match Harry's definition. In fact, some of the things you've asked him to improve - setting priorities, meeting deadlines and delegating more to his staff - may be more than just career development gaps, they may be performance issues. If, indeed, his performance is below your expectations, he needs to hear the consequences of failing to improve.

Sometimes, in an effort to be supportive, managers tread lightly on sub-par performance. This "career counseling" may be too subtle for Harry if you think he falls into this category. There's a fine line between forward-looking career development discussions and confronting performance issues, which is focused on the past.

A good way to test this is to ask yourself, "If I were to fill Harry's job tomorrow, would I hire Harry?" If you'd strongly prefer someone with more initiative and follow-through, perhaps he's far short of your expectations and you have a performance problem on your hands.

If, on the other hand, he's performing satisfactorily, he may be one of a growing number of employees whose values don't match those of traditional organizations and their reward systems. Some surprising research indicated there may be lots of Harrys around. For them, the slow, steady climb up the corporate ladder has lost its appeal and caused a general motivational malaise.

In a longitudinal study conducted by Douglas Bray for AT&T, two groups of first-level management employees were carefully tested, interviewed, assessed and then tracked. One group was hired in 1956, the other in 1977.

How did the two groups stack up against one another?

In terms of managerial ability, the two groups ranked equally well in mental ability, planning and organizing, decision-making and leadership. While just as capable of handling higher-level management jobs, however, the modern entry-level mangers were much less motivated to do so.

In the June 1986 issue of Training Magazine, author Dale Feuer discusses this and other research in his article "Brave New Managers." He states, "Their desire for upward mobility - higher status, more power, better pay - was significantly lower than the earlier sample. They also had less positive expectations about what the future held for them in terms of advancement, salary and other aspects of work." What they were interested in was work that was intrinsically challenging. However, they weren't so willing to sacrifice their personal lives.

Another study parallels Bray's findings: Every year since 1960, John Miner studied undergraduate and graduate students in business to track changes in students' "motivation to manage." This motivation first declined in 1963 and continued to fall until 1974 when it leveled off. "The biggest decreases," Miner says, "were found in students' attitudes toward authority, competitiveness with peers, assertiveness and desire to do routine administrative tasks typically required of managers."

Does all this mean today's new mangers have less ambition and lower expectations? In traditional organizational environments, yes. The research indicates that they have a more entrepreneurial spirit and are more interested in working for a small business or exciting part of an existing business.