Mass Career Customization

ONE

From Ladder to Lattice

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

—Andy Warhol

Scaling the corporate ladder has been the enduring gold standard for personal success since organizational hierarchy was invented two centuries ago at the beginning of the industrial age. But organizational hierarchy is not what it used to be. Neither is the corporate ladder—nor the corporate workforce.

A confluence of market and demographic forces in the past twenty years has compressed hierarchies, shortened the ladder, and reduced the qualified pool of high-potential employees available to climb it. Another set of business and societal influences has reshaped the American workforce in gender mix and diversity. Employees’ ...