Managing PLATEAUING

At first glance, Greg has it made. He has a good job in his chosen field and makes lots of money. He has a wife and family and lives in a nice house, which is almost paid for. He has what virtually everyone wants. Despite all this, Greg isn’t happy. He has a nagging feeling that something is missing in his life. He questions where he is going and what’s happening to him. With time, he becomes more and more dissatisfied. Greg doesn’t know it, but he has reached a plateau. What he is feeling is experienced by many others in their careers. When people feel dissatisfied, unfulfilled and unchallenged, it is a reliable sign that they have reached a plateau. When people in their forties hit a plateau, they call it a mid-life crisis. Yet plateauing is common. Even so, it should be treated seriously.

Let’s explore Greg’s problem a little further. Greg was always ambitious. All through school and university, he worked hard for the best grades. When he graduated, he and 10 other newcomers joined the firm that he still works for. They were all top students and very competitive people. Greg loved the challenge. He also loved the raises he was given and the promotions he was handed. He had always been taught that hard work and dedication would bring continuous rewards. The implicit contract he had with his company said just that. The company expected a lot from him and, in return, rewarded him with salary increases and promotions.

Suddenly, three years ago, the promotions stopped. Although no one actually said anything to him, Greg somehow felt something was wrong. He was being passed over. If a position opened up (which was seldom), an outsider would be brought in to fill it. His work, which was his life, was now so routine that it was becoming boring. He had worked hard in the past few years with little recognition to show for it. He realized that he hadn’t really seen his kids grow up or spent much time with his wife since joining the company. He had given his all to the firm, and he now wondered whether it had been worth it.

What happened to Greg can happen to any company employee. Eventually, that person reaches a plateau. The future seems to hold only repetition and routine. Promotions will be difficult, if not impossible. If he has been in his curent position for a long time and is near the top of the pay scale for his job, salary increases will be small. A person in this position can feel like he’s in a rut and yearn for the days when hard work and recognition went hand-in-hand. Structural Plateauing

People can feel “plateaued” at any level in a company — even at top levels. In her book, The Plateauing Trap, Dr Judith Bardwick identifies three types of plateauing that a person can face: structural plateauing, content plateauing, and life plateauing. Anyone can face these types of plateauing, and the plateaus can be devastating unless individuals and companies take action to address the problems they cause.

A person is structurally plateaued if he is capable of taking on a higher level of responsibility than he is being assigned; he is qualified to be promoted but is not promoted. We have a serious problem today involving under-promotion of capable people; there are too many people chasing too few jobs.

A lot of qualified graduates are coming into the job market. The baby-boomers are now of an age where they are beginning to take on responsible management positions. There are a lot of people in this age group, and they can’t all have senior management positions. To compound today’s oversupply problem, individuals are better educated and expect more from a career than their parents.

In addition to the oversupply of people is an undersupply of good positions. The growth rate of our economy is slowing. Consequently, the creation of new management positions has been constrained. Also, efforts to reduce overhead costs in recent years have resulted in a reduction of middle management numbers. For example, more than half a million white collar jobs have been eliminated in the U.S. over the past two years.

With more qualified people and fewer positions available, the competition for promotion in most companies is intense. As one climbs higher up the corporate pyramid, with fewer and fewer positions at the top, the competition for the next promotion becomes even more intense.

When all these factors are taken into account, it is easy to see why qualified, competent people are often stuck at one level in a company.

This condition exists when a person feels he has learned all there is to know about his job, and the challenge that was once in his work is gone. Work that had once seemed exciting now seems dull and uninspiring, and the person can become unmotivated. When there is constant pressure on a person to work hard, and yet there is no real recognition or reward given for the efforts, that person can become disappointed and embittered.

Often, the structural impasse leads to content plateauing. However, content plateauing, unlike the structural form, doesn’t have to happen. People can be encouraged to take on new challenges and made to feel excited about their work. However, it takes recognition of the problem and a willingness, on the part of the individual and his company, to confront it. Life Plateauing

This is a more serious situation. A person has plateaued in life when he feels that nothing is exciting any more. Not only is work dull, but other aspects of life hold little stimulation. Such a person continually questions his worth and destiny.

Even the busiest people can be plateaued in life. In fact, the individuals who are most susceptible to life plateauing are workaholics who have plateaued at work. Since their jobs are everything to them, they also plateau in life. They can feel angry and betrayed, or they can feel empty and resigned. Burnout is a form of life plateauing in which there is extreme resignation. Life plateauing can make a person grow more remote from his company and friends and can lead to stress and illness if not addressed.

The path of plateauing can be especially devastating for those who have been successful in the past. When recognition was being given often by the company, great efforts and personal sacrifices seemed worth it. However, without promotions or recognition, these individuals realize that the personal cost of keeping up their work schedules is no longer balanced by the rewards.

Most people will plateau at some time in the future. Plateauing is nothing to be ashamed of, but it can harm a person’s self-esteem. People measure success in terms of promotions and levels of responsibility at work. We define ourselves in terms of our work. When people ask, “What do you do?,” they mean what do you work at. Most of us were brought up to believe in a strong work ethic. We believe that if we worked hard, we would continue to win throughout our lives. People who work hard without recognition see it as failure.

What’s worse is that people often see their own failure to progress in terms of the “Peter Principal.” This notion, which was popular in the 1960s, when the economy was growing rapidly, stated that everyone rises to his own level of incompetence. Promotions stop when a person is promoted into a job that he cannot handle. This is actually the opposite of what happens today, when people stop winning in the workplace long before they approach their own personal limits.

Being successful has to be redefined as being happy, content and making a positive contribution, at any corporate level. In the future, those individuals who will be most successful will be those who are able to maintain their work-related interests while cultivating interests outside of work. They will bring a balanced approach to their lives. To be successful, we still need to be satisfied and even excited by our jobs, but we also need to be stimulated by activities on a broader front.

Those who feel they have plateaued must recognize that change is needed. To begin to change usually takes recognition by an individual that the fear of remaining the same is greater that the fear of changing. Ignoring the problem creates stress that can affect health and create a downward spiral in all aspects of life. To change may involve risk, but that can also lead to greater rewards.

There are many things that companies can do. First, they should emphasize challenge over promotion in defining success. People who have plateaued structurally do not have to reach a content plateau. Horizontal transfers can add challenge, as can responsibility for new assignments. Employees must always be allowed to grow and be encouraged to try new things. In a sense, employees are like children: in order to keep them, a company must let them go. Second, the importance of promotions can be lessened by reducing the number of management levels in a firm. Third, companies should guard against their employees becoming workaholics. Employees should be encouraged to take regular holidays and to strive for a balanced lifestyle. Profitability

Why would a company worry about all this anyway? After all, isn’t a company primarily concerned with making money for its shareholders. The answer is that a quality workforce is in the best long-term interests of the shareholders. In the long run, respecting and caring for the individual is what sets successful companies apart from unsuccessful ones. As Wayne Alderson says in his book Stronger Than Steel: “You don’t do that sort of thing for productivity, you do it to get the plant to work profitably.” With motivated and highly efficient workers, a company’s products and services can only become better. William Stanley is director of national mine services at Coopers & Lybrand Consulting Services.