The Game of Ladderburning
Unlike the games of Achieve and Advance and Climb the Ladder, Ladderburning destroys the concepts inherent in both games and focuses on building relationships instead. It doesn’t matter what the structure of any organization is because Ladderburners create their own paths and deal with structures no matter what they are or where they lead. Winning is measured by the ability to create meaning for yourself and those around you. Ladderburners are not motivated by the rewards of pay, promotion, prestige, and status. They are motivated by something deeper and more personal.
Ladderburning Beliefs
Ladderburning is the pursuit of meaningful work by unleashing your intrinsic motivation on the world.
It’s built on three beliefs:
1. You own your professional development.
2. It’s up to you to find meaning and purpose.
3. Building relationships, not personal achievements, creates meaningful work.
Ladderburners scan the horizon, looking for purpose. When they find it, they engage with a vengeance. They don’t expect their bosses or company cultures to be responsible for their happiness. They know that meaning and purpose have no predetermined time frame. They just know they are in the “right place” to be a part of it. They understand that every job won’t be exciting or personally meaningful, and they chalk that up to just getting that much closer to what’s critical and important. Whether they’ve worked for 20 years or are just starting out in the workplace, they are motivated by something inside them that doesn’t completely jive with a lockstep career path. They value the importance of building credibility, committing and delivering something of value to others, and building a reputation and track record of success. They focus on building relationships that, over time, facilitate what they do, expand the context they do it in, and increase the opportunity to work with people who share a desire to be a part of something big, important, and fun. Creating impact and meaning are more than personal goals. They are shared responsibilities Ladderburners take seriously.
Ladder Climbers achieve their goal by achieving results, which means they put themselves at the center of their own universe. It’s a solo venture. For Ladderburners to achieve their purpose, they put others at the center of their universe. There’s no keeping score. It’s not a competition.
Intrinsic Motivation: “The Author of One’s Actions”
Ever had one of those moments when you were on fire and couldn’t be stopped? Remember what that felt like? Ever seen a musician close their eyes and be swept away by what they were doing? What about Serena Williams when she wins in straight sets? This is what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to as “flow, the state when you’re carried away by joy and emotion, feeling in total control with purpose and exhilaration.” He adds, “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to the limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”1
Stretched, voluntary, difficult, and worthwhile—I like the sound of where this is going. The question is, how do you get “there,” not knowing if you’re looking for a moment, a series of moments, or a prolonged time? Enter Edward Deci and his colleague Richard Ryan.2 They wanted to understand when people experience the greatest levels of motivation and personal satisfaction. They concluded that when people are autonomous, authentic, and act with responsibility, they are at their best. On the flip side, when behavior is controlled, people will either comply by doing the minimum or rebel and risk the consequences.3
Deci tells us, “Authenticity necessitates behaving autonomously, for it means being the author of one’s actions (my italics)—acting in accord with one’s true inner self.” This is intrinsic motivation—the feeling of exhilaration that arises from an inarticulate place inside of you as the artist of your creation.
Need an image of what intrinsic motivation looks like? It’s children at “work” on the playground. They are free to be curious and creative. They just make it up as they go along, knowing there’s a pony in there somewhere. When they climb the ladder, it’s to slide down the other side.
As adults, we are uncertain how much creativity and joy we should expect in our jobs and careers. We are clear about the value of a paycheck and other external rewards, but what’s not as clear is—are the tradeoffs for “agreeing” to strip out achieving results from youthful sandbox enthusiasm worth it?
Can you be the author of your own actions? Can you be the creator of your own environment as well as a part of it? Can you derive intrinsic motivation from a job or career to find a vocation or calling?
Yes.
What Defines Ladderburners
A few years ago, a marketing specialist I was working with asked me to define “my unique value proposition.” I saw it as a trick question. I didn’t understand, and I could only laugh. I do remember when I was asked who was the “enemy,” the dragon I was slaying for the good of my clients? That one I understood: the corporate ladder.
It hit me that the people I feel I have helped the most have a different way of thinking and approaching their jobs. Pay and promotion are important to them, but it’s not what motivates them. I call them Ladder-burners. These are people who work inside traditional Ladder Climbing organizations but march to a different drummer. At a tangible level, they talk about things like talent development and building organizational capacity. At an emotional level—which is where they operate from—they talk about meaningful work and making a difference. They are on a personal mission. This is not something they read or learned in a seminar. This is who they are and what they do.
What Ladderburners share are nonlinear paths to their careers, a breadth of interests, a unique talent to build relationships, a sense of rebelliousness, the need to have fun, an urgency to do something big, and an excitement for what they’re doing—even when they are flat out busy, or when the you-know-what hits the fan.
What I love about the term of Ladderburning is that you don’t have to set fire to the ladder by going out and quitting your job. You have to build your career in a way that makes you less fragile and makes you more prepared for opportunity when it comes up.
—Kevin Faul, Founder of Conway Electric and
Tamarelo Liqueur
How Ladderburners Think
Ladderburners:
• Approach the world of work from a “let’s see where this takes me” perspective. They take different paths, all headed to the same “place” where making an impact is more important than making money.
• Are restless explorers, unencumbered by convention. What the outside world sees as bouncing around, they describe as curiosity. They embark upon the world of work knowing their first job is not their last. They pick up bits and pieces of learnings and what interests them from jobs, assignments, and people they meet.
• Search for and create environments that reflect their intrinsic motivation. They need the autonomy to do what brings them satisfaction, to hone their craft, and to join with others who share the need to connect to something bigger.
• Are story makers, tellers, and listeners. Their stories are filled with twists and turns, clearly the way they like it. They talk a lot about “luck” and “coincidence,” which are moments they live for, even though “luck” and coincidence” are anything but.
• They have big imaginations and are not afraid to make things up as they go, including their jobs or moving in a nonlinear direction. Their personal excitement and creativity are like dragsters jacked up at the starting line, just waiting for the lights to turn green.
• They invest in learning their trade, and over time, they invest more in understanding people they have surrounded themselves with. They respect all people by seeking out what they share in common and celebrating what makes them special.
• Don’t worry about the credentials and experience they don’t have for a position. They apply because it sounds intriguing.
• Open doors, like the ones that nobody walks through when leaving the movies—the ones that are closed, but not locked. They understand what it takes to Climb the Ladder and choose to play the game differently. They understand the bureaucracy and look for ways around it. They understand the chain of command, and they are highly skilled at asking for forgiveness. They like to learn about people and how they do things directly from them, not from the Internet.
• Believe building bridges across people and organizations is more intriguing than waiting their turn to move up. They are bifocal—they look out as well as look down. They see the bigger picture, which gives them the reputation for asking a lot of questions, particularly “why.”
• Are serious but playful about their work. They laugh a lot, mostly at themselves.
• Are pros at asking dumb questions. They make self-deprecating humor an art form and pride themselves for not bearing the burden as the brightest bulb in the circuit. They invite themselves to meetings they think they should attend, even when the organizer “forgets” to send a calendar reminder.
• Talk a lot about luck and coincidences.
• Move in directions where opportunities may not have anything to do with their backgrounds. They consider themselves works in progress, which excites and motivates them.
• Relish the pursuit of being part of something bigger, and often use words like “impact” and “making a difference” when describing the common thread of their career paths.
• Unlike Ladder Climbers who like to build things, Ladderburners like to build things.
“You Have to Find Your Own Oxygen”
Mark J. Walters, DVM
Professor, Scholar, Author
Emma got me thinking about Ladder Climbing. Mark Walters got me thinking about Ladderburning.4 I’ve known Mark since our childhood in Hendersonville, North Carolina. As one of 12 children, he lived in a rambling house with two drinking fountains, an infirmary, a dinner table that sat 20 people or more, and multiple cars parked sideways in the driveway with keys in the ignition and no gas in the tanks. There was the annual holiday Walters Bowl, multiple billiard competitions, an indoor concession stand operated by his youngest brother who stocked it with high margin sodas, snacks, and no family discounts, and two sets of washers and dryers going 24/7/365. If you ever left a piece of clothing out in the open, you could pretty much count on seeing it a week later worn by someone else. I think you get the picture.
What defines Mark as a Ladderburner is the path of his career. To call it “nonlinear” would be an understatement when you see how he got from his writing sanctuary in the cat closet as a kid to his office as Professor of Journalism and Digital Communication at the University of South Florida, Saint Petersburg. So, he has a doctorate in journalism? No. Mark is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.
Mark composed his first book at age 7, a collection of bird pictures he gave to his mother. Since then, he has written six books, was reviewed by The New York Times, and lectured at Harvard. He was accepted into vet school because, according to him, “every program needs a freak of nature.” He holds a master’s degree in journalism, worked as a merchant marine, a tugboat hand, and a fact checker at Reader’s Digest, plays the banjo and likes bluegrass music, lectured on extinct species and deadly plagues, self-published a book on communication skills for medical professionals because he thought his students needed it, is an amateur photographer, and is the director of graduate studies. He laughs a lot, often at himself. He tells his would-be graduates to fasten their seatbelts because common and accepted myths of work and business will soon be revealed once they hit the bricks.
While some might look at Mark’s career path as nontraditional, unconventional, and crazy, it makes perfect sense when you meet him. He would tell you that he is where he is today because life is a pursuit in which “you have to find your own oxygen.” Since he’s worked as a professor at the University of South Florida for the past 19 years, he “hasn’t worked a day in his life.” He is engaging and engaged, interesting and interested. For many people, Mark’s story is validation that the path of their careers is not as crazy or random as people might think, especially when Climbing the Ladder is not your motivation.
Food for Thought
1. Ladderburners are not a one size fits all group. That’s what makes them interesting.
2. Some come up through Ladder Climbing organizations.
3. Some are pushed off the Ladder. Many, like Kevin Faul, Founder of Conway Electric and Tomarelo Liqueur, go on to start their own businesses.
4. Some create their own path. They feel that nonlinear is the best source for excitement and adventure. That’s the Mark Walters approach.
5. What Ladderburners share in common is their bedrock belief that building relationships is a healthier, more fulfilling way of life and work than marching down a road that goes to nowhere and makes you think you’re not good enough.
