CHAPTER 12

Some people lock into their vocational specialty early on, navigate their careers, and look back in retirement on their professional success. That describes my friend I mentioned earlier, Larry Lee. I remember a time we were out in the yard, and he pointed out what types of clouds were in the sky. We were about 9 or 10 years old at the time. He knew he wanted to be a meteorologist, go to the University of Wisconsin, and join the National Weather Service. This was at a time the rest of us were still trying to learn long division. Leo, as we know him, loved his job, “motivated by an interest in the science and wanting to be a forecaster.” He became a lead forecaster about halfway through his career, then moved into management to train and develop others (a natural talent of his) and retired after 41 years with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA).

Leo didn’t have to dig deep or struggle to discover what intrinsically motivated him. He took what was inside and marched smartly down the road of opportunity of his own making. I remember the ribbing he had to take in high school and college about the times when a prediction for a slight chance for rain turned into a 100 percent thunderstorm, and since he was studying meteorology, somehow he was responsible. His wit and humor are his best weapons, and even then, he knew how to keep his answers simple when he was dealing with people who only knew “simple.”

Let’s just say that I was a bit more conflicted than my friend. It was the smell of formaldehyde that first brought me to my senses. I was pre-med and a history major in college. How’s that for a 7-10 split. I was accepted into medical school and arrived on campus in body with a clouded mind and little spirit. Sometime during that first week, we took a tour of the city’s public hospital, and we were on our way to see the morgue in the basement. The smell was overwhelming, the temperature felt like minus 50 degrees, and I prayed no one would be on steel tables with tagged toes. I have always watched a lot of medical shows on television, and I knew with certainty what I could be in store for. My prayers were answered— in more formaldehyde ways than one. First, no bodies. Second, no medical school. The smell sealed it for me. I didn’t want to be a doctor. I didn’t want to see young children die. I remember my first gross anatomy exam, where I looked inside the chest of a cadaver, saw a bunch of tagged vessels, and had no idea what I was looking at. It could have been a replica of overpasses on I-85 for all I knew. Some six weeks later, I packed my bags, gassed up the car, and I was gone.

You could say I had made up my mind long before I crawled onto campus, and you’d be right. This is what ambivalence looks like—when you don’t know whose life and whose expectations you’ll pursue for a career. For the next several years, I was a little like Moses in the desert and finally found my way out, maybe not to the land of milk and honey, but down a path of “I will be good at doing something I want to do.” I went back to school for a master’s degree and teaching certification, and I taught at a school for kids who had previously dropped out of school. I could relate. While I was getting in a groove, I had gone from med school dropout to “just a teacher” as I heard my father tell a friend. Then, I went back to school for a doctorate in education. Yes, Dr. Alan Patterson, a doctor of another sort, even though I didn’t go by “Doctor” for more than 35 years. There was more teaching, school administration, a major switch to a management development practice, then to a similar firm with two business partners, a foray into human resources for a client where I was thoroughly mediocre and in jeopardy of losing my job, back to my business partners for almost 20 fun years, eventually on my own, doing my thing in leadership development and coaching, and now writing this book. I’d be lying if I said I had no regrets and would do it all over again. But I know now that this is what it took for me to get stuck, unstuck, meet up with interesting and interested people, learn what I was good at and admit it to myself, find out what I enjoyed, and engage in work that is personally meaningful.

By rough calculations, people spend a third of their life sleeping, another third waiting in line, and the remaining third at work. If you’re motivated by meaningful and purposeful work, and you’re waiting for it to appear, stop. Meaningful time is at a premium. It’s not coming to you. Go find it. Get moving. Wandering is not such a bad thing. Look at Edward DeShazer, Kelly Norton, or Mert Aktar. They’re in great spots. You need to wander to find what’s important, to find people and build relationships that create excitement and joy. Find the givers, the Lacey Sadoff’s of the world.

Ladderburning is a choice, to create a path to experiment with different work, build a breadth of experience, and learn from people you choose to surround yourself with. What, you’re too old? You’re stuck in your career? You’ll just keep trying to climb and hope that something changes, that someone will look out for you, thinking that your organization owes you something? You think this is just advice for those youngsters coming out of college who fear hard work and think work–life balance is more important than an honest day’s pay? Like balance is a bad thing?

If you’re starting out, here’s the drill. It starts by grounding yourself, by honing your craft and building credibility and trust with the people you work with. It’s the Learning Lab mindset and sense of experimentation. That’s a given. You need expertise and credibility. Don’t believe anyone who tells you building credibility is not important. The first couple of jobs, roughly three to five years in the workplace, is a paid learning experience if you look at it that way. Think of this as writing your own case study. Imagine that one day people will study what you did and how you did it. Maybe you’ll be in a book. You could be famous.

Throughout these experiences you’re told to work hard. Then, you’re told to work smarter, not harder. I find that very confusing and know of no one who’s not working harder, no matter how much smarter they are. You’re told to keep your head down, which means you’ll have to carefully scan the horizon to see what’s really going on around you.

This is your pursuit, whether it’s linear, circuitous, disjointed, or all three. The pandemic era is filled with stories of people jumping off the ladder, not waiting to get pushed off or doing work where they feel undervalued.

Maybe, you’ll “luck” into a dream opportunity with your very first or second job. Maybe your next job is the job. But in any case, it’s still up to you to discern what’s meaningful, because no person or job or organization can do that for you. Failures and setbacks happen—just part of the ongoing experience. Getting stuck is likely, if not inevitable. You could have your own “formaldehyde moment.” You could wander in the desert—lost, thirsty, hungry, missing your favorite on-demand medical shows. But there’s plenty of hope when you readjust what’s important.

Perhaps you have climbed the ladder for 15 to 20 years and one day think, “Is this it?” Or maybe, “What’s next?” That happens to the most successful people. Mert Aktar called it a “time of reflection.” Larry Lee said it was an “inflection point.” I’m not so sure that Scott Zarret ever felt stuck. He just worked his way through situations to find the next opportunity, and then the next, which “ironically,” he helped create. Serendipity? Hardly. Mark Walters kept pushing to the point where making meaning for others is his full-time gig. He had to “find his own oxygen.” Kelly Norton keeps engaging and lets the path take care of itself. It may be “organized chaos,” or just moving down the road that is uniquely her experience, her story.

Sometimes, you need a wakeup call, a midcourse correction, or just a different path or career. This is less about your time in the workplace and more about the reality you’ve faced since day one. You and only you own your career development. No one can figure this out for you. The culture won’t change your motivation. Discovering what motivates you is your job. Don’t blame your boss for why you don’t feel engaged. Contrary to popular thinking about changing the culture to attract talent, engagement is your responsibility. If you’re bored, unhappy, stressed, burnt out, disengaged, or just looking for something more challenging and wanting to work with fun people—look in the mirror. There’s your answer.

We look for joy and meaning in our work, which we describe as “what we do for a living.” What does that tell you? This is not just your job we’re talking about. This is about you and a collective responsibility we have to each other.

Some of you reading this book right now are in business school, maybe working on an MBA, and wanting all the tips and tricks a management consultant can offer. Some of you are new to the job market and looking for the inside scoop. Some of you are reading this because you’re impatient and looking for that silver bullet, the one simplistic solution that doesn’t exist. Others of you may just be curious as to what the heck is a Ladderburner and what’s so bad about Climbing the Ladder.

I’m going to make a bold prediction. If you think that your success will be defined because you know how to get answers, achieve results, make a lot of money, live in a nice place, and have an impressive resume, but you have not invested in building quality relationships and helping others succeed, you are toast. You will rise to a level of incompetence, and potentially top out in your career. Most people don’t care what you’ve done, where you’ve worked or went to school, or what you were like 10 years ago. They make their own judgments in the here and now, how they see and experience you, how they relate with you.

What they care about is:

Are you competent at what you do?

Do you care?

Do you enjoy what you do?

Are you a pleasure to work with?

Do you treat everyone with dignity and respect?

Do you listen?

Are you fun to work with?

Do you keep your promises?

Are you interesting?

Do you have a sense of humor?

Can you laugh at yourself?

Do you have to prove how smart you are?

Do you care about something bigger than yourself?

Is there joy in your heart?

You may think what’s in your heart is hidden. Hidden from view, yes, but not hidden from those around you. Engaging in meaningful work fills your heart. When that happens, concepts like credibility and context or impact and capacity fade into the background, and everything about the joy of meaning and connection shines through. It’s motivation from the inside out, the feeling of satisfaction derived from being part of something bigger than yourself. It’s what happens when you engage in meaningful relationships with interesting and interested people. These moments you collectively create are the ends, not the means. This is “it,” nothing less, and always with the possibility of something more. These moments are real, never that far away, and always available. You have joined the pursuit for work with meaning and purpose by building relationships with people who seek the same as you.

It’s time.