Lattice Ways to Build Careers: An Operational Approach to Career Customization

By: Cathleen Benko and Molly Anderson

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Synopsis: The changing world of work is dismantling the corporate ladder step by step. Tom Peters, the best-selling author of "In Search of Excellence," sums it up this way: "It's over. No more vertical. No more ladder. A career is now a checkerboard. Or even a maze." In this chapter, the authors explore how companies can redesign their talent practices through career enhancement and customization. They introduce the mass career customization (MCC) tool, which provides a framework and a process for creating personalized careers. The MCC framework takes into account growth and development, along with career-life fit, at both the individual and the organizational levels. It offers a set of options along four interrelated career dimensions: pace, workload, location/schedule, and role. The chapter concludes with the story of how one company, Thrivent Financial, used the MCC tool to develop a talent management strategy that focused on developing deep, long-term relationships with its people-while at the same time achieving its goal of vastly expanding its client base. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 3 of "The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work."