GPS Your Career: Bonnie Marcus: Lateral Career Moves Still Get You Ahead

e are accustomed to the traditional career ladder model with the focus on moving up the ladder to be successful. Moving up the ladder is equivalent to advancing your career and we are always looking for opportunities to climb the next rung for the next promotion in our current company or elsewhere. But now a new model is emerging called the career lattice. This new model provides opportunities to improve our skills and take on new responsibilities. Yet the focus is lateral not upward.

This week we’re going to discuss how this new lattice model can benefit us in our careers and what we need to do to position ourselves to succeed in this model.

Featured Guest

Joining me is Joanne Cleaver, author of The Career Lattice. Joanne’s company is Wilson-Taylor Associates, Inc. Joanne is a strategic communication consultant and business journalist, she earned a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1980 and an MSJ in 1981, with an emphasis on economic reporting. She has written extensively for consumer and business publications, including the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, Crain’s New York Business, Working Woman, Working Mother, Pink, Home Office Computing, Small Business Computing, Ticker, and many others. She has authored seven books: four on business growth and three on family travel.