【HBR Reports】无法晋升，如何获得职业发展？

公司组织的运营越发精益，组织架构越来越扁平，你的职场晋升脚步可能会提早停滞。原因何在？简单地说就是没有晋升空间了。不管是供职于企业、非营利组织还是政府机构，事实都如此。倘若你的事业正方兴未艾却遭遇平台期，你该如何应对？首先要做一番盘点：周边同事是否让你受益良多？组织任务是否依然让你干劲十足？如果答案是否定的，那或许是时候走人了。但如果答案是肯定的，就考虑一下如何在平台期获得成长吧。

As organizations run leaner and flatter, your ability to move up can stall much earlier in your career because, simply put, there’s no place to go. This is true whether you work for a corporation, nonprofit, or public agency. So what should you do when you reach that plateau and you’re only midway through your career? First, take stock. Do you enjoy and learn from your colleagues? Are you still energized by the mission of the organization? If the answer is no, it may be time to move on. But if the answer is yes, consider ways to grow on the plateau.

平台期至少有四种经过验证的成长途径，这些方法都需要你扪心自问：什么能让你干劲十足、哪些会削弱你的动力。

There are at least four proven approaches, all of which require that you ask what energizes you and what saps your motivation.

横向调动

在组织内横向调动，可以成为一个绝好的职业机遇，让你发展新的技能、新的关系，并接触不同的产品或服务。你可以从这几个方面探索新的内部机会：通过与另一部门或单位的领导者会面获取信息；承担涉及其他业务单元的跨部门任务；主动从业务部门调到跨业务单元的职能部门，如财务、人事或运营。卡夫等大型企业认为轮岗是全能领导者成长的必修课，并且主动邀请有潜力的业务主管承担职能部门的工作，反之亦然。举个例子，珍妮是某专业服务公司的高管，她的职位从跟客户打交道的合伙人转为首席运营官，她可以利用自己之前带给客户的分析工具以及变革管理的洞见，在公司管理层为组织做贡献。在此过程中，她的财务、人力资源、公司治理和IT方面的管理能力都得到了锻炼。而且没有外部客户事务填满她的日程表，她的日常时间安排也变得更为灵活。

Lateral moves within your organization can be a great way to build new skills and relationships and get exposure to different products or services. You can explore new internal opportunities in a few ways, by: conducting internal informational interviews and meeting with a leader in another division or unit; taking on cross-cutting assignments involving other business units; or volunteering to move, say, from a business unit to a staff function that transcends units, such as finance, HR, or operations. Indeed, corporations like Kraft, consider role rotation standard for building well-rounded leaders, and actively invite promising line managers to take on staff jobs and the reverse. One senior leader at a professional services company, whom we’ll call Bronwyn, made the move from client-facing partner to chief operating officer. She was able to build on the analytics and change management insights she had brought to clients to help strengthen her own organization from the C-suite. In the process she developed managerial muscle in finance, human resources, governance, and IT, and, as a bonus, Bronwyn gained more flexibility in her schedule since she didn’t have external client demands driving her day-to-day work.

重塑职业角色

另一种在平台期成长的方法是重塑自己当前的角色。这需要你清点一下自己更喜欢做什么、不喜欢做什么，然后开始行动。在与团队成员协作时，你可以修改各人责任范围，为其他人创造发挥才能的机会，并变更自己的职责，为自己留出接受新挑战的空间。寻找这种新挑战的好地方，一个是你的上级主管（他负责的事情里面有没有你感兴趣的、可以帮他一把的？），一个是员工及客户调查（有没有什么需求是组织没能满足、而你有相关技能可以回应的？）。举例来说，某消费品公司的客户战略专家桑德拉30出头就当上了副总，根据公司文化，她明白自己下次升职要等一阵子了。但她知道自己仍想继续留在公司，于是她在部门间服务交付中寻找空缺——从供应链直到电子商务，然后自愿协助同事填补这些管理真空。之后几年里，桑德拉在副总职位上扩展了自身的活动，对公司的了解得以加深，并获得了新的技能、关系和创新方面的经验。

Reshaping your current role is another way to grow on the plateau. This calls for taking inventory of what you’d like to do more of, less of, and start doing. In concert with team members, you can redraw some boundaries to create stretch opportunities for others as you shift responsibilities to make space for your own new challenges. Two good places to look for these challenges are on your supervisor’s plate (Does she have areas of responsibility that you find interesting that could help free her up?); and in employee and customer surveys (Are there needs the organization isn’t meeting that you have the skills to respond to?) An expert in customer strategy at a consumer products company, whom we’ll call Sandra, became a vice president in her early 30s and knew that she would need to wait a while for her next promotion, given the company’s culture. She knew she wanted to stay with the company, however, so she looked for gaps in service delivery across business units – from supply chain to e-commerce – and then volunteered to help colleagues fill those gaps. Sandra spent the next several years intrapreneurially expanding activities within her vice president role, learning more about the company and gaining new skills, relationships, and a reputation for innovation.

扩大影响力

主动指导他人，建立内部社群，或是主动代表本组织与外部接触，这些举动可以扩大你的影响力，不必改变职位便能向新的领域发展。举个例子，玛利亚是一家关注青年发展的非营利组织里的项目经理。除非常务董事升职，否则她在组织内难有晋升空间。于是她开始与本市关注外来青年教育、培训和就业的其他组织开展外部合作，发展自己的人脉，对自己的项目进行革新。她在组织外的影响力得以拓展，在组织内获得了声望。等到要任命新的常务董事时，因为外部人脉广泛，玛利亚成为了呼声最高的内部候选人，并最终得到了这个职位。

Expanding your influence through actively mentoring others, building internal communities of practice, or stepping up to represent your organization with external bodies can forge satisfying new frontiers without changing roles. Take the program officer at a youth focused nonprofit whom we’ll call Maria. She had nowhere to move up internally unless the executive director moved on. So she began collaborating externally with other organizations in her city that aimed to help immigrant youth plug into education, training, and job opportunities, growing her network and innovating her programs. By expanding her influence outside the organization, she gained credibility within. When the time finally came to name a new executive director, Maria was a top internal candidate in part because of her external network, and eventually got the job.

修炼技能

在平台期建立声望、创造机会的另一种方法是提升自己的技能。你可以在工作内寻找导师或主动参与特殊项目，也可以在业余参加正式的领导力培训。举例来说，一家公立医院的医疗服务主管罗伯特主动领导医院一个紧急照护组的业务改进项目，结果病患护理水平得以提高、开具账单更及时，于是院方出资送他前往顶级商学院修读管理教育课程。这份学历最终让他在医院获得了管理拥有近300名医护人员、年预算3.8亿美元的大规模服务业务的机会。

Deepening your skills is another way to build credibility and opportunity on the plateau. You can accomplish this on the job, by seeking out a mentor or volunteering for special projects; and off the job through formal leadership training. A medical service head we’ll call Robert, at a large public hospital, for example, volunteered to lead a performance improvement exercise for one of the hospital’s acute care groups. The results in improved patient care and timelier billing led hospital management to invest in sending him to an executive education course at a top business school, a qualification that eventually garnered him an offer to run a much bigger service line at the hospital, with close to 300 medical staff and $380 million annual budget.

21世纪的管理者大半会在职业生涯中发现自己进入了这样的平台期。面对跳槽的诱惑，不妨多考虑一下，也许留在原地继续发展才是为下一次职业飞跃蓄力的最佳方法。

Most 21st century managers will find themselves on a similar plateau somewhere along their career. Before succumbing to the temptation to jump to a new escarpment, consider whether branching out in place may be the best way to build your skills, both personally and professionally, for your next ascent.

（蒋荟蓉 | 译   安健 | 编辑）

乔丹·斯塔克是NextStep Partners公司高管教练。

凯蒂·史密斯·米尔维是The Bridgespan Group集团合伙人。