About two weeks ago Agile Warsaw snatched Jurgen Appelo (who by any chance had some workshops in Poland) to give a short speech for our little :) community. If you have no clue about who's this guy, you may give a try to his renown book about management in agile environment - you won't regret it. Anyway, back to Jurgen's speech - I'm not going to review it or summarize it in any way, I'll just focus on one very interesting (& very obvious, if you think about that a bit) thing Jurgen has mentioned. A thing that people tend to deny / throw out of their heads subconsciously ...

But first things first:

The Career

So, you've started working somewhere. You're smart & you're doing quite a good job. Consistently, as months (maybe even years) are passing. You've proven yourself as some kind of guarantee of some, solid level & you've achieved some successes. There's no doubt - you're worthy.

You expect your employer to notice that & reflect that by elevating you to a higher level:

  • granting you more power by making you more decisive (giving more freedom in terms of decision making)
  • extending your impact zone by increasing your responsibility area
  • assigning projects / endeavor that are more challenging / more critical or just more important
  • positioning you in more mentor role to put you as a role model for less experienced people
    etc.

The Lie

The problem is that it barely ever happens. Organizations have completely no ideas how to do that. What usually happens is:

  • you get a raise
  • you get a meaningless change of work title NO-ONE gives any fuck about. Seriously no-one & you shouldn't either
  • but nothing else changes - you do the same stuff with the same people, following the same rules & principles

Congratulations, Mr/Mrs/Ms Key Senior System Associate Blah Blah Architect. You're stuck where you've been & stupified enough to accept that without a frown.

Reality check

Look around:

  1. How do your responsibilities differ from what you were doing 3 years ago?
  2. What did you learn during 3 past years? Is it aligned with your vision of career development?
  3. The people around you - are they all the same, just with the different job titles?

So - did you make ANY step forth? Should you care? I'll leave it to you.

If you care ...

... there are few options you could go for:

  1. Leave. Just like that.
  2. Conquer. Don't ask - take. Don't wait - grab. Don't follow - lead.
  3. Leave. Yes, no kidding - consider it seriously: changing a job doesn't mean you've failed. Sometimes it's just no worth it.
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