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The Career Canvas: Nine strategic moves beyond the traditional ladder
The career ladder is obsolete. Hereâs how to survive and thrive through a 60-year career.
For decades, the blueprint for career success seemed straightforward: work hard, climb the ladder, and accumulate titles until retirement on an inflation-proof final salary pension. It was predictable and linear. But as people live and work longer, this model is becoming fundamentally flawed.
The career ladder survives because it offers a tidy narrative. You enter the workforce, aim to climb, accrue titles, switch organizations when necessary, and exit according to your firmâs retirement schedule. It reads cleanly on a rĂŠsumĂŠ and sounds respectable at dinner parties.
How many jobs and how many careers will a âworking lifeâ comprise?
The University of Queensland in Australia notes that most people remain in the workforce for around 45 years (typically from their early 20s to their mid-60s), and the average person changes jobs every two years and nine months. So, you could easily accumulate around 16 jobs on your resumÊ before you retire.
They also cite research that shows most people will change careers at least once in their lives. The average person tends to go through 3â7 careers before they retire, and this number may be more like 5â7 for the current and upcoming generations of workers.
Yet itâs hiding something in plain sight: we are living longer than our predecessors, and the career ladder model is quickly becoming outmoded and a poor measure of success. With this increased life expectancy and many people not having saved enough to retire at 65, we need a new vocabulary for career decisions that reflects energy levels, caregiving responsibilities, health, curiosity, and the recognition that organizations remain imperfect machines. Successive generations will have many jobs and multiple careers in a working life, making moves up, down, sideways, and out.
The ladder offers one verb: climb. The Career Canvas offers nine.
Career eras, not generations
First, we must abandon the concept of generations in the workforce. You are not Gen X or Gen Z when at work â thatâs fine for memes outside the office, but not inside it. Instead, each of us passes through three unique career eras, regardless of age or birth year.
I call them Rivers, Rocks, and Rubies â eras of perspective rather than age brackets. These eras articulate how you think, decide, and contribute throughout your career.
Rivers are free-flowing and almost infinitely curious. Not yet grounded by middle-life experience or refined by timeâs hand, which is actually a feature â curiosity and experimentation are career accelerants when treated with intention. Rivers are teeming with fluid intelligence.
Rocks are no longer carving out brand new paths. As middle-aged professionals, they have settled, grown wiser, and stand firm in workplace currents. But they still have strong fluid creativity. Rocks carry ballast, deliver results, and stabilize organizations. They often hold multiple responsibilities, serving as a conduit among young, middle-aged, and older workers.
Rubies have moved beyond the impetuosity of youth. Their edges have been smoothed and their wisdom honed through years of learning and contributing, yet they remain open to ideas. Rubies bring judgment and continuity, often seeing around corners because they have watched the same corner be painted, repainted, and mispainted again. Their crystallized intelligence is extensive, having experienced four once-in-a-lifetime work crises.
Once you begin thinking of your career as three distinct eras, you can contemplate how to make moves in each one. The question is how. Should it be thought of solely as a career ladder â where every move must go up â or is there a better way?
The Career Canvas outlines nine ways to consider career moves, each legitimate and usable in any River, Rock, or Ruby era.
Nine career moves
The Career Canvas outlines nine ways to consider career moves, each legitimate and usable in any River, Rock, or Ruby era. They represent ways to think of your career as cross-pollinated rather than solely linear.
Move Down. A conscious reduction in scope or seniority, framed as realignment rather than demotion, while remaining full-time. In essence, a recalibration of workload and focus without abandoning career aspirations or compensation level.
- Most suitable when you want to continue working full-time and keep your career development intact while deliberately reducing scope. It tends to land well in the Rock or Ruby era when professionals desire less leadership responsibility.
Move Laterally. A shift to a comparable role at the same seniority level to broaden perspective and capability. A strategic sidestep that cultivates cross-functional insight, collaboration, networking, skills advancement, and diverse growth.
- Applicable when you want to broaden capability without changing seniority. It often appears in the River era to build your abilities, in the Rock era to improve team culture fit, and in the Ruby era to shift into roles where your wisdom carries greater weight.
Phase Out. The gradual relaxing of hours or responsibilities over months, quarters, or even years. A softer runway out of the organization or role that sustains institutional knowledge and gives you time to adjust as you prepare for life changes.
- Occurs in the Ruby era when you want a gradual runway to retirement. It also protects the organization from the loss of institutional knowledge and gives you time to adjust to life after working.
Boomerang In. A return to the organization after time away, with existing credibility and relationships intact. A savvy reunion after time away that delivers instant cultural fluency and value.
- Whether youâre a River, Rock, or Ruby, itâs your opportunity to return with credibility and cultural fluency already in place. When time away yields new skills the organization can use immediately, itâs a win-win for both parties.
Spark Up. A time-bound expansion of scope and responsibilities through a high-visibility project, rotation, or apprenticeship. A short-term gig or project toward a broader scope, with room to resume baseline duties if needed.
- If you want a time-bound scope expansion with a defined endpoint, the Spark Up is for you. It maps cleanly to Rivers who want accelerated learning, Rocks who want a skills-building opportunity, and Rubies who want to apply their experience to a high-visibility project without committing to an open-ended role change.
Slow Down. A temporary reduction in workload or schedule, including sabbaticals, distinct from retirement and different from Phase Out. A measured break that balances personal priorities with the option to return to full pace later.
- In particular, if youâre a Rock or Ruby, this is a temporary reduction in role responsibilities, not an exit. It often arises when personal priorities, health, or recovery require a measured pause.
Stay Put. A deliberate choice to remain in your current position without expanding responsibilities or title. An intentional commitment to continue in your current role.
- If youâre a River where depth and experience are the goals, a Rock where stability is the main appeal, or a Ruby where your contribution remains personally meaningful without a need for broader scope, remaining in your role is perfectly fine.
Move Up. A permanent full-time shift to broader leadership or skill responsibility. A proactive decision to expand responsibility, scope, and organizational impact.
- It often appears for Rivers who are seeking learning and development opportunities, Rocks with capacity or a yearning for more responsibility, and Rubies who genuinely want to reach the pinnacle of their chosen field.
Move Out. An exit from the organization. A definitive departure where you are no longer employed at the organization.
- Most suitable when you want a permanent exit from the organization, and your River, Rock, or Ruby lens has created the conditions that require you to depart for greener pastures elsewhere.
Why do these nine moves matter? They help you think about your career not as something that must always go up â although it is perfectly fine and encouraged to Move Up â but in multiple directions, over time, through a variety of methods.
Career Canvas in action
Flowing River
Talia is a young professional with five years of experience, which puts her squarely in her River era. Since time feels abundant, she broadens her skill set on purpose. Two years ago, she made a Move Laterally shift from marketing to product operations to expand her range. A year later, she took a six-month Spark Up rotation on an internal AI initiative in procurement. When the project ended, she chose to Stay Put in finance to deepen capability and demonstrate repeatable results before deciding whether a Move Up fits.
Rock in a hard place
Naveen is in his Rock era, leading a team while caring for three kids as a single parent and an aging parent. He declines a promotion and chooses to Stay Put to stabilize his life load. After some consideration, Naveen then negotiates a 12-month Slow Down arrangement with his direct leader to restore capacity in his life, working a four-day workweek. After a year, he decides to make a Move Laterally and shifts into a role with fewer pressure cycles, keeping his seniority while improving work-life integration.
Ruby shine
Elena is in her Ruby era, where time feels precious and contribution matters more than status. With the support of human resources, she has planned a three-year Phase Out to gradually reduce her hours, dropping from 80% to 60% and then to 40%, while transferring institutional wisdom. Fast-forward to one year after retirement, Elena agrees to Boomerang In to coach a group of leaders through a critical transition following an acquisition. Elena is thrilled to contribute as a contractor, delivering roughly eight hours of coaching per week.Â
Deloitte views âcareer latticesâ as the model to replace âcareer laddersâ
Deloitte reports that AI and technical disruptions are forcing organizations to rethink their approach to their workforce and careers.
As the capabilities of AI and advanced technology continue to progress, organizations must be intentional about how theyâre applying technology in ways that create new value for both the organization and the worker.
Deloitte itself is experiencing this seismic change and is considering âcareer latticesâ as more appropriate than âcareer laddersâ. According to Simon Blanchette, lecturer at McGill University Desautels Faculty of Management, âYou would still get promoted, but sometimes there will be side steps. As weâre integrating AI, suddenly it creates new roles,so new titles are actually a good way to represent the fact that skills are morphing.â
How Rivers, Rocks, and Rubies add specificity
The Career Canvas helps articulate feelings into career possibilities. âI need a changeâ expresses a feeling but rarely creates coherent career chapters on its own. The nine moves provide specific language:
- âI am choosing a lateral move to build rangeâ provides an intentional reframing of acquiring new experience.
- âI have selected a six-month gigâ emphasizes your desire to challenge yourself in a new, time-bound way.
- âI am choosing to slow down for nine months to restore capacityâ signals a commitment to personal wellness and recalibration.
- âI am staying put and deepening my craft and contributionâ provides clarity that contentment is not something to be scoffed at.
This rephrasing helps you escape the mindset that your career is faltering if you are not moving up. The Rivers, Rocks, and Rubies era model strengthens the Career Canvas by preventing two common errors.
The first error is treating every assignment like a River era, where speed, novelty, and experimentation become the default even when life constraints make that costly. In the early stages of your career, it can feel like you are going backwards when not moving up the ladder. By assessing your career as a canvas and looking at the long-term picture, the nine options may help deter you from negativity.
The second error is treating your Rock and Ruby eras as a narrowing of options, as if experience and wisdom reduce possibilities. In reality, experience increases judgment, and your level of shrewdness should increase the quality and array of your career choices.
As you move through the three eras, you tend to change your views on careers over time. Rivers experience time as abundant â a glowing, endless waterfall of options â which encourages exploration and risk. After all, you have nothing but time ahead. The risk is viewing your career in only one direction: up.
Rocks often feel time is crowded, which elevates the value of stability, fit, and workload. Rocks are habitually acting as sandwich-generation leaders, tending to all ages in the workforce while simultaneously attending to young children at home and aging parents. It can be a lot to handle.
Rubies experience time as precious, which sharpens focus on contribution that matters, relationships worth sustaining, and work that respects the wisdom they have earned. Purpose and meaning are important in all three eras, but take on significant depth in the Ruby era.
A Career Canvas decision becomes straightforward when you stop treating your working life as one big identity statement and start treating it as a series of chapters within the eras.
How to apply the Career Canvas
A Career Canvas decision becomes straightforward when you stop treating your working life as one big identity statement and start treating it as a series of chapters within the eras.
Whether you are a River, Rock, or Ruby, consider these three inventory assessments:
Values Inventory. Clarify what you want your work to stand for over the next five years, keeping you grounded in your era and helping you identify what you can actually shape.
Strength Inventory. Identify where you personally create good output, including the capabilities you trust when under pressure and the skills you bring to every engagement.
Constraint Inventory. Name what really matters: time, health, family, finances, geography, energy. Constraints are personal parameters and will help shape where and at what level you want to work.
The prospect of a long life also means a dynamic career as an integral part of a longer working life. As you consider the three inventory assessments, begin assessing the moves you would like to make using the Career Canvas. As you shift between the River, Rock, and Ruby eras, rest assured that your perspectives will also shift.
Those shifts merit respect rather than anxiety. The Career Canvas gives you nine legitimate moves to consider â as opposed to the singular upward direction â so you can make those perspective shifts with coherence and enough specificity that you can explain your choices without borrowing the ladder myth as your only career storyline.
Authors
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