The Corporate Lattice

With roots planted firmly in the industrial age, the corporate ladder has been the metaphor used to describe the prevailing one-size-fits-all model for success. At its heart, the ladder is derived from inflexible, hierarchical, organization models in which prestige, individual rewards, information flow, power and influence are tied to the rung each employee occupies. Yet the workplace as we know it is in transition -- evolving away from the linear, one-size-fits-all model of the corporate ladder toward a multidimensional approach that Cathy Benko calls the corporate lattice. This book will serve to widen an organization's strategic lens, representing a fundamentally new way to work and run a company. It offers a framework to help senior leaders and HR directors harness the talent in their company in a way that provides a strategic advantage, not only for recruiting but also for achieving and maintain better individual performance. In the bestselling book Mass Career Customization (Harvard Business Press/2007), Cathy Benko and Deloitte provided the breakthrough MCC dashboard for understanding the important variables of individual employees' career-life profiles, but she also coined a new metaphor -- the corporate lattice -- as a way to think about the changed career landscape. This book delves much deeper into the power of the lattice for organizations, fully exploring its contours and applying it to real-life practice throughout a company. It explores how the corporate lattice model creates value by: 1. Ensuring a flow of talent into and through the organization. 2. Increasing the efficiency of and return on organizational investments. 3. Improving financial and operating results through greater employee engagement. The three-part framework of the book presents specific ways managers and organizations can use The Corporate Lattice to manage talent, measure results, collaborate across teams, engage employees, and reor"

Reroute your career path for better, faster, longer-lasting success “If you’ve been waiting for your HR department to plan out your next career move, you’ll be stuck waiting forever. Joanne Cleaver explains why the career matrix is what you need to succeed. It’s valuable information that most HR departments aren’t ready or able to give you.” —Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady, evilhrlady.org “ As Cleaver insightfully writes, the traditional career ladder is dead. To stay relevant, workers need to become nimble, enterprising, and far more professionally connected than their pre-recession counterparts. Essential reading for anyone who wants to stand out in today’s highly competitive business world.” —Michelle Goodman, author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and My So-Called Freelance Life “In post-recessionary Corporate America, the ladder is becoming a thing of the past. You need to think of your career in a new way, a way in which you are constantly focused on acquiring new and honing existing skill sets to remain marketable and competitive. Using Joanne Cleaver’s Career Lattice’s prescription of group-centered coaching and mentoring, you’ll get by with a little help from your friends.” —Alexandra Levit, author of Blind Spots: 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success OVER IS THE NEW UP. Thanks to the rise of global labor, increasing automation of job functions, and the flattening of workplace organizations, the traditional corporate ladder is gone—and we’ll probably never see it again. For smart, talented, motivated workers, this is the best career news to emerge in a long time. Instead of following the path of predetermined corporate hierarchies, you need to design a more flexible career path. It’s called the Career Lattice, and it’s about adding new skills to current abilities—while letting go of things that are no longer relevant. It’s about evolving. It’s about embracing change. In The Career Lattice, career consultant and business journalist Joanne Cleaver gives you the insight, information, tools, and best practices you need to: Invest in the best training or continued education for your future goals Make smart lateral moves now to help you make upward moves later Network more strategically than ever See possibilities down the road that would otherwise have escaped you The Lattice is both more stable and more dynamic than the linear career ladder. No matter your age or career stage, latticing equips you to make your move into emerging jobs or careers in all industries with more speed, skill, and confidence than your competitors. It isn’t your father’s world of business anymore. Linearity is out; flexibility is in. The Career Lattice is what you need to make the smartest possible career decisions in a completely transformed world of business.

Far-reaching changes in attitudes and family structures have been redefining the workforce for more than two decades—yet the workplace has remained much the same. During this time, many companies have learned that personalizing the customer experience is good for business. In Mass Career Customization, the authors argue convincingly to extend this popular and profitable concept to the workplace. This book is centered on the powerful insight that career options in today’s economy need to accommodate the rising and falling phases of employee engagement as it changes over time. The remarkable process unveiled in this book offers choices involving four important dimensions of career progression: role; pace; location and schedule; and workload. As the working population shrinks, maintaining industry advantage will depend largely on keeping employees engaged and connected. Mass career customization provides a framework for organizational adaptability that will do just that.

The Wall Street Journal bestseller! Learn to unlock the potential of your employees and colleagues with this definitive resource for people management People Strategy: How to Invest in People and Make Culture Your Competitive Advantage provides readers with a powerful framework in which to develop high-performing teams, increase employee motivation, and use data to build an inviting and effective company culture. Author Jack Altman, cofounder and CEO of Lattice, an award-winning HR and performance management platform, shows you how to: Establish the values that will form the bedrock of your organization Develop feedback processes that help employees feel heard, supported, and equipped to succeed Monitor the breadth and depth of employee engagement in your company Use the data and insights created by your People Strategy to drive business results Perfect for executives, managers, and human resource professionals, People Strategy also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone with even an interest in how to develop, nurture, and unlock the potential of their employees and colleagues.

Events of the past few years have brought sweeping changes to business and new challenges for the HR leaders who support them. Two broad themes - innovation and global markets - have taken a front-row seat in human capital organizations around the world. From evolving technologies and process breakthroughs to new organizational models, new markets, new customers, and new approaches to talent, the power of fresh thinking runs deep and strong. This is Deloitte's 2011 report on 12 significant trends that are shifting the HR landscape. Some revolutionary and some evolutionary, these trends are transforming how human capital leaders and professionals create value for the organizations they serve, their people, and their communities both inside HR and across the broader business. This report shares the human capital trends we see as relevant for 2011, clustered in two categories: Revolution and Evolution.

Rapidly growing technology and globalization have put tremendous pressure on management teams. Technological developments with far reaching implications on social, economic, political, and environmental ecosystems cannot be underemphasized. Currently, organizations are trying to be more inclusive and aware of diversity, rapid technology growth, and globalization along with remotely operating businesses for profit motivation. The delegative and individual employee-based management styles of the past have become obsolete. With globalization, virtual offices, and rapid technology growth, management challenges have become an expensive force to reckon with. In this book, the authors address the recent trends in management in global environments. The authors explore issues such as managing virtual teams, gender and management, e-commerce, biased financing, quantum computing, and disruption in the financial services industry. The book will serve as a valuable resource to researchers interested in the future management challenges facing global organizations.

If you only read one book on the future of work, Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work should be that book. The future of work swept in sooner than expected, accelerated by Covid-19, creating an urgent need for new maps, new mindsets, new strategies-- and most importantly, a trusted guide to take us on this journey. That guide is Jeff Schwartz. A founding partner of Deloitte Consulting’s Future of Work practice, Schwartz brings clarity, humor, wisdom, and practical advice to the future of work, a topic surrounded by misinformation, fear, and confusion. With a fundamental belief in the power of human innovation and creativity, Schwartz presents the key issues, critical choices, and potential pitfalls that must be on everyone’s radar. If you're anxious about robots taking away your job in the future, you will take comfort in the realistic perspective, fact-based insights, and practical steps Schwartz offers. If you're not sure where to even begin to prepare, follow his level-headed advice and easy-to-follow action plans. If you're a business leader caught between keeping up, while also being thoughtful about the next moves, you will appreciate the playbook directed at you. If you're wondering how Covid-19 will change how and where you will work, Work Disrupted has you covered. Written in a conversational style by Schwartz, with Suzanne Riss, an award-winning journalist and book author, Work Disrupted offers a welcome alternative to books on the topic that lack a broad perspective or dwell on the problems rather than offer solutions. Timely and insightful, the book includes the impact of Covid-19 on our present and future work. Interviews with leading thinkers on the future of work offer additional perspectives and guidance.Cartoons created for the book by leading business illustrator Tom Fishburne bring to life the reader’s journey and the complex issues surrounding the topic. Told from the perspective of an economist, management advisor, and social commentator, Work Disrupted offers hope--and practical advice--exploring such topics as: How we frame what lies ahead is a critical navigational tool. Discover the signposts that can serve as practical guides for individuals who have families to support, mortgages to pay, and want to stay gainfully employed no matter what the future holds. The importance of recognizing the rapidly evolving opportunities in front of us. Learn how to build resilience—in careers, organizations, and leaders—for what lies ahead. Why exploring new mental models helps us discover the steps we need to take to thrive. Individuals can decide how to protect their livelihood while businesses and public institutions can consider how they can lead and support workforces to thrive in twenty-first-century careers and work. "Jeff's marvelous book is a roadmap for the new world of work with clear signposts. His insights will help readers discover opportunities, take action, and find hope in uncertain times. The ideas are fresh, beautifully crafted, and immediately applicable. This is not only a book to be read, but savored and used." —Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; Partner, the RBL Group; Co-author Reinventing the Organization

W. L. Gore & Associates, established in 1958, is renowned for several innovative products such as the "waterproof while breathing" textile material Gore-Tex, but it is also known for its remarkable "lattice" organizational structure. Borrowing the lattice concept from architecture and crafts, where it refers to intertwined materials, the company operates as a system of intertwined associates in which no one is anyone's boss. The various activities within the company have leaders who are selected based on their merits and abilities to attract followers. As a company with more than 10,000 employees, Gore does have the equivalent of a chief executive officer who may be contacted by partners and others outside the company, but in recent history, even this person has been selected from among staff.