🌊The Plunge #2: The Two Ways You’re Growing (Vertical Development Part 1)

Also, I'm on a podcast (!), Tae Bo is alive and kicking, and we should all probably tip more

Thanks for joining me on The Diving Board! We’re starting a series on Vertical Development, one of the best tools for growth and leadership I know of. But I’ll give it to you straight: this topic is not inherently lite-n-easy.

One of my biggest goals in writing The Diving Board is to take powerful-but-abstract concepts and make them simple enough for you to digest and apply in the time it takes you to drink half a cup of coffee…but not so simple that I cheapen their complexity. In other words, I want you to have this rich slice of double-dark chocolate cake I baked you, actually eat the whole thing, and come back for more next week.

So for Vertical Development, we’re going to keep it fun and take it one bite at a time. Let’s dive in.

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You’re sitting in a darkened theater, the kind with red velvet cushions, a spotlit stage, and the collective hush just before the play begins. The curtains rise, and you witness a series of vignettes, all featuring Claire*, a young woman navigating various moments in her working life (*look, this might be the closest I get to my unrealized dream of starring on Broadway, so thanks for humoring me):

Scene 1: Claire, who appears to be in her mid-twenties, is huddled up with co-workers at her new non-profit organization for their daily lunch conversation. She would honestly rather spend her lunch breaks alone, but the cultural norm here is to eat together, so she grabs her sandwich and joins in. Claire’s co-workers possess very hip music tastes and introduce her to all kinds of indie artists, which she convinces herself she likes for several months. To better fit in at work, Claire spends hours of her own free time listening to the local indie music station, absolutely hating 4 out of 5 songs played and pining for Katy Perry and Adele.

Scene 2: Claire is now pictured wide-eyed in the business world, facilitating leadership development trainings at a fast, fun, and friendly fortune 50 corporation. She’s eager to be a strong contributor and excel in her role, so she drinks in mentorship from experts and scholarship from grad school. She adopts the corporate lingo her smart teammates use, phrases like “low-hanging fruit” and “move the needle”. She does exactly what her boss expects and even tries to go above and beyond in hopes of being seen as a “hi-po” (she recently learned this means “high-potential”).

Scene 3: Claire (who appears with a baby bump in this scene) has finished grad school and executive coach training, and now she’s leading the design of a major leadership development program at work. She’s still eagerly learning from those around her, but she’s also developed her own unique perspective in her field and even works to influence and rally others towards her vision at times. She really wants to succeed and shine by her organization’s standards, though, so she mostly colors inside the lines.

Scene 4: Claire, now pictured in her mid-thirties, is in a reflective place (literally – she’s sitting by a fountain near her downtown office). She writes in her journal, “I’m sensing a deep and unignorable pull to pursue work that’s more meaningful and aligned to who I am these days.” She still loves her corporate job, and yet she surprises herself when she decides not to apply for a promotion that, in the past, would have felt like the pinnacle of success she’d been working towards. Instead, she’s exploring a different path, one that would mean leaving her job altogether.

The curtains fall, and as intermission begins, you wonder, “Do I have time to get Peanut M&M’s and go to the bathroom before Act II?”

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Two kinds of growth

I’m sure this point is not lost on you: As the vignettes above played out, you witnessed a process of growth and maturation.

What you might not have picked up on, though, is that there is not just one growth process happening in these scenes.

There are two.

The first growth process involves the accumulation of knowledge, skills, and abilities. As I found my way in my career, I deepened my expertise in my chosen field through formal learning and on-the-job challenges. I bet you’ve done the same. We call this “Horizontal Development”.

But there’s another kind of growth that was unfolding in these scenes, one that’s a bit more subtle and hard to describe. You might call it growing more confident, more self-possessed, or more purpose-driven. At its core, this growth process changed what I valued, what defined my sense of identity, and how I made meaning of the world and my place in it. We call this “Vertical Development”.

Horizontal Development expands what we know, while Vertical Development expands how we think.

Horizontal development is a necessary ingredient to succeed at work. It’s especially important early in our career or as we’re taking on new challenges and need to level-up our skillset.

Vertical development is helpful when the way we’ve been thinking just doesn’t fit what life and work is throwing at us anymore. The challenges and complexity we’re facing require an expanded way to process it all.

For example, if I wanted to succeed in my new field in a competitive organization, depicted in Scene 2, the desperate need to fit in and be liked that ruled me in Scene 1 was going to hold me back. I had to choose: safely blend in at all costs, or stand out and contribute my unique gifts? Later, I faced another dilemma: Succeed by my organization’s standards and “climb the ladder”, or define my own vision of success and take a leap to pursue that instead?

In my Tony Award-winning performance above, I only showed you a small sampling of the kind of Vertical Development that’s possible. As our lives and careers unfold, further evolutions impact things like our capacity to see the big picture, thrive in ambiguity, honor opposing viewpoints, and transform complex systems.

So, where are you?

I suspect that much of the tension, ambivalence, burnout, boredom, confusion, or frustration we experience in our careers has to do with where we are in our Horizontal and Vertical Development journeys and how that syncs with our current role.

Can you plot yourself on the matrix below?

[Note: if you are uncomfortable receiving free career advice, I do accept cash tips and Anthropologie gift cards.]

I’m going to venture a guess that most of you would either place yourself in Q3 or Q4.

If you’re in Q3, here’s what to know:

• Perhaps you’ve achieved a certain level of success and competence and are wondering, “Is that all there is?” or “How do I keep growing?” Vertical development might be the answer.

• Maybe you’re technically great at your work, but to keep rising higher in your career or to be even more effective, there’s an opportunity to develop expanded thinking capacities. Vertical development might be the answer.

• Or maybe you’re questioning everything….am I in the right career? How do I do this for another 5, 10, 20 years? I feel like I’m burning out or losing my mojo. Vertical development might be the answer.

If you’re in Q4 – there’s always more room to grow if you’re craving it, so stay tuned for future posts. Unless you’ve reached enlightenment or ascended to heaven, Vertical Development probably invites you into something deeper and more expansive than your current way of thinking and being.

Reflect on this

1. Think back on your life and career. How have you grown horizontally? What approaches have supported this kind of growth?

2. How have you grown vertically? Have you intentionally evolved how you think, or did it just sort of “unfold”? What conditions triggered this kind of growth?

Until next time…

We’ll stop there for now, but here’s a sneak peek at what we’ll cover in the remaining post(s) on Vertical Development:

• Vertical Development can be broken into stages, like a growth map. I’ll reveal the stages in the next post. Prepare to be fascinated!

• We’ll explore how to actually apply this stuff in work and life

And if there’s time, we’ll continue to ponder: can one successfully go to the bathroom and get Peanut M&Ms during intermission at a crowded theater?

Let me know in the comments what you think so far! What resonates about Vertical Development? Anything remind you of your own experiences? What in this post has you intrigued, confused, or otherwise reacting?

Thanks for being on The Diving Board with me. Now, get back in there!

[Update Feb 7th, 2024: Click here to read Part 2 and Part 3 of the Vertical Development series]

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• Craving further reading on Vertical Development right away? Check out this 2-pager from Nick Petrie.

• ICYMI, I launched The Diving Board last week with The Plunge #1: How to Incrementally Reinvent Your Career and my 2023 Reading Superlatives.

• Do you work for an org that doesn’t have a robust leadership development program and/or are you craving more development in your role? My friends at The People Side have created a phenomenal open-enrollment program called Leading People. I think they still have spots available for the February cohort, and it’ll be offered several more times this year! Highly recommend.

• What do you think of workplace wellness programs? I’m philosophically all for them, but new data is out from Oxford indicating that most of them show no measurable benefit. I’m not ready to write these efforts off, but I think we all know something is broken in the realms of wellbeing and mental health in our culture, and it might take some deeper, more systemic shifts to really “move the needle”. (See what I did there?) My smart friend Jill sent me this Threads post on the topic, with some good stuff in the comments.

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• I’m sure I’m not the only one who bemoans the tipping culture in the U.S. of A. I’m constantly questioning whether to press “Tip” or “No Tip” at the coffee shop drive through, wondering if I’m a schmuck for tipping or a schmuck for not tipping. Take it or leave it, but I found this 2024 article on The New Rules of Tipping very helpful. Bottom line: my barista should get a livable wage, but until she does, I think I’m tipping.

• This is so random, but do you remember Tae Bo? The other day, I was seized by the memory of my childhood friend Rachel and I kicking and punching like teenage exercise ninjas when Tae Bo was all the rage. I looked it up, and apparently, it’s still a thing. Who knew?

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• Well, this is FUN! This week, I’m featured on the Hungry Authors podcast! If you read my post on How to Incrementally Reinvent Your Career, you know that the Hungry Authors podcast and cohosts Ariel and Liz have been a huge influence on me. So I flipped out when they asked me to be on their podcast! In this episode, we discuss how I’ve used their magical “book mapping” process to outline my whole book, start to finish. And I spill the beans on what my book is all about! Feel free to listen and share.

• Last week, I shared that my husband and I were headed out on a “mystery trip” with the agency Pack Up and Go and wouldn’t find out where we were going until the morning of the trip. Well, I’m happy to report we had a grand time in Scottsdale, AZ ogling cacti and sitting by the pool. And check out our freaky ride (and my husband’s signature snark) in this video:

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  That’s all for this week! If you know someone who might enjoy this post, click below to share freely.