The Career Success Pyramid

Devised by James Brett and presented as chapter 4 of his book Evolving Digital Leadership: How to Be a Digital Leader in Tomorrow's Disruptive World  (Brett 2019), this tool is presented as a five-step progression in which each step provides the foundation for the next:

Redrawn from Brett (2019, fig.4.1)

The tool is said to be derived from interviews, over forty,  with a selection of ‘digital leaders’. Brett selected these actions as the ‘top five most important’ from what he relays was a substantial collection of insights.

Brett gives no indication of how the digital leaders were selected, nor when the interviews were conducted nor how he determined which were the most important actions.

As presented, the ‘Career Success Pyramid’  is a visual and conceptual analogue of Maslow’s ‘hierarchy  of needs’, widely disseminated and discussed since its original publication in 1943.  (McLeod 2018):

Redrawn from McLeod  (2018)

The original proposition in Maslow’s hierarchy was that achieving each step was a pre-requisite to moving to the next.

No such constraints apply to the ’Career Success Pyramid’.  Notwithstanding his affinity for progressing through the five-layer pyramidal structure from the base up, Brett also states that

‘You can address all, or any one of these in whatever order you choose’

It could be argued further that no single one of Brett’s five actions is essential for career success: any element, reasonably, could be omitted.

Maslow and Brett do have a limitation in common:  Maslow’s work has been criticised because he originally selected and researched a small sample of people he considered to have ‘self-actualised’.  All eighteen were men (McLeod  2018). Similarly, Brett, aligning to the scope of his book,  limited his sources to his own selection of ‘digital’ leaders. But the resultant Career Success Pyramid has no exclusively digital elements within it. Brett’s pyramid falls awkwardly between being a digital leadership tool and being a general leadership tool. For the latter he has not surveyed sufficiently widely.

There is an implicit assumption, reminiscent of  the journalistic cliché of asking a centenarian to explain the secret of a long life, that ‘digital leaders’ actually know what leads to career success.

As a further distortion, it would seem inevitable that interviewees will be strongly inclined to  filter out the less salubrious behaviours leading to personal advancement that most of Brett’s readers would readily  observe in most workplaces. How many digital leaders would be prepared to state that they owe their success to combinations of luck, shameless self-publicity, plagiarism, toadyism, cronyism or bullying?

Whether or not consciously influenced by the popularity of Maslow’s hierarchy, Brett has shaped his research into a meretricious device that limits its usefulness.  Attempting to apply the tool as a literal, linear career map is likely to prove both difficult and disappointing. Brett’s five actions are all valid considerations throughout any career. A developing leader should therefore monitor them all in parallel, not in series, considering all from the start without delaying.

This change of mindset would allow the pyramid to be recast as various alternative infographics. For example, keeping to the metaphor of ancient architecture, here is  ‘The Four Pillars of Career Success’:

Adding in a few of the supplementary suggestions from Brett’s chapter, here is ‘The Career Success Tree’:

These alternative renderings show how superficially attractive visual metaphors can apply very different nuances to the same starting material. The resulting configurations are imbued with a false sense of coherence. It may be helpful to use these visual devices as a vehicle for presenting and discussing the ideas. It is less likely that the devices add value when attempting to apply them.

 By dispensing with linear progression through a pyramid, Brett’s work can be deconstructed and then reassembled to create something more useable: a series of avenues for exploration  and regular monitoring

 

Edgar Bolton. 23/02/2021

References

Brett, J. (2018) Evolving Digital Leadership: How to Be a Digital Leader in Tomorrow's Disruptive World. Apress 

McLeod, S. A. (2018, May 21). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html