Managing in the Age of Uncertainty

Career Story Builder Launch: TODAY!

If chapters in a career story are replacing rungs on the corporate ladder, how do you write a best-seller?

Today I launched an AI-powered tool called “Career Story Builder” to provide a mentor, coach and buddy to help people write best-sellers about themselves — and why they’re ready for the next role.

Readers of this newsletter know I believe in the age of AI that the corporate ladder is dead or dying — and career pathing is being replaced by chapters in a career story. Each job role is a chapter in a longer story that sets someone up for the next job role; it’s how millennials and gen-z build career paths for themselves.

That’s why I partnered with master storyteller Patti Sanchez to develop this tool based on her three-act framework for strategic storytelling.

Best-Sellers follow a Formula: Three-Acts, Six Questions

The three-act framework Patti showed me is based on the one used by best-selling books, TV shows, movies and broadway. I couldn’t think of a better way to structure a career story. After all, the idea is to write a story so compelling that someone is irresistible as a job role candidate.

We adapted the three-act framework for individuals by aligning each act to a series of questions that establish someone’s “character” and “plot” in their individualized story. What made us want to develop an AI-powered tool was the idea that questions are in many ways like prompts in an AI chat.

Guided Experience

The tool is built to bring out the best in how people see themselves. We focused on framing the intent of each question — to pinpoint a specific, compelling answer to each question.

We also know people like inspiration; so we include examples of how people across a range of job roles might answer the question.

Powered by ManagerMentorAI

The Career Story Builder ingests the answers and asks our bot — who we call the ManagerMentorAI — to produce a three-act story.

The ManagerMentorAI knows everything I’ve ever written on this topic here on Substack, including the interviews I’ve done with people who know what a great story looks like, including Oscar Munoz, former CEO of United Airlines; Stefani Okamoto of ServiceNow; best-selling book authors Molly Tschang and Deb Clary; and iconic storytellers like Rene Siegel and Erin Bergamo-Tacy.

Who doesn’t need a Coach?

The ManagerMentorAI bot’s role is to provide users with outside-in perspective. It suggests a 1) a three-act story; 2) a LinkedIn “About” summary; and a set of career strengths to highlight in interviews and on your resume/CV.

I like what the tool produced as my three-act story. Naturally, I made edits to it. I’d encourage you to do the same. Make it your story, but I hope our tool gives you the inspiration to a best-seller. At the very least, it will get you started.

Give the Career Story Builder a try. It’s free and unlimited. I’d also love to hear your feedback about how to make it better. It’s new and I’m sure it can be improved. Send me a DM with any thoughts.

In Summary: Principles of Managing in the Age of Uncertainty

• I left Cisco to answer this question with research and evidence: What does the manager of the future look like? What are millennials and gen-z seeking in a manager? Which behaviors, tactics, skills or processes matter? What’s it going to take to attract and keep the best people over the next decade? In short, how to be a great manager.

• Based on this research, the core philosophy of this newsletter is rooted in one idea: successful managers in this moment in time, for this generation of talent, need to be “career dot-connectors.” The next-gen doesn’t expect to spend their entire career on your team — that’s an idea boomers grew up with. A job on your team is like a chapter in a career story to the current generation. If you want the best people on your team, you have to connect the dots between roles on the team and the career opportunities of the people working on the team.

• What is the“Age of Uncertainty”? If the industrial age was about taking predictable steps up the ladder, the age of uncertainty is about finding or discovering the path of a career without any predictable steps, without an obvious ladder — it’s why being a career dot-connector will differentiate you as a manager.

• How to be a Great Manager in the Age of Uncertainty: Be a Career Dot Connector is available on Amazon.

• What kind of manager are you? Take my free self-assessment and learn about yourself.