Managing in the Age of Uncertainty

How "Breaking Bad" is Your Career Story?

Every Career Story is a Three-Act Play.

In the first episode of “Breaking Bad,” we learn that the main character, Walter White, is a high school chemistry teacher with a terminal disease who takes a decisive turn to the dark side of life in order to ensure his family is financially secure when he inevitably dies.

Years of success followed for the show, but it all started with this amazing first episode. It was a perfect “act one” in the art of storytelling, according to my friend and story-telling strategist Patti Sanchez. It drew people into the series. We met a hero, and we all wanted him to win, regardless of the unseemly things he had to do.

It might seem like I’m asking a lot to tell a career story as riveting as White’s, but I don’t think so. I work with people every day who tell me amazing things they’ve accomplished. Like my friend Mike “Cap”, who casually told me sales increased 10X during his time at a startup. (That’s an incredible chapter of a story!)

My goal in this week’s newsletter is to help this generation of talent tell better, if not best-selling, career stories. I asked for help from Patti, who knows a thing or two about storytelling as a consultant and the co-author of Illuminate. She typically helps companies tell “strategic stories” of change or transformation, but she shared the fundamentals of her methodology in our interview; and helped me build an actionable framework for managers to use with their people.

As readers of this newsletter know, I believe the corporate ladder no longer exists because of AI and the era of efficiency it has spawned. My research into the future of managing showed we need new management concept to support development and career planning for millennials and gen-z.

I call this new career development concept “Career as a Story” — where each job role is a chapter in a story that sets people up to grow and advance to the next stage of their career.

To me, the best managers of the future will understand the burden of growth and advancement is more on the individual. For boomers, we had the predictable luxury of the corporate ladder and the same manager sometimes for decades. In this moment in time, the best managers with the best people will be the ones who help teammates write career stories as compelling as Walter White’s. Seriously.

Amazing Stories have Structure

“I define story as a unit of information that has a particular structure to it,” Patti tells me. The structure of a story, Patti says, follows what works in theater or film: great stories emerge in three distinct, but connected acts — the beginning, the middle and the end.

In the interviews I’ve done here with Oscar Munoz, Jan De Kesel and Stefani Okamoto, I walked away from each with a simple idea that explained a lot.

As I talked with Patti, I kept thinking about all the people I know, including myself, who consistently try to mush together the beginning, middle and end into one long story. That’s a mistake, I realized. If you need the third act to make the first act great, then you’re not writing a great story. The first, second and third acts need to stand on their own to compel people to want to hear how the story finishes.

Each act has to serve its distinct purpose in your narrative, Patti emphasizes. First lesson to managers: don’t let your people combine all three acts into one. Teach your people to tell stories one act at a time — because each plays a different role in building a best-seller.

As a manager, the single most important act you can take to help your people write a chapter in a career story is to make sure every role — 100 percent of the roles — is aligned to the priorities, goals and metrics on your dashboard. Alignment is the key to great results — and telling a great story.

How to Tell a Career Story Like a Strategic Story-Teller

Patti and I worked together to meld her Strategic Storytelling framework to telling career stories. We produced this infographic to help managers mentor their people on storytelling — and craft better career stories.

This three-act framework transforms how you show up in interviews, networking conversations, and even performance reviews. I like to call this a “deductive” way of communicating. There’s no big wind up or preamble. Act 1 establishes credibility; dive deeper into your methodology in Act 2 to differentiate yourself; and close with a memorable vision in Act 3 that leaves people wanting to work with you.

In the end, Patti says: “A career story is like a person being a product, and your product is the way you think and the way you work. It's your reputation."

One act at a time.

Manager Thought of the Week

"I think he should star in Dumb and Dumber."

I laughed out loud when actor Robert Redford suggested this acting role for Paul Mountford when I interviewed Redford at a Cisco event — Paul did, too, in front of an audience of thousands. Redford was delightful interview about telling a great story. (He even told me to call him “Rob.”) The great actor had only known Paul for an hour, but he could tell he was a fun, jovial person, which Paul certainly was. Paul was such a good communicator and storyteller that I often thought of him as a possible successor to John Chambers as CEO of Cisco.

Managers: When you help your people tell a career story, ask them to name the movie and actor they would want to portray? Is the role consistent with their strengths as a person? I always wanted to play Kirk, but I know I was a better Spock. Self-awareness is key to telling a great story about yourself.

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.