Mending the Broken Rung: Why the First Manager Promotion Defines Your Career with Kweilin Ellingrud

Welcome to The Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I'm Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we'll dive deep with flourishing experts, changemakers, and executives to share best practices that can help you unlock higher performance through science-based interventions. Let's step together into the edge of what's possible and live, work, and lead with more joy, health, love, and meaning. We talk a lot about the glass ceiling, but what if the real barrier to women's advancement happens much earlier, literally at the first rung to manager? In this episode of Flourishing Edge, I'm joined by Quailyn Ellingrod, senior partner at McKinsey Company and author of The Broken Rung. We unpack the data that shows that the biggest inequality in the talent pipeline isn't at the top, but at the first promotion to manager, where careers either accelerate or quietly stall. We explored why education alone doesn't translate into advancement, why women are often over-mentored but under-sponsored, how weak networks quietly cap lifetime earnings, and why experience capital, not just credentials, is what really compounds over time. In this episode, Quellen shared many practical ideas that individuals and leaders can start implementing today to fix the broken rung and build careers and organizations that truly flourish. Let's get on to the show. Quellen, it is so amazing to have you, my friend, on our Flourishing Edge podcast. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

So look, I mean, I have loved your work. And I think you raise such an important issue that at least, you know, I was blind to. And I think many of our listeners who deeply care about people would be blind to. There's so much talk about the glass ceiling, right? Women not getting to senior leader roles. But your work highlights that the actual real derailment happens way earlier. At the first step to a manager. So I'd love to dig into that a little bit of what's happening and what your research highlighted.

Absolutely, Anish. It is that first promotion to manager where we see not the only broken rung, because actually every rung in the promotion ladder for women and often people of color is broken. It's just that that first broken rung is the biggest broken rung. Broken one, and it's also the rung that everybody has to make their way through, right? If you think about that typical talent pyramid in every company, about 70% of employees are usually at that entry level, right? Most people in America will actually never make it past that entry level. They will retire from the entry level. Some lucky few will become managers, and it's that first manager promotion that is very unequal. So for every 100 men who are promoted, The recent data is about 81 women are promoted. But when you break that out for women of color, for every 100 men, it's about 65 Latina women, but only 54 Black women. And that number changes year to year. It actually got a little bit better in the Women in the Workplace benchmarking data that's hot off the press just a few months ago. But typically, it's been persistently a big gap. And that's that first and biggest broken rung.

Yeah, and talk a little bit about why that is so critical and how that actually hamstrings women from all of the other parts of the ladder.

Yeah. If we think about kind of the typical talent funnel, 70% of the employees at the entry level, the way it looks across industries, it's almost 50-50 in terms of women at that first entry level, but then it drops by 9 percentage points down to about 39% at that manager level. And so, when you've got that big a drop so early in the talent pipeline, there's almost nothing that companies can do or individuals to equalize the rest of the talent pipeline, right? We can talk and brainstorm like, what are the levers to make it less unequal? But we can never fully close that gap. And so, that's the challenge. How do we get to the root of the issue earlier on and equalize that? And frankly, it's a real mystery because in the United States, women today are getting 59% of college degrees. Right? And women have been out-earning college degrees versus men in the U.S. for 40 years. That is ample decades to have worked their way through, right, generations in the workplace. Say, how does educational achievement translate to workplace advancement? And it simply hasn't, right? It's been glacially slow progress. In our Women in the Workplace research, every year, typically 0% improvement at the entry level where 70% of these employees are. In a good year, maybe 1% improvement. This last year we did improve 1%, um, but the The real improvement has been at that glass ceiling, as you described, right? In the C-suite, when we think about direct reports to the CEO, that's where the improvement has happened. So, over a 10-year span of doing this research, basically, we've seen the equivalent of one additional role in the C-suite and that role being held by a woman. So, basically, a 12 percentage point, 10-12 percentage point improvement. But on the entry level where everybody is, we really don't see much improvement from year to year. Yeah.

What do you think is behind that, Belinda? What are the big factors you identified that drive it, and what can people do about it?

Yeah. And that's actually what the book The Broken Rung is about. Like, individually, how do we each take action? And interestingly, most of the levers, the decisions that work for women also work for men. It's just that women are taking some of these actions less frequently. So the biggest thing that we can each do is pick the right company. And we say, pick the company over the job, pick the company over the boss. When you pick the right company, it's actually correlated with 50% higher lifetime income because that company will help build your skills, help you grow, support rotations and other ways of stretching your skills. So, the right company, number 1, invests deeply in learning and development. No surprise. And that's both in-person, digital, but it's an expectation of lifelong learning and growth. Second, they support cross-functional rotations. And this might be the hardest. You don't start in HR and then retire there 30 years later. You might start in HR, go into the business, then go into finance, go into another part of the business. But you see, through different rotations, you're stretching yourself, building different skills. That helps you grow as an individual and a professional. And then, the third thing that the right company does is they've got a very clear strategy. So, if they're publicly traded, you can tell by total returns to shareholders. If they're private, right, market share, other financial metrics. But if you pick the right company, ideally earliest in your career as you possibly can, then you've got the maximum number of decades to kind of benefit from that growth. But that's the number one thing women and men can do. But there's a lot of others too, right? So networks would be another one I would push on. Women and men build our networks and use our networks differently. So depending on how you measure, women have between 14% and 38% weaker networks. And we measure network strength in three ways. Number 1 is the quantity of relationships that I have. Number 2 is quality of those, the strength of the ties. And number 3 is the openness of the network. What percentage of my relationships are outside McKinsey versus inside McKinsey? Could my network sustain a job change, which is the ultimate test of network strength? And what we see is that women have more narrow and more junior networks. Women are also more reticent to mix their personal networks and friendships with professional networks. We try to keep the two separate more frequently. And when we mix them, we sometimes start to doubt— this is on average— we doubt, you know, is she really my friend or is this just convenient from a professional perspective? Versus, for example, my husband's in private equity. They will golf, they'll have beers together, they'll do a deal together, and the deal is more likely to work out because I know that's a good guy, right? They have no problem mixing the two and strengthening both halves of the network versus women are much more likely to keep the two halves separate. And I think that really shoots ourselves in the foot. So networks, building networks, diversifying your networks would be another push I would have of how do we really build what we call in the book experience capital, right? Experience capital is all of the skills, knowledge, wisdom that you learn on the job. And what we found in research, frankly, globally, we looked at the US, UK, Germany, and India, and what happens is half of the average person's lifetime income comes from this experience capital, what we're learning on the job. The other half comes from basically education, right? What are the characteristics you bring to your first job? And if you think about this as 50/50, women are doing exceptionally well on the other half, right? That what we bring to our first job, the education part, excelling there. But we're not building experience capital as quickly, and we're not having it pay off for us in the workplace. So each chapter kind of explores different questions of how do we pick the right company, how do we jump jobs in the right way, pick the right occupations. How do we build our network more effectively and use it? And so these are the things that help us kind of maximize the other 50% of that pay and the pay gap that we see.

Yeah, I think they're so actionable, right? What I really like about these three is, you know, often all the work and the research is like pointing to companies, hey, you should do A, B, and C. But what I really liked about your book was to say, look, don't wait for somebody else to come save you or to kind of lift you up. There is a lot that you can do. And as I think about those three you highlighted, Quillette, choosing the right company, networks, and really thinking about those networks thoughtfully, and experience capital, right? I would love to get into those three a little bit in more detail. But the network and the experience in particular, Both, you know, it was unconscious choices for me, but they made— I can see how big of a difference that they made for me.

Yeah.

Right? Especially around diverse. I used to remember, you know, as an early manager, I used to get a lot of grief because I had one foot in consumer and one foot in industrials and one foot in product development and one foot in procurement and one foot in innovation. And people are like, why don't you choose your lane? But I always had wanted to do different things. And luckily, our firm supported that. They were fine, like, as long as you're doing great work. But I can see that over time, those naturally networks, both internally, but also all the external networks were at the heart of the success. But I think to your point, we don't think about them unless you very early on start to do that work. And some of us do it accidentally, but we don't explicitly talk about it. And it can have such a big impact. It made a big impact for me all the way in my career. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really, really powerful. Yeah.

And sometimes to your point—

I want to start by—

No, please go ahead.

Yeah, exactly. No, I was going to say, yeah, no, sometimes you get lucky, but I think really helping this, that I was actually very lucky. When I did my MBA, I just signed up because I was curious for a course that very few people take, which was called Network Structures of Effective Management, where we learned about weak ties and strong ties and open networks and closed networks. And I think even though it was kind of in the back of, you know, it was not front of mind, that kind of shaped a little bit of kind of what I actually did once I got out of my MBA. Yeah, right. It was never in the front of me, but somewhere in the back it was always like, hey, think about this.

Yes.

And that combined with my core essence as relationships just helped me. But I think we can do so much by actually giving people the skills of creating awareness around how big of a role these things matter.

Yeah. Well, and to your point, you know, 70% of job openings are never even posted. So, if you don't have a sponsor in the room advocating for you, and it could be a promotion, those are the obvious ones, but it's small things. It's backing you up or kind of highlighting your capabilities in a meeting. Maybe there's a step-up opportunity or a really visible project that you can work on. Those things, those opportunities just don't come your way unless your sponsor is in the room. And what we find is that women and people of color tend to be over-mentored but under-sponsored, right? Lots of advice, lots of coffee chats, lots of panels about how did you carve your path, But what really matters, what makes a difference in careers, is sponsorship. Did you create an opportunity for me that didn't exist before? And we're finding that that happens less frequently for women, and it happens less frequently for people of color.

Quailyn, talk a little bit about, you know, net sponsors versus networks. Just let's dig into that a little bit and how we can actually systematize both this awareness and actually from that awareness, a willingness to take actions about the role of mentorship and sponsorship and cultivating those in a company.

Yeah, I think sponsors are so critical. And let me just define— sponsors are the people who create opportunities for you that wouldn't have happened otherwise, right? Or that didn't exist before. And so, could be a promotion, could be a project, could be just stretching your skills and learning about and getting exposure to a new thing. You don't need a lot of sponsors. I typically, at any given time, probably have 2 or so sponsors, at least that I'm kind of quite, quite aware of. When you have 1 sponsor, it's a little bit of all your eggs in 1 basket. If they leave, if something happens, right? It's hard to depend on just 1 person. But it's also really difficult on the flip side to have 4 or 5 sponsors, right? These are typically mutual commitments. They're close. You're working with each other. Ideally, you are doing something to help your sponsor. Your sponsor also is thinking about on a daily, weekly basis, you know, how is Anish doing? How can I help them? What do I need to kind of help them navigate? But sponsorship is the real commitment that changes the odds for someone, that creates real opportunities. Mentorship, I think of as a gateway to sponsorship. It's helpful, right? It's helpful to have the advice, the exposure. Maybe you help me on a particular skill. But mentors in and of themselves don't change careers. Sponsors do. And I think when we look at, you know, the network that women have, both the, like, weaker networks, but also the, like, less likelihood or lower comfort in mixing professional and personal networks. We also see in the data that women are 5 times more likely to have only women in their network. And I thought at first, maybe that's fine, right? Because I have some amazing women in my network, and I was like, I could probably be just fine with only them. Here's why that doesn't work. Number one, we looked— we were talking about earlier that talent pipeline, right? Only about 30% of people who report to the CEO are women. If there's only women in my network, by definition, my network is going to be more narrow and more junior in the organization than somebody like you who has a mix of women and men, but a more kind of diverse network. The other problem though, I think actually the bigger problem is that women at the same level are doing much more heavy lifting in terms of sponsoring others. So, let's take the average female senior vice president compared to the male senior vice president. On average, that woman is sponsoring more women and more men than her male peer. So let's say the man is sponsoring 3 people, the woman is sponsoring 9, 8 or 9. Mathematically, she's going to be able to do less for each of her sponsorees than that male peer. And so if that's the only people who are in my network and they're overtaxed from a sponsorship perspective, I'm not going to get the kind of opportunity creation that I'm looking for. And so my advice to your question is each of us needs to grow and strengthen our network, get much more comfortable activating our network. And it doesn't have to be on our own behalf. Maybe I'm connecting you, Anish, to somebody else. And third, diversify your network, right? Not just women in your network, different levels, different gender, different backgrounds, outside relationships, inside relationships, all of that kind of push. And being systematic about it. You and I have done so much ops work over the years. I tend to operationalize anything I care about. So let's say it was my goal to strengthen my network. I would put 2 hours or whatever the right amount of time is on my calendar every week. And I would get systematic about who am I going to meet, how do I not leave any of those conversations without a question of like, who else should I meet? Do you feel comfortable connecting me? But also a mix of internal and external kind of conversations with a clear perspective of, hey, it's my goal to learn this skill or get exposure to this area. Any advice for me? And I think when we're systematic and focused on something and we measure ourselves and keep ourselves accountable, that's when we really grow the network. And of all the skills that help us future-proof a career, happy to talk about other ones as well, I think networks, building the strength of your networks, is the number one thing that helps us future-proof careers.

Yeah, and it's one of the least underinvested, right? People get busy, they try and do work, focus on getting work done. And then if they have time, maybe they'll be like, you know, I wanna keep time for my family. And I think there is a historical 10, 15, 20 years of underinvestment in networks, both within the company, outside the company, in the community, in the industry. We're just so heads down trying to kind of climb up that even 1%, you know, I love your notion of a couple of hours, you know, in one of our programs, Rewire, I always say, look, look at the data from the Howard Fluttershy study. The quality of your networks and relationships is the biggest predictor of your success and joy all the way through life. And so what if, what if every day you took 5 minutes and it is blocked on your calendar, 5 or 10 minutes where you're going to take an action, right? It's not that you can't do, you won't do other stuff you'll need, but like every day, 5 minutes, reach out to somebody outside, reach out to somebody within the company, reach out to a friend, you know, connect with a friend, like just think more broadly and be methodical and just 5 minutes a day. One phone call, one email, hey, I'm thinking of you. Here's an article. You know, you might find this news interesting. I think we can take small steps that can continue and these things compound. And then of course, combine that with, you know, meaningful connections, asking for help, offering help. But I think most of us, this is one of those areas that historically I've seen, especially in the early years. Highly underinvested. But then we, when we lose our job, we call people. By that time, it's so late. Right? Yeah.

It's the career equivalent of tech debt.

Yes. A massive career, you know, relationship debt. But, you know, I also want to talk a little bit, you know, Quellen. So sponsorship. Requires courage from sponsors, right? Because you are taking a risk. And so talk a little bit, you must have sponsored, how have you actually managed, how have you handled that? Because a lot of people won't do that because they're like, oh my God, like what if it blows back with me? So as somebody who has, who is one of the leading sponsors at the firm, I know that I benefited from it. You've sponsored so many. How do you think about that and how do you manage that and how do you support those that you're sponsoring to set the odds in their— right? To set the odds so they will be successful because they are stretched. Otherwise, it's not a risk. If once you're ready, I give you a role, that's not a risk. But giving stretch assignments is. So, so how do you— how have you navigated that well, and what advice would you have for others as they think about sponsorship?

Yeah, yeah. Well, as a sponsor, I think you take it very seriously, right? There's only so many people you can sponsor. And so to take up one of those spots or take up the capacity or opportunities, I have to truly believe in the skills of that person. I have to respect them as an individual but really want them to succeed. And so, that's kind of the time investment of how do I help you grow, stretch into this opportunity? I think as a sponsoree, what you can do is, number 1, voice what you're looking for, right? Because what you're optimizing for may be different than what I might care about in your shoes. But if you can say, "Hey, I'm looking for an opportunity to do this," either I can help provide it or I could help connect you to somebody. But I don't think we often enough voice what we're looking for. There's a story in the book, for example, of a woman, and she's working in Google Spain, and she knows her boss is retiring in 3 years. And she has the very explicit conversation of, number 1, what are the skills that I need to learn to be ready for your job in 3 years? And number 2, based on our conversation about networks, who are the people who need to get to know me so that when they're making the decision, they feel confident in my skills? And I think with sponsors, we don't often enough have these direct conversations, right? How powerful would it be for me to know for each of my sponsorees, what are you optimizing for? What are you aiming for? And then how do we together craft the plan so that other people can get exposure to you so that you can get those growth opportunities?

I love that, right? And, and that requires time and space and a dual, right? You step back together, really say— and I love what you said, where are you going? It's not about, hey, I want— I can help you go do this, etc. I think you— I think what I loved is you're saying Having a conversation with your spouse, where do you, what are your goals? What are your aspirations? Where do you want to go? And how can we actually help you beyond me? Right? Who are the other people? Really taking that balcony view of the journey to be able to then support through relationships, through skill building. So if you need skills and there's a gap, let's figure out a way to give you assignments that can help you build the skills. Right? If there are people I can get you connected with who will get to know you and their voices are going to matter. That's actually how I love that. And I don't think it's common practice. Most people don't think about it that way. And those dialogues can have such a big effect on people's careers, but also how meaningful they find where they work. It's amazing.

Agreed. You know, one of the things that I think sponsors do enough— one of the things I don't think sponsors do enough when they're thinking about kind of career paths is help their sponsorees stretch, and stretch in really uncomfortable ways. So there's a notion in the book that we call skill distance. And basically what we did is we measured when somebody changes jobs, the average percentage of new skills that they use in their job is about 25%. So 25% of the skills are not skills that I used in my old job. Anything more than 25%, if I take a new job with 40% new skills, 50% new skills, that's what we call a big, bold move. And I think sponsors can help you make more of those big, bold moves to stretch your learning curve, to kind of make you uncomfortable, yes, but it's one of the best things that you can do to build your experience capital, to build the skills over time, and then that's how we grow. And become, yes, more valuable and have higher income over time, but really learn and stretch ourselves.

Well, I think to flourish, you have to grow. Growth and achievement is a big part of what helps you flourish. And I think what you're inviting us is sponsors can play a big role in helping people step beyond just their comfort zone, right? Into a little— you don't need to go all the way out to a danger zone, but enough where you're being stretched, you're learning. And you're supporting it both ways, one, raising the aspiration, but also creating the way and creating that opportunity to allow them to flourish.

Agreed.

Yeah. So, look, we talked about choose your company. We talked about networks and really thoughtfully building those mentor-sponsor relationships. I want to go into experience capital. But before we go, Quellen, I want you to talk a little bit about an innovation at the firm that I benefited so much from. And I can talk about it, but I would love for you to talk about it because you're still at the firm, which was this survey we started to do, if you remember, on mentors and sponsors and that notion of matching. It had such a huge impact on me. But I want you to talk a little bit about that instrument because I think more companies can benefit from actually implementing something like that. And again, bringing awareness to what's really happening here.

Yeah, I love that. So, of course, McKinsey in true McKinsey fashion brings a data-driven approach to things that we care about and what we do. And we are fundamentally a people business, right? Talent is what we have, talent and knowledge. It's not like we sell a product other than our people and our knowledge and work there. So, when we think about sponsorship and mentorship, and we think about both together. We did a survey of every individual across our firm and asked, who are the people who sponsor you? How happy are you with their sponsorship? And then we bubble it up both bottom-up and top-down. We also ask people, who do you sponsor? How often do you kind of think about them, but who are they? How are you creating opportunities for them? And then we put it together in kind of a mutual matching or top-down, bottom-up, however you want to think about it. And then, we give each person their own personalized report. So, for a sponsor, it might say, "Here are your people who sponsor you," because even when you become senior, you still have sponsors. But then also, "Here are the people you are sponsoring. Here's how they break down in terms of their mix across kind of geographies, other dimensions. Here's how happy they are with your sponsorship. And oh, by the way, here's how that compares to other people of your same kind of role." So, there's a data-driven way for me to understand how am I doing. What is my kind of reach and impact? How happy are my sponsorees with what I'm doing? How might I adjust? Do I have to try to create more opportunities, create more visibility with them for others? So that's one kind of individualized report. And then I think the other benefit is we're able to kind of step back and say, across this entire sort of view, where are there people systematically undersponsored? And how do you understand those pockets? To maybe inject a bit more leadership connection, but opportunity creation in those pockets of undersponsorship.

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was only something that, you know, it is truly— I think, I don't think it's been written as much out there about this, but I think it's truly one of these brilliant innovations only McKinsey can do ideas, right? Because the first time I got that report, you know, first of all, And I had 3 big insights from it. First of all, there were people who really actively said, you know, that like, hey, I am sponsoring Ashish or I want to sponsor Ashish. And I was like, I wasn't even aware, right, of like, oh my God, right behind the scenes, others. And so it created an opportunity of me reaching out. Hey, thank you. You identified me as a sponsor. Here's where I'm going. First of all, thank you. And what can I do? Because actually, especially with one of them, I'm like, there is no way that person wants anything to do with me. And that was the quite opposite of actually what was going on. Interesting. The second for me was it actually, you know, I looked and I was a, you know, back then I was a partner, right? And I was looking down and I had many people. I was like, oh my God. This conversation is brought to you by Happiness Squad, where we help leaders build new mindsets, new habits, and transform their ways of working. To truly flourish. If you're ready to unleash the untapped human potential in your organization and operate at your best, come visit us at happinesssquad.com and start your journey today. There are all these people who are actually saying that I'm their sponsor, and some of them I actively was, and I knew I was spending the time with them. But there were many others who were like, yeah, you are one of our sponsors. And it made me recognize, wow, it was in my blind spot, right? So even the act of reaching out, checking in, seeing where they were going, I think it was very, very— it was really eye-opening for me. And then the third element of it, we are all to some extent competitive. And to be able to kind of, you know, as if you think about the role of a leader is to create other leaders.

Yeah.

I think being able to explicitly— sponsorship is a way we can create other leaders, right? It's a direct way in which we can help create other leaders. And so, if you think about yourself and say, wow, right, am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? It also highlighted for me this notion of like, hey, maybe you have too many. So maybe you want to think about actually, you know, really taking 4 or 5 and doubling down because you're spreading yourself too thin by trying to sponsor too many people. And maybe pass some of these connections to others in the practice who don't have enough sponsors, but do a warm handoff to say, hey, listen, here's what you can do. But I think I loved it. And I think I can see so many companies today. I think human capital is all we have. We spend so much more on human capital than physical capital. And I think these interventions and these innovations can really help us tend and grow our human capital in such thoughtful ways.

Agreed.

So my friend, talk to me a little bit about experience capital. I love that word. And you highlighted this big point, right? That our growth, half of it is based on actually the skills we pick up, but the other half, which is what you call experience capital, is what you're actually building through your career. So bring a little bit of that to life for us. And let's get into a couple of ways in which we can actively build our experience capital.

Absolutely. So yes, experience capital is exactly that— the skills, wisdom, knowledge that you learn on the job. And I think often we may kind of step back and try to get in our comfort zone. We try to become an expert, a deeper expert in one particular space. And that is the antithesis of what I think we should be doing, which is stretching our ourselves, not every, you know, few months, but every couple years. Once you've kind of solidified a set of skills, how do you stretch yourself with a big bold move to learn a new set of skills, to kind of expand your horizons and keep that learning curve steep? And there's a lot of things that each of us can do to build our experience capital. Women and men can pick the right company, as we talked about. You can make big bold moves. So kind of Transferring companies, moving from a support function to the business, or vice versa, or launching a new product. You can change companies altogether. That's also a big, bold move. Um, those are some of the natural things. One of the things that may be less intuitive is you can get experience in what we call the power alley. The power alley is how your company makes revenue and makes profit. So in consulting, it's being a consultant. In a law firm, it's being a lawyer. In a tech firm, it would be in product development or product management. And in most companies, it's in sales or distribution, right? How do you generate revenue of the company? You'll hear some people say, stay close to the cash register. That is getting experience in the power alley. Being in the power alley is quite intense, right? If I'm in sales, every week, every month, Ashish, you know what you sold, I know what I sold, but you know what? So does everybody else. And the transparency of that competition can be exhausting, right? Typically much more hands-on, 24/7, lots of competition. But what's important is to get at least a couple of years of that experience to help you grow, build credibility, understand how the fundamentals of the business work, and then you can take that experience elsewhere. So there's a story in the book about Jenny Abramson who goes to business school and she gets an offer to sell ads at the Washington Post. And she thinks, this isn't why I went to business school, to sell ads. That's not glamorous. That's not what I want to do. And the executive director or CEO equivalent there says, Jenny, this is our power alley, right? This is our cash register. You have to learn the fundamentals of the business. It will give you unrivaled credibility. And from there, after a couple of years, you can take that to other, you know, departments or other roles, but it will accelerate your career in ways you have not imagined. And she did exactly that. So how do each of us, even if it's not for an entire career, get experience in the power alley? And that's one of the ways that we build experience capital. Other ways, we talked about networks, building and strengthening that network helps you build experience capital, but actually, it also helps you get more value from the experience capital you have, right? Maybe you, Ashish Kothari, are an 8 out of 10 on experience capital. Maybe I'm a 6 out of 10. But how we translate that to what the work market or careers kind of reward depends a lot on networks. And so, strengthening that's another opportunity. Building some of the skills that will future-proof your career is another way to build experience capital. So, tech skills, but it's not coding so much anymore given generative AI. It's much more, can you be an early adopter of technology? Can you understand its impact on yourself, on your work, on your group, on your company? Can you be a bit of the change leader for technology? Because that's the real gap we typically have in getting value from technology. It's not the tech itself, it's the human elements of the change. Another one is social and emotional skills, right? As generative AI does more and more work, the complementary kind of fundamentally human skills are more and more valuable. And so social and emotional is everything from negotiation, empathy, can I read a human interaction and react accordingly? Can I build trust? Can I lead a team to achieve more than we thought was possible? Negotiations, all of these things are social and emotional skills, and they're becoming much more valuable over time, particularly as generative AI takes over more activities. Those are lots of different, I think, examples of how we each build experience capital faster and better, and then also make sure that the market rewards us for that.

Yeah. And I love those. I love those set of like explicitly think about networks, think about skills, like think about where you're building them. You know, and what's amazing about many of these skills is, Quellen, you can build many of these skills on the job. And you can take charge of building these skills, right? Absolutely. The social emotional skills, the tech skills, especially the tech skills today. I was actually driving my son home to talk about how big of a gap this is. And it's just my own thing, you know? So we are building our own platform. And today we're going to use one of the white coding tools, Lovable, to go do it. We've been talking about it. We have a subscription. We have to do it. And my son, to just talk about like this, these gaps, he's 16. And, you know, we were driving and he had an idea for a business as part of his idea incubator in high school. And I was, we were driving and I was like, you know what, now that your semester's over, you should just go launch it and see how it feels like. He's like, yeah, I'm going to do it. I already built the product. I'm like, what do you mean you've built the product? He's like, yeah, I used Loveable to already build it. And here we are thinking about it. And he's already built the product. And I'm like, great. So let's talk about how do you actually go out there and really test it. Right. But I think there is this gap that sometimes exists today. AI has in many ways democratized how much you needed to know and what it took. Any person can sit down and quickly, if they have an idea, they can put it out there. They can build it. Yes. So that's something, you know, I think earlier you had to go to school and you had to find time. But I think these are I think the barriers have come down. And I think for listeners, if you're not actively building these skills, the tech skills, but also the social-emotional skills, I think we get left behind. We get left behind. But these are about building skills. The other concept, Quaylan, that I really liked in your book was this notion of we can build skills, but also skill signaling. Like, how do we actually get people to know what we know? And so talk a little bit about skill signaling.

Absolutely. Um, I think we don't often talk enough about our skills, and one of the areas that we undersignal is definitely social and emotional skills, because it's hard to talk about what did I do, how do I quantify the impact. And so one of the tips on better signaling skills, especially social and emotional skills, is Quantify what you did, right? Talk about the story with active verbs, communicate it in your resume, but then quantify what happened because you led a team and did this, or you built relationships and were able to create a group or a community or drive an initiative. Even in your annual reviews, right? And when you talk about your goals and what you have achieved, signaling with active verbs and quantification how you use those skills and what the impact was, I think we could do much, much more of that.

So explicitly talking about the impact, not just on the activity, but on the, on the impact, right? Those stories.

And what skill you use to make that happen.

What skill you use to get there.

Exactly.

So you've shared so many of these stories, like talk a little bit of individuals, right? Who have, who've actually taken control. Of the broken rung and they said, look, I am actually going to fix that rung and I'm going to go up. I would love to share a story of a company or where as a company they've actually taken active steps. And as leaders who are listening to this, I want them to be able to take some ideas, right? So beyond individuals, if you're a leader or if you are a company What are 3 or 4 things you can start to think about and do that closes, that fixes the broken rung in your organization?

Yeah, I think as an individual, we talked a lot about making the right choices in terms of when to jump jobs and take on different roles and stretch your skills, how to build your network. At the company level, what we see is sponsorship makes the biggest difference. And some elements of unconscious bias in the talent kind of review cycle can make a really big difference. But I'll give an example of sponsorship and what happened at a company level. One company in the financial services space had their CEO sponsor 5 leaders at that C-suite level, and not just women, right, but people of very diverse backgrounds, asked each of those 5 diverse leaders to each sponsor 5 diverse leaders in turn, those 25 leaders to each sponsor 5 people at the next level. And then there was a mix of formal and informal events. They wanted some of the connections to be very natural and others where, you know, maybe there's a pocket of undersponsored people, they would help facilitate some of that match. But that created much stronger bonds, deepening networks, and real sponsorship across the whole organization. I've seen some organizations couple a sponsorship program with more like a Shark Tank innovation. Let's create some cross-functional teams to kind of jostle new ideas and then present those. So there's a bit of that kind of transparency and visibility across the organization, and you're going to get to meet a lot of different leaders, but also think about a problem in a very different way. And that visibility also accelerated a lot of kind of sponsorship, or at a minimum mentorship heading in that direction. So I think companies can do a lot to shore up and strengthen sponsorship, either through formal programs or in some cases more informal programs as well.

So look, human capital is all we have. And I think these are such great ideas, but sometimes companies don't do enough. And so I want to talk a little bit also about when should you jump jobs and how do you think about jumping inside the company or outside if you just so find yourself in an environment that is not going to be helpful in your own growth and development, right? So how do you go from feeling like a victim to taking agency? So talk a little bit about that, Colette.

Yeah, I think the biggest question for me is, have you picked the right company? Maybe you're in a group or with a boss or with a team that isn't a great fit, but is the company overall the right company? And back to some of those criteria we were talking about earlier on, do they invest in learning and development? Do they support cross-functional rotation so I can learn and grow and stretch myself, in which case probably there's another role for me to take? And third, do they have a clear and effective strategy? And if it's the right company, I would more likely do one more jump, maybe a cross-functional— could be a lateral rotation, but could just something that stretches me in a different way. Because typically you've invested a fair amount in that company, in the network, in building credibility. It's worth it to kind of stretch yourself and learn there. If, on the other hand, you step back and you think, you know what, this isn't— this just isn't the right company. They're not investing in my learning development. I'm not stretching myself. Then I think it probably is time to, you know, take a move outside. And almost all of those moves are, by definition, a big, bold move, right? Because you're, you know, getting used to maybe a different industry, at a minimum, a different company, and you're just going to be stretching yourself with a pretty steep learning curve for a while. I think there is value in matching when you're making a big, bold move, especially if you're jumping companies, to when you can personally invest. Because all of our careers are also kind of mirrored on the personal side of how do we balance this with, you know, personal commitments and family balance, if, if that's the situation. And those first— that first year or two in a new company, in a new role, is going to be a real investment period. So are you ready for that on the personal side? And how do we also kind of time those in an effective way so that you're not stretched on every dimension? I think that can help as well.

Yeah, and I think it's a really important and a good invitation, right? I always say grass is greener where you water it, not on the other side. So if you do happen to find yourself in a company, maybe not a good boss or a role, but in a company that actually does take care of this stuff, water the grass there, find ways to jump within the company. It might be hard and you might, but go do that. I think the reality is you already have a track record. You know, and look, I think I actually do feel today most companies, right, are multinational. You know, there's all these different functions that you can go within. So I think if you choose the right company, it's so de-risks versus completely going out because again, you can go out, but you still don't know who you're going to actually work for or wherever you might find yourself. And so I think being able to, rather than just jump ship, jump within, I think is a very good advice. But yeah, after a jump or two, if you still find this is not the right place, then for sure go out. But meanwhile, take all the actions that you can take, right? Cultivating sponsors, building your skills, really cultivating those networks. And I think if you do that, frankly, it increases the odds of landing well if you actually do decide to jump out.

Yes.

Quellen, this has been amazing. It's been so many— it's filled with so many actionable tips. That individuals can do. Look, we'll put a link to the book in our show notes. But my friend, as we wrap up, what might be two micro actions you might suggest? Maybe one for leaders and one for individual. If there is one thing that they listen to it, we release these on Tuesday, it's in the morning. If there is one thing before the end of the day, one small thing that they could do, no matter how busy they are, that would be a start to repairing the broken rung?

Yes.

What would those two things be?

For individuals, I would say pick a skill and operationalize how you're going to build it. So if it's networks, put the 2 hours in your calendar a week. And you can move it around, but you have to systematically start to build your network and diversify your network. If it's social and emotional skills, how do I practice negotiation or showing empathy or leadership? And then at the leader level, I think there's so much that we can do, right? How do I think about sponsorship gaps on my team in a different way and help the people on my team seek out new opportunities, stretch opportunities to really build their experience capital?

Yeah, start with where you are. Start with the people you lead and have the sponsorship conversation. Where are they going? What would be helpful? And helping connect them to make sure that every person has a sponsor, right? And you can do it as part of your one-to-ones that you're already doing. So it's not one more thing. It's just something you bring into it. I love that, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. Look, I've benefited so much. I've so enjoyed our collaboration at the firm and now on this.

So, yes, thank you for all that you're doing, Ashish.

Love it. Take care, my friend. Have a lovely day. You too.

Bye.

Thank you for joining me on The Flourishing Edge. If today's conversation inspired you, share it with someone who's ready to flourish too. Subscribe, leave a review, and stay connected for more tools to achieve breakthrough performance through flourishing. Until next time, keep learning, practicing, and growing into your fullest potential.