The growth path no one can take away

When I was a manager in a UX org, one of the most challenging parts of my job was trying to satisfy my team members’ ambitions. Sometimes it was because there was an absolute misalignment between someone’s expectations and their abilities — but more often, the main blocker was simply the reality of our org.

Someone might be eager — and ready! — to lead a project, but that position was already filled. Someone was seeking a new kind of project, but their skills were needed in an area where they’d already excelled. Or someone was hoping to move into management, but there weren’t enough people to justify their role.

Advocacy isn’t magic — and despite some wins, I inevitably lost good people who moved on to something more aligned with their ambitions. Sometimes it hurt, especially when I felt like I was thisclose to delivering on their desires. But frankly, sometimes it was a relief — because the frustration and cynicism of some folks’ thwarted ambitions grew toxic, and started infecting other people on the team.

The early-pandemic hiring boom made my job a lot easier — because when you double your team size in a couple of months, there’s suddenly plenty of need for new managers. Retention bonuses and promotions were doled out like Halloween candy. New projects popped up left and right.

And for those who still didn’t feel like they could accomplish what they wanted within our org? They left for greener pastures — easily. Recruiters were flooding their DMs with opportunities and dangling flashy incentives to jump ship.

But that was then. That’s definitely not now.

“There’s no clear path for growth.”

That’s one of the many things my partner Sara and I heard this summer when our company, Active Voice, ran a research project to find out how design managers are holding up in these deeply challenging times.

This manager isn’t the only one feeling this way. One of the main themes that surfaced in our research was how hard it is now for managers to support their team members’ growth and satisfaction. The folks we surveyed reported that their teams are stagnating — upward mobility has been capped and opportunities for learning and training have been diminished or cut.

The result? Well, I’ll let another survey respondent describe it:

Oof. This sounds a lot like career purgatory. Managers are seeing their smart, talented, ambitious people languishing. It’s unhealthy for those individuals. It’s unhealthy for the teams they’re on. And it’s unhealthy for the managers, who desperately want their people to feel engaged and supported.

Managers, take note: None of this is your fault. There are forces at play far beyond your control or influence. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless — and neither are your people.

If your team members are “hanging out, miserable” — I promise there’s still hope. Because even if your org has cut off traditional paths to progress, there are still other ways to help your folks feel a sense of growth. And I’m talking real growth — the kind people set aside because it doesn’t look impressive on paper or add an extra zero to their salary.

In fact, that’s the kind of growth we should’ve spent more time on all along.

Break out of the performance cycle

Many managers never have a career progression conversation with their teams outside of a performance review cycle. These conversations tend to be very specifically tied to promotions — evaluating someone’s skills and accomplishments against the criteria for moving up to the next level. As a result, when upward mobility is out of reach, the conversation goes on pause until the next cycle.

In the months between, 1:1s tend to shift focus to facts — what projects are being worked on, what’s going well, what’s causing problems. But when there’s nothing significant to share, managers and reports can feel like they’re just filling space with idle chit-chat or venting sessions. Or they just cancel them outright.

Now, I think there’s value to both types of conversations. Small talk can build trust and rapport, and venting sessions can surface important issues that need to be addressed.

But there’s a third type of conversation that more managers should add to the mix: career conversations. These are conversations that are less about delivering feedback or prepping for promotions, and more about helping your people understand themselves: their skills and strengths, their values, their interests, their likes and dislikes.

You don’t need to have these answers — your job as a manager is simply to get curious and ask.

These kinds of conversations benefit both sides:

• For your team members, these conversations can help them think more holistically about what does and doesn’t matter to them, what their preferences are, and what needs they have that are unmet right now.

• As the manager, you can better understand what your people are thinking and feeling — what’s behind their words and behaviors.

You might be surprised at how rarely people are asked these kinds of questions — and at how much insight and clarity can come from letting someone talk them through while you really listen.

Prioritize intrinsic motivations

There’s a second reason that I recommend managers don’t limit career conversations to performance review cycles — even in times when opportunity abounds. That’s because it ignores an important truth: not everyone is trying to climb the career ladder.

There are many reasons some of your people may fall into this category. Maybe it’s because they have a lot of change going on in their personal lives and need work to feel more stable. Maybe it’s because they’re looking at the requirements of these next-level roles and realizing they’re not interested in the work required.

The reason isn’t the important part. The motivation is what matters.

And too often, that initial motivation isn’t coming from their own needs, values, or interests — it comes from outside. Who can they please? Influence? Impress? What does success look like to their family members, peer groups, broader communities, and a capitalist society?

It’s a vicious cycle: when someone performs and produces enough to get that validation, the process starts anew. The pressure builds with every loop, because it’s never enough to truly satisfy — it just raises the bar they’re trying to meet higher and higher.

I see this all the time as a coach. People exhaust themselves trying to reach the next goal, or climb the next rung, but they never actually get to rest and enjoy once they’re there. Because there’s a new goal or a next rung that requires them to give away more and more of themselves to their jobs.

It might not be fair that the most common external success markers — things like promotions and pay raises, accolades and awards — are harder to come by right now. But that also makes it a good time to realize that those markers alone don’t make people happy. Even in the best of times, all they do is give us short-term validation. The fulfillment doesn’t stick.

The only validation any of us can truly rely on comes from within. While that may feel like a foreign concept, it is something that can be taught — and that you, manager, can teach.

You can start by helping your team members set down their OKRs and KPIs and spend some time developing intrinsic goals — the kind where their ambition isn’t defined by external markers of success, but by the person’s own internal needs, desires, and values. (Those very same ones you helped them tease out in your 1:1s!)

Like, say you have a direct report with a deep value of equity. How would it look for their success to be measured by how much of that they could bring to their work lives? That could be achieved any number of ways that require no outside permission or approval to begin. Maybe they decide to begin researching and learning accessibility best practices. Or if they’ve already got that skill, maybe they make it their mission to speak up about accessibility concerns every time they spot one, even if they don’t have the power to ensure every fix makes it into the next release.

Here’s another example: say you’ve got a direct report who’s been really wanting to step into management, but there are no open roles. If the driving force behind that desire is to help other people navigate their tricky workplace, there’s no manager title required to reach that goal. They could schedule some 1:1s with more junior teammates. They could offer open office hours to designers just entering the field. Or they could set up a monthly lunch date with their peers to talk through their current challenges.

Whatever action they take, the marker of their success and progress becomes less about other people’s perceptions and more about how they feel about themselves: Satisfied. Connected. Impactful. Proud.

Teach your team members to think about success in this way, and you’ve given them a gift they’ll carry with them through the rest of their lives. No matter what external circumstances they may stumble into, they can find meaning and purpose in how they’re spending their time.

“Focus on the things I can influence. Not worry too much about the things I can’t.”

Not every design manager in our study was struggling. In fact, about 1 in 4 said they were doing pretty well at work right now. And one theme we found amongst those thriving managers was this: they have the same challenges as everyone else. They just weren’t spending all their energy feeling frustrated at the things out of their control.

We all have finite energy and time. And it’s heartbreaking — and frustrating — as a manager to watch your people waste those precious resources chasing ghosts and battling paper tigers.

But you can’t expect them to lay down their swords if you’re still swinging yours around wildly. To lead by example you need to take your own best advice. Because there are no management trophies awarded for “hanging out, miserable” — even if you’re doing so in service of the team members you care about.

So, manager: which of your ambitions are in your control? Do you know your own skills and strengths, your values, your interests, your likes and dislikes? Where are you pursuing external rewards at the expense of your own sense of pride, impact, connection, and satisfaction?

And once you’ve started to define those things: what intrinsic goals will get you back there?

Your ambitions matter too. Breaking yourself won’t make your people any happier. Being the shit umbrella sounds noble for a minute or so, until you realize you’re the one stuck dripping in shit.

You can make meaningful contributions to your team members’ growth and ambitions even in the worst of conditions — no flashy gestures are required. Give yourself the same grace. Hang onto the words of wisdom another survey respondent shared about how they get by:

Make your own wins.