When Coattails Leave You Cornered

So, it’s reassuring to come to work every day confident that you’ll be able to stretch intellectually. How in the world could this situation possibly turn sour?

• Your cost outweighs your value. In the first years of your career, your compensation rises annually. At some point, however, your cost to your employer starts to impact the profitability he once enjoyed. His clients aren’t going to let him get away with raising his rates very much. Something has to give. The rate of increase in compensation slows so that you are, in effect, “topped out.” Worse yet, the boss lets you go in favor of a lower-cost employee.
• You can’t outrun the boss’s shadow. If your boss happens to be a (or maybe even the) go-to person for a particular type of engagement in your market, you’ll find it hard to become known as a provider in your own right.
• Your circumstances change; the boss’s don’t. You may have begun to work for the boss when you were single, and 10 to 12-hour days were no big deal. Marriage and family changed all that. But the boss still remembers when you regularly burned the midnight oil and can’t understand why you don’t want to now.

There are exceptions to all the above, of course. You may work for a practice leader who is sensitive to your career development and ensures the two of you are constantly communicating about ways to maintain your advancement.

Maybe it’s time to talk to us about corrective action if you’re not. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to leave, but things won’t get better on their own.

Click here to grab some time for a quick call. We’ll decide whether we want a longer one.