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Talent Trade Tidbit - Corporate Ladder Vs. Lattice

Published on: 19th February, 2026

Making progress in the corporate world isn’t just up or down anymore. It’s sideways, diagonal, or sometimes staying right where you are. But what are the questions you need to ask yourself to get there?

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Transcript
Speaker:

Hi, this is Stephanie Maas, partner with Thinking Ahead Search.

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Today I wanna talk to you about a topic I've talked about multiple times in the past, but it seems especially relevant today, and this is the idea of professional advancement.

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Professional advancement in the past.

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My parents probably Your parents, definitely our grandparents.

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Advancement was the corporate ladder.

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This is the ladder, these are the wrongs.

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It went one direction.

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If you did it right, you went up it.

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If you did it wrong.

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You fell off the ladder.

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Not good.

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Sometimes you went down and could go back up.

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It was kind of a one-way thing.

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Or you could also just stay on one rung, and that's perfectly fine too.

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Our professional environment has changed dramatically.

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Let me suggest, instead of the corporate ladder, I really don't believe that exists anymore.

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It's a corporate lattice.

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You can go in a myriad of directions.

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Up, down, diagonal, you can switch completely to the other side.

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There are endless possibilities, but I do believe with change comes tremendous opportunity and I think we need to just stop and take a look at the corporate lattice and say, Hey.

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Where do I see myself in two or three years?

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You know, sometimes it is going straight.

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That's perfectly fine.

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But be creative.

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Think other ways.

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Think about, Hey, what skillset could I go do by coming over to this part of the lattice that would eventually maybe get me up here?

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Can I develop that skillset right now?

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What opportunities that maybe didn't exist a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, exist today that if I take advantage of them, they would put me on this part of the lattice.

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Doesn't matter where you ultimately want to go, but this is a phenomenal time to really think through your lattice of growth, your advancement path, and make sure you are taking advantage of the opportunities that are there for

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you.

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About the Podcast

The Talent Trade
Presented by ThinkingAhead Executive Search
The Talent Trade is all about finding the right person, for the right opportunity, at the right time. But how exactly do you do that the "right" way? Executive Search Partner and Top Biller Stephanie Maas shares more than 25 years of experience about what it takes to be a top recruiter in today's "talent trade" market, using ThinkingAhead’s four-prong system focused on recruiting, business development, planning, and managing your mindset. It’s real, honest information about how to build your desk, perfect your niche, and stand out among the crowd in your search career.



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