The Metamorphosis

To achieve true career success, be prepared to make these 4 major transformations along the way

I awoke one morning not long ago and found that I'd transformed into a gigantic ultrasenior manager. My abdomen had softened and filled out like a juicy piece of pale, pink fruit. My legs, now thin compared with the rest of my circumference, twitched with anxious anticipation of the day ahead.

Had this metamorphosis occurred overnight? No, I thought, as I slipped my $2,100 suit over my $165 custom-made shirt. It had taken two decades. The transmutation had occurred over several steps, and worked from the inside out.

You can make such a change as well, if you work hard at becoming the right kind of power bug. The thing is, along the way, the very attributes that make you effective at your present level rule you out for the one to which you aspire. This means that when the time comes to move up, you're going to have to shed your old carapace for a new one. Here's how to know when you're ready.

Metamorphosis 1: Associate to Manager

You're an itty-bitty buglet, working on the hill with a lot of other busy creatures just your size. Every now and then you have a chance to rub antennae with one of those big, scary dudes with the huge, square heads and killer mandibles, and when you do, you are patient, humble, industrious, and exquisitely aware that one bite could snap you in two.

When I was starting out, I was surrounded by men who made 20 times more than I did and didn't mind telling me so. At staff meetings, when the discussion turned to bonuses and stock options, I was asked to leave. I minded, but I also appreciated the peek at what life was like higher on the hill.

At that time, all I wanted to be was a manager bug. I was an associate then, and the qualities that made me a good little playerhumility, universal geniality, willingness to eat the crap handed to medefined me as appropriate to the area of the colony I inhabited. I didn't understand that then. I asked and asked and asked, and still they did not make me a manager bug. Then one day I found myself in my boss's office, and this time I wasn't nice. I told him I was pretty sick of the situation and just left it at that. I think he saw a certain steel in my eye. The following week I was promoted to manager bug. I was off the dung hill!

Transforming moment: The first move up comes when you're willing to assert your personality over those more powerful than you. The capacity to be unpleasant about your own cause ruins you as a slaveand marks you as a manager.

Metamorphosis 2: Manager to Senior Manager

Wow! Look at the view from up here! You can almost see the top of the mound!

Whereas before you labored away in a gaggle, now you're taking orders directly from some big, crusty dude with a segmented shell who wants to stare upward and twiddle his feelers. You revel in the capacity to inhale work and spit out a finished product. If there is anything to be done, you stick up one of your hundred little legs and shout, "I'll do it!"

When you arrive at the office each morning, there's a big list on your desk of items  you need to do personally, that nobody but you can accomplish. At noon, you grab a sandwich at your desk and keep digging through it. By closing time, you've cleared away just about all the rubble and assembled a new list of stuff you'll deal with tomorrow.

After work, you have a couple of pops downstairs with a group of fellow bugs. You hoist a cup of nectar and bitch and moan about working your tail off. But secretly, you're very happy. You're earning an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

This lasts for a while. But the drivethe compulsionfor more defines the senior life form. I have known big bugs who cry the blues that a portion of their $10 million bonus is in long-term options instead of cash. Doing things yourself . . . the simple pleasures of a task done well . . . all of these characteristics that drive the midlevel bug must be shuffled off to make way for the newer, faster, sleeker model. When you're disappointed with every raise that's not a life changer, when you're tired of being offered a polite five-figure bonus at year's end, when the nice, plush office down the hall from yours seems more appropriate to your self-image than the little corner you now occupy, you're ready.

Transforming moment: You decide that young Bob can handle three or four of the 12 things on your plate. When he's almost done, you grab them back so you take can credit for them. Crack! You just earned your new skin.

Metamorphosis 3: Senior Manager to Executive

You're a big bug now. One of your shells costs more than you used to make in a week. Your jaws have grown, too, both in size and power. At the same time, your definition of work has changed. Now you think of it as a series of tasks that need to be performed and performed wellby somebody else. You'll kick the ass, thank you.

What's really different are your levels of need, intensity, and rage. There isn't a circumstance that doesn't aggravate you, no incident too small to set you off. You rampage from one end of the battlefield to the other, your troops trying to keep pace. But at times you feel like all that marching just leaves you in the same place. You long for wide open spaces where you can have time to think about strategy. Your shell is growing too tight in all the wrong places. You're ready for the final step.

Transforming moment: You realize you care more about 2017 than you do about 2007. You look in the mirror and see your father, or what he looked like when he dressed up for a big occasion.

Metamorphosis 4: Executive to Regular Guy

Which brings us to this morning, when, as I told you, I'd awakened to find I'd transformed into a loathsome bug the size of a Porsche Boxster. I went to the office and settled behind my desk with my muffin and coffee. My final corporate form was giving me a whole new way of looking at things.

I felt affection for all the little guys down in the trenches, carrying cubes of sugar and scraps of food onto the hill. I admired their industriousness, their willingness to give up their individuality for the good of the colony.

I admired the middle-size people who helped organize the chaos of the enterprise, their eagerness to do the job themselves, and on occasion, take the weight of their bosses on their backs and carry them.

I shook my head at the fellows just below me on the food chain. What a crazy bunch of bedbugs they were! Except for a few of them, who seemed to be gnawing away at their own infrastructure, they were a talented, ambitious bunch. I liked the way they pushed the big pieces around.

Suddenly, all that stuff seemed far away. Up here at 35,000 feet, a lot of details had gone missing, and a bigger picture emerged. I liked what I saw. I also enjoyed being so very comfortable, for above all, life as a really big bug is very comfortable indeed.

I peered out the window, to the street  far below. I noticed a large fellow about my size, with a huge shell and feelers as long as my arm. He was standing at a street corner, soaking in the morning sun. Then, in one giant, convulsive movement, he cracked wide open. His shell fell to the ground. And there stood a rather fit, good-looking middle-age man who'd kept quite a bit of his hair, wearing comfortable slacks and an open-collar shirt. He stretched and yawned, tossed his briefcase into a nearby trash can, and strode off into the newly minted day.

Final transforming moment: Who knows? But I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Marc Salem's Mind Games: Fast-Track Your Promotion

Sure, you're ambitious and talented. But unless you're seen as trustworthy, too, you'll remain a wage slave forever. Here's how to earn your boss's trust, fast

Be Like Him 

We inherently trust people who are like us, so emphasize things you have in common. Maybe you both went to the University of Michigan. Or to another Big Ten school. Or to state schools. Or to schools with annoying fight songs. Even tenuous connections build trust.

Like Him 

Imagine that a coworker comes into your office one day after a meeting and says, "I liked the passion you brought to your argument." When he leaves, you think, "Smart guy, good head on his shoulders," even though he didn't say he agreed with you and even hinted that you're a raving lunatic. That's the power of "like." Now, go like everything your boss does.

Shadow Him 

Your boss wears striped Brooks Brothers shirts 3 days a week? Mimic his look. He grabs a second cup of coffee at 10 a.m. every day? Cross paths with him often, java in hand. He uses a Treo instead of a BlackBerry? Palm will be happy to sell you one, too. Tiny similarities like these will seep into his psyche, and he'll start seeing you as an extension of himself.

Protect Him 

It's not exactly bravebut it is importantto support your boss's ideas in public. But you can be sneaky with this one, too: Stomp a bug (real or imaginary) outside his office, or warn him about that crappy new restaurant in town. Guard his interests and he'll start championing yours.

Marc Salem is the author of The Six Keys to Unlock and Empower Your Mind (Rodale).

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
More From Trending News