5 Tips to Avoid Pitfalls on Your Climb up the Ladder

Are you driven, ambitions and well underway to earn your stripes in banking or PE? Are you prepared to work your socks off in order to climb to the top ASAP? You cannot wait to "grow up" fast enough? Do you believe that once you "made it" you can have a life?

I don't mean to put you off but reality bites sometimes. IT IS A SWEET DREAM. In the real world once you reached your peak there is only one way: DOWN. Even worse: After all these years climbing up the ladder you might look down and realize that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall?

Here are 5 thoughts to help you avoiding pitfalls on your climb up:

• Get behind the power curve and get fried: The pilots know this. Once you start to slow down, you need to add lots of power just to maintain the current altitude. Naturally, the higher you are at this point, the more dangerous it is. The professional athletes know it, celebrities know it and investment bankers know it.
• It is lonely at the top: Everyone will tell you that the higher you get, the thinner is the air (and not necessarily fresher). This doesn't mean it is not crowded. Most likely you will be squeezed between the old guard and new talent in a sandwich.
• The ugly truth: So, you have risen up the ranks? Unfortunately, the success can also make you unemployable (too expansive, difficult to place, too specialized). Even Managing Directors are just employees. There are fewer high ranking roles and the trend points south-east. It doesn't have to take an earthquake to land a high-flyer in the surplus pile and it is sticky stuff.
• The Peter's Principle: Spelled out it decrees that everyone is promoted until the maximal level of incompetence is reached. This means that if this is true one is doomed to spend the peak of one's career doing something one doesn't do well and/or doesn't enjoy doing.
• The three envelopes: In the old joke the outgoing manager gives to his successor 3 envelopes with the instruction to open them when things get tough. The first envelope contains a note "blame someone", the second "change everything" and the last "prepare three envelopes". The management and strategy tend to change every 2-3 years. Sooner or later everyone is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The keyword here is sustainability. Make a few useful detours, diversify your skills, invest in the network outside of your firm or even industry and try not to get promoted into a cul-de-sac (unless, of course you can afford to retire here and now). Erm, and be nice to your MD tomorrow. Her life is also a beach…

What do you plan to do to make your career last, enjoy what you are doing and remain employable in any market?