Why the messy middle matters

For years companies have focused on the stages of an employee’s lifecycle. From cradle to grave (so to speak) the key moments shaping experiences, feelings of engagement, and decisions about whether to stay or go. Whilst this approach still has merit, in today’s always-on, intricately connected, and ever-changing world, it’s an employee’s experience of the ‘messy middle’ that really counts.

Even before covid work and careers were evolving. When I ventured into the working world almost 20 years ago, things operated in a structured and cyclical way. Goals and objectives were set and shared at the start of each year and roles and responsibilities remained broadly consistent. In the early days, I also had a good understanding of what I needed to do to progress my career. I could look upwards and steadily climb the ladder ahead of me. Looking back now, I can see that this perspective evolved quickly, as digital ways of working emerged, information became more freely available, and career paths got blurry. With technological advances came opportunities for companies to transform – to automate, scale, create new channels – and the established, structured, hierarchical organisation we were accustomed to began to shift.

This is when companies and careers got a lot messier.

Technology brought flexibility for people and businesses. More people made the bold decision to step out on their own and work independently, while others sought career changes, and companies frantically juggled the need to build teams and nurture new skills, whilst removing redundant parts. The game of snakes and ladders was making way for a giant game of Tetris.

Alongside significant changes to how we work, what people want, need, and expect from work has changed too. Once job security is in place, finding opportunities to enable autonomy, meaning and growth has emerged as the priority. In this era, the moments that matter are often buried in the day-to-day experiences organisational life throws. And, the clock starts ticking the moment an employee joins. LinkedIn research revealed an employee is 12% more likely to stay if they move internally within their 1st year, and 19% more likely to stay if they move internally within 2 years. How we move, explore, and grow within an organisation is possibly more important now than how we get in.

People have greater choice – where they work, when, who they work for, for how long – and whilst life and career stages play a role, more frequently it’s the navigation between an organisation’s objectives and an individual’s priorities that gel or create tension.

I have seen lots of people get swallowed up by the messy middle.

A poor experience can feel like a dead weight around their necks, ultimately becoming something they can’t shake without deciding to start afresh. Here are a few examples of the messy middle in action…

Holly had been working for her employer for almost two years...

She had established herself quickly within the team as a strong performer and team player, being seen as a safe pair of hands for more demanding projects and willing to help when workloads intensified. When an opportunity to lead a critical project came round, she felt well-positioned to take this on. This was a moment to work on a meaningful initiative with a broader group of colleagues and senior stakeholders, and she felt excited about what this might bring. However, to Holly’s surprise as well as many in the team, the project was given to someone else. An individual who hadn’t long been in the organisaton and whose behaviour had raised eyebrows – and not for good reasons. He led with a confrontational, credit-grabbing style, treading over others to get his way and take the glory. Yet, those more senior didn’t see this – and they rewarded him with this opportunity.

This moment stayed with Holly and later influenced her decision to move on to another organisation. What grated for Holly was the injustice – despite her untarnished track record and loyalty, she had been overlooked for someone she, and others, knew was a bad apple. She also didn't receive any constructive feedback or discussion on why she had been over-looked and what she could do differently. If this was what the company valued, then she needed to take her skills and career elsewhere.

On the flip side, a moment in Eric’s career helped him shape multiple chapters with his employer...

Eric joined his company as an intern. He supported with service delivery through interacting with customers, entering information into systems, and ensuring results were achieved in line with customer requirements. One day, he was asked to support the company’s biggest customer. This was high stakes – they spent serious amounts of money every year and had exacting standards.

Then, something went wrong. Eric realised there was conflicting information about the customer’s requirements in the system and that it was too late to make it right. Eric felt sick. This surely was the moment his internship came crashing down; there had to be no coming back from this. But, to his surprise and relief, his manager calmly said, “don’t worry, these things happen, and we’ve all been there”. She coached Eric through what they could do next to manage the customer, and together they put in place improvements to ways of working to try and prevent the problem from happening again.

Several years and roles on, Eric still remembers this moment. Rather than blame, he experienced understanding, support, and a collaborative approach to make things better. As a manager in the organisation now, these are the ingredients he tries to bring to life for his team in their key moments at work.

Stages and milestones matter and deserve our attention, but increasingly it’s the moments in between that shape feelings and actions:

Paying attention to these moments (e.g. what do we do when mistakes happen? (because they definitely will!); how do people access opportunities to grow?; what happens when individual lives change and they need some flex?; how do we, as a company, approach the inevitable continuous transformation?) and how leaders and managers choose to handle these critical scenarios can make or break an employee experience.

Aligning approaches around key principles could help companies build happier, healthier workplaces people want to work within.  

Establishing key principles to guide behaviours, such as - committing to transparency, open-posting and objectively assessing for all roles and opportunities, always offering constructive developmental feedback, making space for two-way conversations, valuing time together as much as outputs produced, providing mechanisms for discussing and learning through failures and challenges - can help us all positively shape the moments that matter.  

A messy middle requires guidance, understanding and experimentation, not hard and fast rules or static process and structure, to successfully balance both individual and organisational objectives in this never-ending game of Tetris.