📖 Business
Biz - Career Narratives
Larson's approach to career development conversations: instead of starting with titles, levels, or promotion criteria, ask reports to write a career narrative — a 3-5 page document that tells the story of their career so far and where they want it to go. Not a resume (backward-looking list of accomplishments), not OKRs (short-term goals), but a narrative: "I started as X, I got excited about Y, I'm now doing Z, and I want to get to W." The narrative format reveals what motivates someone, what they believe their strengths are, and what kind of work they find meaningful — information that titles and levels completely obscure.
2
Minutes
2
Concepts
+45
XP
1
How It Works
What the career narrative contains:
- Origin story — How did you get into this field? What drew you in?
- Turning points — What experiences changed your trajectory or deepened your commitment?
- Current chapter — What are you doing now, and how do you feel about it?
- Future direction — Where do you want to go? Not a specific title, but a type of work, impact, or environment.
What the narrative reveals to the manager:
- Motivation patterns — Does this person light up talking about technical depth, team building, customer impact, or something else?
- Self-awareness gaps — Does their narrative match your observations of their strengths?
- Opportunity alignment — Can you connect their aspirations to available projects or roles?
The manager's job after reading the narrative:
- Connect the narrative to concrete opportunities: "You want to move toward architecture? Here's a project where you can practice system design."
- Fill gaps between self-perception and reality: "Your narrative emphasizes individual contribution, but your biggest impact has been mentoring — have you considered a leadership path?"
- Revisit the narrative quarterly — it should evolve as the person grows.
Why career conversations that start with titles fail: they're backward-looking (what do I need to check off?) rather than forward-looking (what kind of work do I want to do?). The narrative reframes career development from a ladder to a story.