There's trouble at the top

Why do companies think ability and ambition go together? Not everyone wants to climb the career ladder, says URSULA KENNY

James Oliver was happy working as a sales assistant in a record shop. When he was promoted to senior sales assistant he was surprised but pleased to be asked. Then a few months later along came another surprise: would he like to be assistant manager at a major new store in London?

"I knew I didn't want to do it," he says. "I liked where I was. The money wasn't bad, I got discounts and the work was relatively stress- free." Still, it was made clear that saying no wasn't an option. "The company culture was `If you don't want to move up, why are you here?' When they made the offer it was more or less understood that I'd accept, so I did."

He hated it from day one. "I had to work with a completely new team so no one knew me as James - the guy who's all right. They just knew me as James - the guy who says we have to work Saturdays. I got reprimanded for being too casual with staff and informed that I had to `kick butt'. I also had to work much longer hours. Eventually I started coming in late and not doing the job properly. I just stopped caring because all I wanted was for it to stop." Which it did, because he left.

Similarly Indra Sinha had a job he loved and did very well at an advertising agency. "I was a copywriter and my work won awards. I enjoyed it, it was fun," he remembers. Soon success led to promotion. A series of promotions, actually. "Eventually I ended up as executive creative director of the whole agency," he says. "And instead of doing what I was good at and liked - writing ads - I suddenly had to climb into a suit and meet and negotiate with clients. I had to be involved in office politics. I had far less flexibility: before I'd worked from home when it suited me - no one cared where I was as long as I delivered. Now I had to come in to the office at 7.30am and be there all the time."

And he hated it. "I found it hideous and I'd wake up literally dreading going into the office." Things came to a head on his 45th birthday when he handed in his notice. "I had nothing to go to, but I knew I had to do it. I'd known all along this position wasn't right for me but somehow I'd doubted myself. I felt I ought to do it. I thought it would be a challenge."

One of the ironies of the traditional career path is that the higher you go, the further away you tend to be from using the skills that singled you out for promotion in the first place. People tend not to be allowed to find their own level and stick with it. As chartered psychologist Ben Williams says: "We have been taught to place ambition above ability."

Certainly saying no to a promotion flies in the face of conventional work wisdom. There has been tacit acceptance that climbing the work ladder to ever more powerful and well-paid positions is what work is all about. And we have judged each other ruthlessly by these terms. As Ben Williams says: "We have been encouraged by society to believe that first is everything and second is nothing." But less so now - more people are realising that they can reject traditional work values and survive. James is now happy doing temp work and Sindra has written a well-received novel called The Cybergypsies.

The knowledge that we might even flourish by doing things differently accounts for the current change of values towards work. Lessons are being learnt. According to occupational psychologist Professor Cary Cooper: "After the over-achieving Eighties there is increased recognition of a need for balance and more personal control over what we do with our time. We are not ashamed to say we want to see our families more, for example; we are re-prioritising at every level."

Andrew Egan, 40, is an IT project manager for a large retail chain and he recently felt able to turn down a promotion he didn't want. "It would have meant moving into an area I wasn't interested in, at the wrong time, and I said so." His bosses weren't pleased. "I was warned that I would now be viewed as someone who was not `progressive' and that turning the offer down was a potentially harmful move. The message was that I wouldn't necessarily be approached again."

He stuck to his guns, lost out on a company car, more money and more prestige. However much he is punished for this decision, Andrew feels there is no shame in knowing when to say no. "Members of my team come to me for advice when there is a possibility of promotion, and I say to them `If you don't want to do it, don't worry'. I believe you should be able to turn things down, provided you have good, positive reasons like `I enjoy what I'm doing'. Be flattered, say thank you very much and refuse for good reasons. Point out that the company will suffer if you are in the wrong job."

Jane Lea, a career management consultant at CPEC Consultants, agrees that open and effective communication is the way forward and there are enlightened organisations out there that realise you should be able to say no to a promotion and not suffer. "Employers who refuse to recognise this risk losing valued members of staff; people who are good at a job always have choices."

Out on the shop floor life isn't always so fair or clear-cut. Liz, 30, who works in public relations, feels she might now leave a company she loved because they pressurised her to move on before she was ready. "I had a high-level job that I loved. Then there was a crisis at the top and I was offered a management position. It was a position that I did want eventually, but it had come up much earlier than I imagined and I didn't really think I was ready."

Still it seemed she had no choice. "It was a really hard sell; the powers that be went out of their way to woo me and there was a not very veiled threat that it was `now or never'. I was also flattered and loyal - the company needed me. In the end I didn't want to let them down."

Now more than a year into her new managerial position, the things she misses about her old job still far outweigh the things she likes about her new position. "I don't like corporate managerial culture, and I'm no longer one of a gang. Also, on the shop floor, so to speak, I was the most senior person; now I'm just one of lower management. Of course the money is nice, but it's not just about that."

There are though, according to Jane Lea, more companies that are taking responsibility for this sort of error of judgement. "I have clients referred to me by their employers: big stars who no longer shine because they have lost confidence and feel failures in a new position. Their company is willing to accept that they made the mistake in recruitment, that the error is theirs."

Or face the consequences. Clare left her job in publishing to spend more time with her children and to work freelance. "I worked for a big publishing company and I was asked to apply for the editorship of a bigger magazine and I turned it down. I realised it was a Faustian pact: they would give me a ton of money and a benefits package in return for my life. I decided this was no longer what I wanted so I went out on my own, into consultancy."

Since then Clare has also been offered a directorship by another company - she turned that down too. "You can see people thinking `She's mad', because for a lot of people success at work still means having a title and signifying to others how important you are. Never mind that you're actually living a life of quiet desperation."