Good morning,

A few weeks ago we heard from Carter Cast about the three key skills you should look for in people you’re promoting into management jobs. Yet you likely know people in your organization who are rock stars at what they do and don’t have those managerial skills. Or maybe they simply don’t have any inclination to manage a team.

A common mistake among executives or senior managers, Cast says, is to “assume that if somebody is good as an individual contributor, they automatically should be promoted into management.”

So instead of making that mistake, what do you do with those folks? How do you keep them motivated and moving up the career ladder if management roles aren’t on the table? Today, we’ll get Cast’s thoughts on how to handle this scenario.

How to Motivate Employees Who Don’t Want to Be Managers

Many people assume that if you want to grow in your career—and grow your paycheck—you inevitably need to start managing others at some point. But Cast, a clinical professor of strategy and former CEO of Walmart.com, explains that this is not always the case in this episode of The Insightful Leader Podcast.

He advises that when an employee requests a promotion into management, you ask them why they want to manage. And then, without directly asking, figure out if it’s because they’re craving more status or more pay. Those aren’t the reasons you want to hear, Cast says. Instead, “is it because they really think they can make a difference managing a big group of people and they like interacting like that?” That’s the kind of answer you want.

If you get the sense that it’s just status or pay they’re after, and they’re a high performer whom you want to keep on your team, then you need to find another track for them.

Cast gives the example of a data scientist he worked with at Walmart.com. The guy was great at building models to spot trends. So the assumption was that he should be promoted to run a team of data scientists. But when Cast talked with him, it was clear that wasn’t what he was interested in.

So instead of making him a manager, the company gave him additional resources to build more complex models and do more of the work that interested him. And they paid him more for that. As Cast explains, they gave him “resources to be able to do more of what he does well, instead of making him a manager, which he didn’t really want to be. He wanted to be a creator.”

Cast calls this broadening of a role and of a person’s impact within an organization horizontal as opposed to vertical career movement.

“You hold examples of people that have successfully gotten ahead by going horizontally, broader instead of going up vertically, and show that there’s more than one way to skin the cat,” Cast says.

A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Reading List

Many organizations want to build a workplace that works for everyone. But simply wanting DEI efforts to succeed isn’t enough; companies must take a systematic approach to ensuring that they succeed. Insight compiled some of our favorite advice from Kellogg faculty about the biases that hold diversity efforts back, and how organizations can combat them.

For example, the list includes a powerful conversation between clinical professor Nicholas Pearce and Ginny Clarke, then-director of executive recruiting at Google, that occurred shortly after George Floyd’s murder. They discuss the limits of corporate diversity programs and what it takes to “show up” and be successful as a Black professional in America.

There are also articles advising on board diversity, DEI training and equitable hiring—all important areas of focus if organizations are going to become truly inclusive.