Ditch the Dashboard: Career Growth That Actually Sticks

This transcript has been generated by AI and may contain slight discrepancies from the audio or video recording.

Anne: Welcome to All Things Work where we are recording at SHRM Talent 2026 (Talent 2026) with a special live audience in Dallas joining us today. Can we have a round of applause from our live audience? Thank you.

So we all know the feeling. You're working hard, you're putting in those hours, but something just still feels off, and you're not alone. For many professionals, all of us in here, it's not a lack of effort that's holding us back, it's a lack of clarity about where we're headed, why our work matters, and who's truly in our corner.

So it's easy to feel like you're just another cog in the machine, especially when every new solution at work seems to involve another app, another dashboard, another system we have to learn. It's a lot. But what if the real answer isn't about more technology to speed up the process?

Today, we're flipping the script on employee engagement and retention. Instead of focusing on what is missing, we will talk about how you can use simple, human-centered tools to chart your own path, and no new tech required. So joining us for this conversation today is Pete Schram, founder of Latitude Career Development and Mentorship Platform, and you have a new title, VP of Partnerships at Govini. That's amazing. So welcome, Pete, to All Things Work.

Pete: Thank you. Thanks, everybody, that's here today, and thanks for everybody that's gonna listen in the future. Excited to dive in.

Anne: Yeah, I'm really excited. This is really going to shift how we think about our growth here. So Pete, your organization, Latitude, helps people leaders engage and retain top talent, and integrates something called the Pathfinder Methodology. So can you kick things off by defining those core pieces of this methodology first? Let's start with that.

Pete: Yeah. So Pathfinder's Methodology, I'm a mechanical engineer, so I wanted to keep things super simple. Why don't we focus the book and the talk and the methodology inside the platform all around the same thing. So three different pieces that really answer the questions around, hey, who can I go to for help? Where can I progress, as my professional journey grows and continues to accelerate over time?

And a lot of times it's just, "Hey, go and solve this problem," but we don't oftentimes have the solution of the who, what, when, where, how and why. So rule of three. We're gonna start off with the ikigai, as you mentioned. That's where we're gonna try and find our purpose, and what is it that really guides us and what's on the inside.

Then we'll progress to the path, which is our career map. So we're gonna talk about the five dimensions of a career map. And then the third part is the people, the personal board of advisors. So if I allude or mention PBA, personal board of advisors, that's what it is. It's our purpose, it's our path, and the people.

Anne: I love it, 'cause you're kind of like the CEO of your own life. You gotta find that board of advisors to help you through it, so we'll get into that. I'm very excited about that part. So you emphasize that this conversation is not about needing more technology. In your experience, what are the most common misconceptions organizations have about using technology to drive employee engagement and retention?

Pete: Yeah, I mean, let's face it, it's tough. So I'm kind of curious, ask the audience here real quick, put your hand up. Are you using technology in your work today? Hand up. Yeah. That's a lot of people, yeah. I mean, we definitely do, yeah. And so if you keep those hands up, and if you put your hand up if it's not yet, do you wish you had other tech that could potentially help you? Or maybe your hand goes up a little bit higher. And for the listeners, hopefully you're raising your hand as you're hearing this afterwards.

So I think the biggest issue is people say, "I got this big problem," maybe it's a toxic workplace, maybe it's a manpower issue, we don't have enough talent. They say, "I'm just gonna buy some tech, and sprinkle on some tech, and my problems go away." Not so simple. And maybe some of you have faced that in the past, and it doesn't come down to a right technology. There's lots of fantastic tools out there, but more so an execution problem, and do we have accountability? Have we trained our people? Have we given them the resources and tools and learnings of how to be successful with that tech itself? So I think that's the first piece.

Then we can get into, everything's on HR's shoulders. Any of this, you know, people stuff, engagement stuff, it's just HR. No, anybody can help be part of the solution. All managers are HR managers in some regard. We interact, and hopefully are helping to grow, develop, and support people along the way. I also think budget. What we're gonna talk about here today, you can do with a pencil and paper. So no budget is no longer an excuse.

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Anne: So would love to dive into, we're gonna dive into Ikigai a little bit. So if many of you don't know this, like, I even got a book on Ikigai, and so that's how I knew about this years ago. My sister got it for me 'cause I was trying to figure out what is my own path as I was transitioning careers. She got me a book on Ikigai. Yeah. So can you break it down, like Ikigai, real quick for us, like kind of like the textbook definition?

Pete: So before we talk about Ikigai, I need to give a little disclaimer for anything that we're gonna cover up here. Yes. Right? This is Pete's perspective, and you might say, "Hey, some of this works for me and some of this doesn't." And when I studied abroad in Hong Kong, I used to run past this statue of Bruce Lee. Couple years later, I learned more about him. He has this quote that I absolutely love: "Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, and add what is uniquely your own." So as we're going through this blueprint or pathfinder's methodology today, absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

So Ikigai is Japanese for the meaning or purpose for meaning, and our overall purpose of what drives us. And it's important because if we don't understand ourselves first, then how in the world are we supposed to determine which potential paths could we go down and who could perhaps guide us? So as some folks were coming in earlier, I handed out a worksheet, and if you're listening or don't have this worksheet with you, it's a blank piece of paper. You can start off with an eight and a half by 11 and just... What do you call it whenever it's vertical? Is that hotdog style? Yeah. Vertical hotdog style, and we're just gonna make a line across the middle and a line down the top.

And so we're just gonna work with the top left quadrant right now, and that's where we're just gonna write Ikigai, and then below that, one, two, three, four.

Anne: Going back to our school days. Yeah.

Pete: Yeah. Well, writing it down, that's the way to do it. That's how to do it. Right? So number one, we're gonna talk about what am I good at? That's the first thing. And this could be skills. This could be things that people come to you asking for help. It could be things that you've been hired for. That gets into number four a little bit, but what am I good at? That's number one.

Number two is what do I enjoy doing? So something, a task perhaps, whenever the time flies. What does the world need? So this is some of the value creation, getting into the problem-solving as well. And what can I get paid for? So good at, enjoy doing, world needs, paid for.

And I like to put a little bit of a twist on most things, this one as well. What can I get paid for or rewarded for? And so we think about some of the rewards and how we might be able to do that with others. And we'll talk about this later, but ask some of these questions to yourself. But wouldn't it be cool to ask some of our employees and team members and our people at work these one, two, three, four?

Anne: 'Cause I feel like maybe people don't get asked that enough. Right? That's the whole point of today. So if someone feels disconnected or stuck in their current role, I think a lot of us have felt this way at some point, what's a simple first step they can take today to start reconnecting with their sense of purpose? Like you said, writing down, you know, what you're good at, but what else can they do?

Pete: So I think we need to do a little bit of a self-audit and figure out where we are. So I'd say try this for three to 10 weeks. Pick out two, three, four days each week and ask yourself these questions. And what, one, what's something that filled my cup today? Maybe there's one, two, three items.

Number two is what's something that brought me down or took energy away from me today? And then number three is what's something that where I was valued or I felt a sense of purpose? And so what we're gonna find out after we ask these questions, we're gonna see some themes that start to come up and come about.

So now we've put together our Ikigai, and the self-audit can be in the top right quadrant on the front of your worksheet, and we just go through that. So we're checking in with ourself 'cause we know what's going on best. And if we're expecting to be at the top of the mountain, but we don't know what that mountain is, and we don't know why we're not there, we're gonna learn a whole lot through this little bit of self-reflection.

Anne: And in that self-reflection, you know, when you're asking yourself these questions, should you be taking into consideration your personal life, too? You know, what's giving me purpose, what's filling my cup today? What's draining my cup? Because immediately my brain went to what's happening at work, not just what's happening in my personal life.

Pete: I think it's paramount to do that, and I don't think it's fair if we don't include what's going on outside of the office. Because work can impact home, and home can also impact work. One example, I used to work with a group of people, and would go in, great environment, great mindset, great mentality, and things transpired in the office, and you're leaving, you just feel beat down. And so the negativity in the workplace can translate home.

Same piece, if you're able to have rough... There's a, maybe we call it opportunity for improvement, right? Outside of the workplace, and we bring some of that baggage in with us. And so I think it's important to try and maybe have one or two bullets of the good, the bad, and the value at work, and one or two bullets for outside of work as well as we're going through this piece.

Anne: What are some of the most common things you might see on this self-reflection? Like, what have you been seeing?

Pete: That there's a lot of good that's actually transpiring. Another conversation recently, somebody's just been focusing on the bads, the tough, the downers, those opportunities as we like to call them, and so that's only question two. They weren't looking at number one or number three, and I learned about StrengthsFinders a couple of years ago. And the whole premise there is to build on the good.

I'm like, okay, that's pretty helpful. I'm very critical individual, self-critical, and there's opportunity to say, hey, let's look at the thumbs up, the thumbs downs along the way. And so that's where it really comes to light, hey, all is not lost, and there's so much that we can be appreciative of, grateful for, and the good things that are happening.

Anne: It's easy to focus on the negative. I think we can all fall into that habit sometime. Yeah. So have you ever seen, like, a real-life example where someone rediscovered their purpose and how it changed how... Like, you saw that shift in how they showed up to work?

Pete: So we may have experienced this ourselves. Maybe we've seen this with others that we worked with or worked for perhaps, and there begins to be a little bit of a disconnection. Right? Things don't usually just snap in an instance, but maybe they're a little bit shorter in some of the conversations. Maybe they're a little bit more distant. Maybe they don't spend as much time with us on certain activities. Maybe we're not spending as much time outside of work either.

And as we've looked into this more and more, it's mental health has become a big issue. Burnout. Has anybody in here been burnt out? Let's see some hands go up.

Anne: I could, I could put... Oh, I think every single person, almost every single person in the crowd.

Pete: I think it goes the healthcare professionals and then HR is pretty close after for being at risk. So I feel you, and we gotta be there for one another to get through this. And so how do we turn that corner and work to get out of it and back to good, whatever that good might be for us? You see some of those things that we're lacking come back.

You almost see people brighten up again. They're feeling better on the inside, we hope, but then they're able to connect better. They maybe are doing some of those stretch assignments. They're asking about their career. They're asking about ways they can help. They're asking about, "Hey, what else is out there?" Their curiosity has come back. They're maybe back into, you know, sponge mode. I always suggest that to people when they get into a new role. You're not trying to change things immediately, but you're seeking first to understand before we, you know, kind of bring out the wrecking ball, if you will.

Anne: I love, like, the be a sponge 'cause, like, you're absorbing what everybody's, you know, everybody's feedback, but you're not taking it negatively. You're just absorbing it and trying to understand it. So I love that you brought that up.

So let's focus on career maps. We mentioned that we were gonna go into this, so we're going into it. And how that can create clarity with our careers. So a lot of professionals worry about getting stuck in their position, wondering what is next, not knowing what is next. So how can career maps help individuals see more options for themselves even if their company doesn't have a clear path laid out for them?

Pete: It's important to lay this out appropriately 'cause a lot of people kind of say, well, most organizations I'd say have nothing. They don't even talk about this concept of a career map. Then we get into the ones that are gonna say, "Hey, we have career maps, but we just, it's in theory. We don't actually talk about it." And then there's organizations that have maybe what we call career blueprints and it says, "Hey, if you wanna get into product management, then you will do this and have a couple of skills."

So this is a document, we're gonna come to the bottom half of the front of our sheet of paper, and we're gonna, on the left side, we're just gonna write past, present, future. And you might say, "Pete, gosh, this sounds a lot like my resume or my LinkedIn." Well, maybe at first, and we can utilize that as we're getting started, but past, present, future. And then we're gonna break it up into five different columns going across the top as we're coming over.

So the first thing that we're gonna do is talk about our job, our position, our title. That's column one right there. So you're just gonna say, "Hey, what was the first job that I had? Position that I held?" The second, the third, the fourth, and then in present, that's where we're gonna get into what we're currently doing right now. And then future, we can get into that piece afterwards. And you might ask the question, "Hey, how far back should I go?" 18, 22 years old, just think about that approximate age of going into the formal workforce. Cool.

Then we get into column two, which is around our skills. So what were two or three skills that you used for each of those positions? It's kind of like a chronological from left to right coming across in a time phase where we're looking at what those were. And we'll go back and look at some of the potential future steps for the column one, the job and title and position. You might say, "Hey, I don't know exactly what I wanna do." That's where the personal board of advisors comes in.

And I also think to have multiple options. Most of us have probably been there in the past whenever we had our mind set on getting to be a director position, CHRO, COO, some kind of position that we're aspiring to get to, and if we don't get there, then we're distraught. We're broken down. We're beat down. So we're giving ourselves optionality, and we try and reduce single points of failure in business. Why don't we do a similar approach with our own professional journeys and this adventure?

We get into column three, which is our education and certifications. If you look back and think about some of the things you did accomplish at each of those stages going across, and then as you're looking forward, what are some things that you may want to have as you're progressing through those stages? Column four are the achievements and accomplishments. These are things that you're probably going to talk about in an interview, so again, just two or three items for each of those.

And then column five is fun and personal. And a lot of times talking with executives, working with people in the C-suite, they say, "You know what? I don't need this career map stuff. I've already figured everything out." I say, "Okay, well, do you wanna have fun? Do you have bucket list items?" Going back to your point, Anne, around the outside of work. And so if somebody, you know, you say, "Hey, that SHRM guy talked," heard this podcast, have those folks that say, "I don't have time for this," start in the bottom right of this career map and work on the fun, their bucket list. What do they want to achieve? And then they can work their way up and left from there.

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Anne: So you mentioned the board, your personal board of advisors. So what exactly does that board look like? Is it just people you work with? Tell us a little bit about that.

Pete: I think you know what I'm gonna say. It's uniquely your own, what you want it to be. And think of this as like a mosaic of mentors. Those different people whose insights, perspectives, and experiences that build each of us up into the professional that we are and will be in the future.

There's the buddy, which is the least formal board seat. You can come to the back of your worksheet and on the left-hand side, we'll kinda go through this. A lot of organizations have a buddy program that they may institute, and how long does that onboarding, orientation, integration, assimilation last? And most voluntary turnover takes place in the first 12 months. So what if that buddy program expanded to a full year as the integration continues? That board seat is the least formal. We're gonna go through draft one of our career map.

Then we get into board seat two. So this is our accountability partner. They're focused on column five, that fun and the personal side. They're there to help you beat burnout. Number three, we get into the functional mentor. So this is, most mentoring programs that we've heard of, this is kinda where that one would fall into. Ideally, our functional mentor has worked for our supervisor before, they've been in our role before. They may be three, five, 10 years ahead of us experience-wise, and they're good at this.

You know, so in vetting these individuals, the book, we talk about a 14-point checklist, but say, "Hey, what's worked? What hasn't whenever we've done these mentoring things in the past?" And so that's somebody that's been in your shoes before. Number four, we get into a cross-functional mentor. So if I'm an engineer, this person probably came from legal or is in the marketing or ops or some other kind of function, still a few years ahead of us.

And these mentors and different advisors that we have, kind of the macro level term, we get into the champion, which could be our split level, somebody that's at least at the level of our boss's boss. I think it's important for that one to be internal to the organization. We get in number six is our supervisor, the person signing our timecard. That one kinda sorta has to be inside the organization.

I'll just briefly touch on the others, the ally, the advocate, which is our super connector, our coach, our successor, and then you may have different board seats that are filled for other purposes of mind, body, and spirit.

Anne: So for the people who may feel a little more isolated in their work or maybe they're just, they're not that social, they're not the one to, like, really reach out, 'cause some people are a little more reserved in that way, you know, they don't even know who to reach out to in this. You know, what's a good first step to start building that conversation, start building that board of advisors?

Pete: I think go to a SHRM event, right? There you go, play big plug.

Anne: I did not tell him to say that, by the way.

Pete: Go to a networking event and just ask people about their journey, their professional journey. "Okay, hey, what do you do? How'd you get to where you are? Who's guided you along the way?" And then throw me under the bus at any point in time. Be like, "This Pete guy, this podcast, you know, this personal board and Pathfinders methodology." He says... He told me to do this. "Yeah, yeah, I gotta start building my board. Any ideas or thoughts? Here's kinda like my career map. Any thoughts on who could potentially guide me?"

So that's at a networking event, and that may come up, may progress. Ask your supervisor if you're at work. Ask your HR business partner and talk to them and say, "Hey, I listened to one of the SHRM podcasts, and I'd like to see what we're already doing around connection in the workplace, and what's possible here," and see what they have.

Also, you can do, some people, it's kind of a cool concept, they won't initially put real people on there, but they'll almost do like superheroes or like war heroes or past presidents, or you choose who you think that figure may be for you. And you could say... One, a funny one was, what would Chuck Norris do in this situation? But think, maybe it was a relative that, you know, was in your life before and isn't, and what, you know, kinda did they represent, or what may they have guided me to do?

So it can look a bunch of different ways, but I think to figure out first who am I looking for, how will I communicate what I'm trying to accomplish? And between networking events, between at work, between HR. Ask your friends. That's another way to, you know, outside of work as well. And I'll share, it takes time. A lot of people think many things will just be handed to them, and investing in your own journey, you've had a remarkable path yourself, it takes time to do these things, and it may be time outside of our 9:00 to 5:00 or those hours that we're getting paid for.

Anne: Yeah, you kinda gotta network like almost 24/7, even if it's with your friends, just asking, being curious, asking those questions. Yeah, so I love that. So with all these tools from this methodology, can you give us examples of where these tools and where these tools be embedded into existing processes within organizations?

Pete: So we'll go to, back to our worksheet, and kind of on the bottom quadrant over here. So the what and the where and the when to integrate. How many people ask during that onboarding and integration process of new employees to the organization, "What motivates you?" How do you like to be rewarded and appreciated? Who asks that question? Okay. There's a couple. Yeah. Because how often do we want to give kudos and praise, and we don't necess... I know I've actually done it the wrong way by not asking that question.

So I think it's an important thing to look at the Ikigai, the career map, the personal board of advisors during those first 12 months there. Many organizations have a mentoring program. What if you were able to add a little bit of structure and process? How about stay interviews, right? And ask some of these different pieces.

In the manager one-on-ones, there's another kind of easy process that we talk about. Start, stop, continue, shift. I ask you, boss, you ask me, "What should I stop doing, start doing, continue doing, shift the way that I'm doing it?" So now that I have looked at my career map and where I'm at and kind of where I wanna go, then I can more easily say, "Hey, here's how I've done." And planning on the other side, what does that look like? And what should it or could it look like? I'm here to help the organization. Please guide me in what good looks like as I'm going through this.

Anne: For the people who are looking for that promotion, that spot they want, like you'd said, some people do have a aim to be that director, to be in the C-suite level, how can they use their personal career maps and their personal board of advisors to figure out if they're even ready and what to do next to make sure they're ready?

Pete: Yeah, so this is where we put on our leadership hats and some young gun walks into the office and says, "I've been here for, you know, six months, and I wanna be the CEO by tomorrow." Now, we're able to say, "Hey," we had a nice CEO that actually filled out the career map, and we're able to say, "Well, check this out. Here's what it takes to be CEO, have these different experiences, this different tenure, these skills, achievements, accomplishments."

And maybe this individual that walked in has already done all those things. Unlikely, but we never wanna judge a book by its cover. And so it's a lot easier to say, "Hey, once you can share that you've been able to accomplish and proven expertise in these areas, then we can explore it. If you don't, then do you have the step before, step before, step before?"

So I think it's a way to kind of ease those conversations whenever people are talking about, "Hey, how can I grow and develop and flourish?" One of the biggest reasons that people leave a company, going back to 2010, is no map to professional growth.

Anne: And so this conversation's been so inspiring, and I know it, for members of our audience, you know, it's gonna feel inspiring. We're gonna think about it for today, and it can easily leave us almost tomorrow when we get caught up in our busy work or scheduling, and then we just almost forget about the inspiration, and I want us to hold onto this inspiration.

So what are some... What's a daily habit that you would love to see people get into that you've seen actually help people keep their careers moving forward, find that career map, find that growth in their career?

Pete: Well, I think figuring out what drives you, right? And figuring out what removes stress as well, and also those behaviors. It's gonna take us 21 to 66 days, but while we're here, while you're listening, while you're in the room, just put a recurring once-a-month calendar reminder into your phone and say, "Go listen to that podcast from Anne and Pete." And you can write ikigai and career map and personal board of advisors. That way it's gonna pop up, and you're gonna have that as an initial reminder.

Maybe bring it up with somebody else that you met this week and say, "Hey, can we catch up for a virtual coffee?" Or maybe a coffee in person. I hear those still exist sometimes. In two weeks, in four weeks, and just share our thoughts about this. But that's the first piece, and then also figuring out that part of how do I get back to good? We touched on it a little bit earlier, but what are those things? Is it getting out in nature? Is it getting together with other people? Is it doing a arts and craftsy kind of activity? Is it something else that will bring me back to good in those different phases of life?

Anne: All right. Well, Pete, thank you so much for bringing your insight, walking us through each step of your process. I really hope that our audience leaves and starts writing on that piece of paper for themselves. I know I am going back to my ikigai today. But thank you so much for your insight. It's just been wonderful to have you here.

Pete: Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody.

Anne: That's it for this week. We'll catch you next time. If you enjoyed our conversation today, be sure to subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts so you never miss a new episode. Also, did you know All Things Work is more than a podcast? That's right. We're also a weekly newsletter that includes in-depth articles and the latest research from SHRM to keep you in the know. Just head to SHRM.org/allthingswork to sign up, plus follow SHRM on social media to view the latest clips and join the conversation on game-changing topics that are redefining the world of work.