Michaela runs this as a structured exercise. “What are the three roles that you think you’re going to need, the roles directly before that future role?” she asks. “What are the next three roles that you think you could do from where you are today?.. Should we connect the dots and see which of these next moves would lead to the future?”

Step 3: Anchor the Skills to Today, and Revisit It Every Year

For every connection in the map, identify the specific skills and competencies the person needs to move from one role to the next. Then bring it back to their current job. Ask what tasks, projects or assignments in their existing role would help build those skills now.

“Let’s now focus on all those skill sets… you need for your next assignment… Let’s talk about which one of those competencies we can start developing in your current role,” Michaela said. This turns a long-range vision into something actionable this quarter, rather than an aspiration for someday, and it gives the employee something concrete to bring to their manager instead of a vague request for more responsibility.

The map isn’t fixed once it’s drawn. “Keep this little one-pager in your planner or wherever it is you want to keep it… Take it out once a year, look at it and say, is it still true? Because you can shift that future every time you learn something, and as you shift the future, you’re shifting the one before. You’re not ever locked in,” she said. The annual look is the formal check-in, but a quick, informal chat between those reviews keeps the map alive instead of gathering dust in a drawer.

The Evidence

Once someone has completed their one-page career map, showing their destination role, the path there and the skills to build now, the conversations around them change. Instead of vague requests for more responsibility, employees can name the specific assignment, project or skill they need next, and why. Michaela has found that this consistently improves the manager relationship, too. “It will put you in the driver’s seat, and it will help you control your dialogue and your development,” she said, “and it will bring the best out in your manager to be able to do that for you.” Employees using this approach have asked her directly, “can you champion for me to be on another project that’s outside of my remit, that’s within the company, that gets me exposure to other people, but develops this skill?”

The broader effect goes beyond any single employee. Michaela has built this approach across several organisations over her career and describes the outcome plainly. “You become more rounded, and you actually become more valuable to the organisation,” she said, adding that in a fast-changing industry, “being as well-rounded and as broad in your skill set… is really, I think, very critical to having long-term success.” Done well, this looks like an employee who checks in on their own progress rather than waiting to be asked, because they already know what they’re working towards.

Your Next Move

Michaela wants to help people, in her words, “break their own personal glass ceilings and achieve what they want to achieve.” If your career development conversations keep circling back to “what’s next”, try changing the question you start with. Ask yourself:

•       Do your best people have a destination beyond the next promotion? If you asked them where they see themselves in ten years, could they answer, or would they only name the next job title up?
•       Have you mapped the roles in both directions? Can you and your report identify the moves from today to that destination, or does the plan fall down at a single step?
•       Is the plan tied to this year’s work? Can your report point to a specific project or assignment this quarter that builds a skill on their map?
•       Do you revisit it? Has the plan been reviewed in the last 12 months, or is it gathering dust in a drawer?

What if they don’t have an answer yet?

That’s normal, not a red flag. If fifteen years feels too abstract, anchor the conversation in the kind of work, environment or impact they want, rather than a job title, the same flexibility Michaela builds into her own version of the exercise.