Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / How an Internal Transfer Can Help You Avoid a Skill Plateau
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this moment that creeps up on you around year three or four in the same role, and it's not a bad performance review or a toxic boss — it's something quieter. You realise you haven't learned anything genuinely new in about six months. Luna: Right, the skill plateau. I think a lot of people mistake that comfort for mastery, but the two are very different. Lucas: Exactly. Mastery means you're still pushing the edge of your competence. Plateau means you're coasting on routines. And one of the best ways to disrupt that plateau — without leaving your company — is an internal transfer. Let's talk about why that works and how to time it. Luna: I love this angle because it's not about escaping a bad situation. It's about proactively managing your own learning curve. Lucas: Right. So let me give you a concrete example. I spoke with a marketing manager at a mid-sized software company — we'll call her Priya — who had been in her role for almost four years. She was good at it. Campaign performance was solid, her team liked her, her boss gave her strong reviews. But she told me she felt like she was 'running the same playbook' every quarter. Same tools, same stakeholders, same metrics. Luna: And that's the classic plateau signal. You're not failing, but you're not growing either. Lucas: Exactly. So she started looking around internally and found an opening in the product analytics team. Not a step up — it was lateral, same level, similar pay. But the skill set was completely different. She'd be working with SQL, A/B testing frameworks, product metrics — things she had zero experience in. She told me the first three months were humbling. She felt like a beginner again. Luna: That's uncomfortable, but it's also exactly the point. Growth is uncomfortable. Lucas: Yeah. And within about six months, she said her learning velocity — the rate at which she was picking up new competencies — was higher than it had been since her first year out of college. She was engaged, curious, showing up early. Her new manager told me she brought a marketing perspective the team had been missing. The company won because they retained someone who already knew the culture and the product. Luna: So it's a retention win for the organisation and a growth win for the employee. That's the ideal internal transfer scenario. Lucas: It really is. And there's data to back this up. LinkedIn's 2025 Workforce Report — I looked at this recently — found that employees who made an internal transfer within the previous 24 months reported 34 percent higher skill acquisition than those who stayed in the same role. That's a huge gap. Luna: Thirty-four percent. And I bet that number compounds. If you're learning faster, you're also more adaptable and more valuable over time. Lucas: Absolutely. So the question becomes: how do you know you're on a plateau before it becomes obvious to everyone else? One thing I'd suggest is doing an audit of your last six months of work. Ask yourself: what genuinely new tools, frameworks, or problem types have I encountered? If you can count them on one hand, you're probably plateauing. Luna: That's a good litmus test. And I'd add: look at your calendar. Are you having the same meetings with the same people discussing the same topics? That's another red flag. Lucas: Great point. And once you spot the plateau, you need to act before your manager spots it too — because once they see you as stagnating, it's harder to frame a transfer as a proactive growth move. Better to initiate that conversation when your performance is still strong. Luna: How do you frame it? I imagine saying 'I'm bored' doesn't go over well. Lucas: No, it does not. You want to frame it as a retention strategy. You say something like: 'I love this company and I want to keep contributing at a high level for the long term. To do that, I need to stretch into new areas. I've identified a role in X department where I think I can bring my current strengths while developing new ones. I'd like your support to explore that.' It's harder for a manager to argue with that. Luna: That's smart. You're making it about the company's interest in keeping you engaged, not about your dissatisfaction. Lucas: Exactly. And ideally, you've already built a case that you're a top performer in your current role. That gives you leverage. Managers are more likely to support a transfer for someone who's been delivering, because they want to retain that person somewhere in the organisation. Luna: There's also the question of timing. When do you know it's too early versus too late? Lucas: That's a great question. Too early would be under two years in a role — you probably haven't mastered the fundamentals yet, and you risk looking like you can't commit. Too late is when you've mentally checked out and your performance has started slipping. The sweet spot is around year three, when you've delivered on a few cycles and you've proven you can do the job well. That's when you have the most credibility to make a move. Luna: And Priya — how did her manager react when she brought it up? Lucas: Honestly, at first her manager was a bit taken aback. But because Priya had a strong track record and framed it as wanting to grow within the company, her manager eventually got on board. She even helped connect Priya with the product analytics director. That's the ideal outcome — your current manager becomes an advocate, not an obstacle. Luna: That's really the dream scenario. And it shows that internal transfers aren't just about the new role — they're about managing relationships and perceptions along the way. Lucas: For sure. And I think the bigger lesson here is that skill plateaus are natural. They're not a sign that you're failing. But they are a sign that it's time to change something. And an internal transfer is a high-leverage way to do that because you keep your tenure, your network, your benefits, and your institutional knowledge. Luna: You also avoid the risk of a bad cultural fit at a new company. You know what you're walking into. Lucas: Exactly. And you know the people. The learning curve is only about the work itself, not about figuring out how the organisation operates. That's a huge advantage. Luna: If we've helped you think through a career move or a decision like this, and you've gotten value from the show, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. You can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It makes a real difference in keeping the podcast ad-free and focused on practical advice like this. Lucas: Yeah, we really appreciate that. It allows us to keep digging into these topics without worrying about sponsors. So thank you to anyone who's contributed. Now, back to the plateau question — let's talk about what happens if you're in a company that doesn't have a formal internal transfer process. Luna: That's a common challenge. A lot of companies say they encourage internal mobility, but there's no clear path. Lucas: Right. In that case, you have to create your own path. Start by networking inside the company — have informational conversations with people in departments you're curious about. Make it clear you're not looking to leave, but you're interested in learning about their work. Over time, you'll build relationships that can lead to opportunities. And if there's no formal job posting, you might be able to create a role by proposing a project that sits at the intersection of your current skills and a new area. Luna: That's a higher degree of difficulty, but it can work. I've seen people essentially invent roles by solving a problem that two departments share. Lucas: Exactly. And if you succeed, you've not only avoided a plateau — you've also made yourself more visible and more indispensable. The risk of staying in a plateau is real, but so is the opportunity to move. Luna: So the takeaway for listeners: audit your learning. If you're coasting, start exploring internally. And frame it as a growth opportunity, not an escape. Lucas: And if you're not sure where to start, pick one department that's doing work you find intriguing, and ask someone out for coffee. No agenda, just curiosity. That's how most internal transfers begin. Luna: I like that. A low-stakes first step that can lead to a big change. Lucas: Yeah. And that's the thing about plateaus — they feel permanent when you're in them, but they're actually just a signal. The question is whether you respond to the signal or ignore it.