Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / The Hidden Cost of Staying Put
Transcript
- Lucas: There is a specific kind of professional paralysis that sets in after three to five years in the same seat. It is not necessarily boredom, it is more like gravity. You know the systems, you have the relationships, and the risk of moving feels disproportionately high compared to the reward of staying put. Luna: Right, but isn't that stability actually a form of capital? You are building deep institutional knowledge that outsiders cannot replicate overnight. Lucas: It is capital, yes, but it is depreciating capital. The problem is that the market values transferable skills over deep niche knowledge once that niche stops being critical. I am looking at a case of a senior product manager at a large cloud computing provider who stayed in the same team for six years. She was indispensable to her group, but her skill set had become so specific to legacy workflows that she could not articulate a clear value proposition to external recruiters. Luna: So she became too expensive for her own good because her expertise was siloed? That sounds like a classic internal monopoly trap. Lucas: Exactly. And here is the kicker: she did not leave because she was unhappy. She left because she was forced to by a reorganization that eliminated her specific role. When she went out, she realized her network was entirely internal. She had no external anchors, no visibility beyond her immediate org chart, and her resume looked like a series of incremental updates rather than a trajectory of growth. Luna: That is terrifying. It suggests that staying loyal to a company can sometimes mean becoming invisible to the rest of the industry. Lucas: Precisely. We often talk about lateral moves as career insurance or networking plays, but we rarely discuss the inverse: the cost of inaction. When you do not move laterally or vertically for an extended period, your external network atrophies. You stop attending conferences, you stop talking to peers at other firms, and your understanding of market rates becomes stale. Luna: I remember reading data that suggested people who change jobs every two to three years see higher salary growth than those who stay for five-plus years. Is that still holding true? Lucas: It is, particularly in technology and finance. The compounding effect of jumping between companies is significantly higher than internal raises, which are typically capped at three to five percent annually. But it is not just about money. It is about optionality. Every time you stay, you reduce your optionality. You are betting that your current company will continue to innovate and that your specific role will remain relevant. Luna: But isn't there a risk that jumping around too much makes you look flighty or unstable to future employers? Lucas: That is a valid concern, which is why I prefer the term strategic mobility over job hopping. There is a difference between moving every eighteen months for no reason and making calculated lateral moves to acquire new skills or expand your network. The key is intentionality. You need a reason for every move that adds a new dimension to your profile. Luna: So how do you define that dimension? Is it technical skills, leadership experience, or something else? Lucas: It is usually a combination. Let us look at another example. A software engineer at a fintech startup moved from the backend team to the platform team, then to the security team over four years. Each move was lateral in title but vertical in responsibility. He built a T-shaped skill set where he had depth in security but breadth across the entire stack. That made him incredibly valuable during a subsequent acquisition. Luna: That makes sense. He was building a portfolio of skills rather than just tenure. Tenure is linear, but a portfolio is multiplicative. Lucas: Exactly. And that is what happens when you stay too long. Your value proposition becomes linear. You are just doing the same job with more years added. In a fast-moving market, that is a losing strategy. We are seeing this especially in roles that were once considered stable, like operations or HR. These functions are being automated or centralized, so deep expertise in a single department is less valuable than cross-functional agility. Luna: It seems like the definition of loyalty has changed. It used to mean staying with one company until retirement. Now it might mean adding value wherever you go. Lucas: I think so. Loyalty to a mission or a team is different from loyalty to an institution. If you are passionate about solving a specific problem, you might find yourself moving between companies that all work on that problem. That is a form of lateral mobility that keeps your purpose intact while refreshing your environment. Luna: Do you think younger professionals understand this better than older ones? Or is it a generational thing? Lucas: I think it is more about timing. People who entered the workforce during the pandemic era have seen their first real structural shifts. They know that stability is an illusion. Older professionals who joined during the dot-com boom or the post-2008 recovery might have a harder time unlearning the idea that tenure equals security. They have a lot of sunk cost in their current roles. Luna: Sunk cost is a powerful inhibitor. It is hard to walk away from five years of progress just because the trajectory has flattened. Lucas: It is. And that is why I recommend a simple audit. Every eighteen months, ask yourself: if I were to leave today, would I be able to get a comparable or better role elsewhere? If the answer is no, you need to make a move to regain optionality. It does not have to be a big jump. It can be a small lateral shift to a adjacent team that exposes you to new tools or methodologies. Luna: That is a practical way to frame it. It turns a scary decision into a routine check-in. Like checking your investment portfolio. Lucas: Yes, exactly. You rebalance your career. You don't hold onto a losing stock just because you bought it cheap. You sell it and buy something with better growth potential. In this case, the stock is your own skill set. Luna: I love that analogy. It removes the emotion and makes it purely strategic. What about the fear of failing in a new role? Isn't that a barrier for many people? Lucas: Fear of failure is natural, but consider the cost of failure versus the cost of stagnation. If you fail in a new role, you learn something valuable about what doesn't work for you. If you stay in a role where you are stagnating, you lose years of your life without gaining anything. The regret of inaction is usually worse than the regret of a misstep. Luna: That is a strong point. Regret minimization is a great framework for these decisions. Lucas: It is. So, before we dive deeper into the mechanics of planning these moves, I want to take a quick moment to acknowledge how this show operates. We deliberately choose not to run ads on these episodes because we believe the content should stand on its own merit without interruption. If you want to support that choice and help keep the network independent, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it really helps us keep the focus on quality research and thoughtful analysis rather than chasing clicks for ad revenue. Lucas: Thank you for that. Now, back to the mechanics. How do you identify those adjacent teams or opportunities within your current organization? Because most people do not have the luxury of leaving immediately. Luna: Right, so let's assume someone is stuck in a role they want to escape, but they can't quit tomorrow. Where do they start? Lucas: Start with internal information flow. Attend meetings outside your department. Volunteer for cross-functional projects. The goal is to build visibility. You need people in other teams to know who you are and what you are capable of. This is how internal referrals happen. Most lateral moves are filled through informal networks, not job postings. Luna: So you are essentially treating your internal network like an external job search. You are networking internally. Lucas: Exactly. And you need to document your achievements in a way that is understandable to outsiders. If you only speak the language of your current team, no one else will understand your value. Write case studies, quantify your impact, and translate your jargon into business outcomes. Luna: That translation step is crucial. It bridges the gap between what you do and what the business needs. Lucas: It is. And finally, don't forget to update your LinkedIn profile regularly. Even if you are not actively looking, having an up-to-date profile signals that you are engaged and active in the market. It also keeps your options open if an unexpected opportunity arises. Luna: So, staying put is not just risky financially, it is risky professionally. It creates a blind spot that can catch you off guard. Lucas: It does. And the best defense is proactive mobility. Whether that means moving to a new team, a new company, or even a new industry, you need to keep your skills sharp and your network broad. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Luna: That is a powerful closing thought. Growth requires discomfort, and staying in the same seat for too long inevitably leads to comfort. Lucas: So, the question for next time is not whether you should move, but when. And how to make sure that when you do move, you are moving toward something, not just away from something.