Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / Why Lateral Moves Feel Like Career Demotions
Transcript
- Lucas: We have this deeply ingrained cultural script about what a successful career looks like. It’s always up. You start as an associate, you become a manager, then a director, then VP. The title gets longer, the corner office gets bigger, and presumably, so does the bank account. But here’s the thing I’ve been noticing in my own network lately: some of the most resilient people I know are taking steps sideways. Luna: Yeah, sideways feels dangerous, right? Like you’re admitting you can’t go up, or worse, that you’re being pushed out. It has this stigma of being a plateau rather than a strategy. Lucas: Exactly. And if you look at the raw numbers, it makes intuitive sense. Why would you take a lateral move? Maybe the pay is the same, maybe it’s slightly lower to cover the learning curve, and you’re losing the seniority you just earned. So logically, it should be a bad deal. But let’s look at the five-year horizon instead of the five-month one. Luna: So you’re arguing that the short-term pain of a lateral move pays off in long-term compounding value? Lucas: Precisely. Let me give you a concrete example. Imagine two analysts, Sam and Alex. Both join the same firm in twenty twenty four. Sam stays in his lane, climbing the traditional ladder. He becomes a senior analyst, then a team lead. Alex, however, takes a lateral move to the product team after eighteen months. Same level, different function. By year three, Sam is still grinding on deep vertical expertise, but he’s hit a ceiling because he doesn’t speak the language of the people who build the product. Luna: And Alex is now speaking both languages. That cross-functional fluency is hard to find. Lucas: It is. And that’s where the money hides. When the company restructures next year, they don’t need more specialists who can only do one thing perfectly. They need generalists who can bridge gaps. Alex ends up leading the joint initiative between sales and product, a role that didn’t exist before. Sam, meanwhile, is competing for a manager spot against someone with broader experience. The lateral mover often accelerates faster once they have that context. Luna: But how do you convince HR or a hiring manager that taking a step back is actually a strategic play? Most people feel exposed when they ask for a lateral transfer. Lucas: That’s the negotiation challenge. You can’t say, I’m doing this to learn. You have to frame it as solving their problem. If you’re moving from finance to operations, you aren’t there to learn; you’re there to bring financial discipline to operational inefficiencies. You change the narrative from personal development to organizational value. Luna: Right, you’re selling the outcome, not the intent. That shifts the power dynamic completely. Lucas: It does. And I want to pause here for a second to talk about something that keeps this show running. If we've helped you think through a career move or decision, consider supporting us directly. Listener support is what keeps this podcast ad-free and allows us to dig into these nuanced topics without corporate influence. You can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Any amount helps keep the lights on. Luna: Thanks for keeping this space independent. It really lets us get into the weeds without worrying about sponsor constraints. Lucas: Back to the lateral move. One of the biggest traps people fall into is accepting a lateral move with a pay cut. Just because the title is the same doesn’t mean the compensation should drop. In fact, you should often negotiate for higher equity or performance bonuses to offset the risk of learning a new domain. Luna: That’s a key point. If you’re taking on the risk of being a novice again, you need upside protection. Base salary shouldn’t shrink. Lucas: Agreed. I’ve seen cases where people took ten percent less base salary for a lateral move, thinking it was the price of entry. Two years later, those same people were stuck in a lower compensation band while their peers who stayed vertical got annual raises that compounded. The lateral mover lost ground on pure cash flow. Luna: So the strategy is: protect the base, negotiate the upside, and accept the temporary skill deficit as an investment cost. Lucas: Exactly. And this brings up another interesting dynamic. How does your current manager react? Usually, they hate it. They trained you, they invested in you, and now you’re leaving their direct oversight. They might frame your lateral move as disloyal or uncommitted. Luna: Which puts you in a tough spot. You need to leave gracefully, but you also need to signal that you’re still committed to the company’s success, just in a different capacity. Lucas: You have to sell the retention angle. Tell them, I’m not leaving the company; I’m expanding its capabilities. By moving to the adjacent department, I’ll be able to advocate for your team’s needs from the inside. You’re creating an internal ally, not losing an employee. Luna: That’s a sophisticated way to handle it. It turns a potential conflict into a collaboration opportunity. Lucas: It is. And it works best when you’ve built enough trust beforehand. If you’re already known as high-performing, your lateral move looks like ambition. If you’re mediocre, it looks like escape. Context matters immensely. Luna: So reputation precedes the move. You can’t use lateral mobility as a rescue mission for poor performance. Lucas: Never. It’s a tool for high performers who want to accelerate, not for average performers trying to hide. The market rewards scarcity. Vertical specialists are becoming commoditized. AI and automation are handling more of the deep-dive work. What remains scarce is the ability to connect dots across silos. Luna: That’s a crucial distinction. AI eats the specialist routine. Humans eat the messy, cross-functional integration. Lucas: Exactly. So the lateral move isn’t just about career advice; it’s about future-proofing against technological disruption. If your job is purely vertical, you’re vulnerable. If your job is horizontal, integrating tech, people, and process, you’re safer. Luna: I love that framing. Future-proofing through breadth rather than depth. Lucas: Let’s talk about the resume impact then. How do you explain a series of lateral moves to an external recruiter five years down the line? Recruiters often see job-hopping as red flag behavior. Luna: Because they assume instability. Or lack of focus. They worry you’ll bounce around too much. Lucas: So you have to curate the narrative. Don’t list every single rotation. Group them into themes. Show that you moved from Marketing to Product to Strategy, and frame it as a deliberate journey toward holistic leadership. Use the summary section to define your unique value proposition: a leader who understands the full customer lifecycle. Luna: Thematic cohesion over chronological rigidity. That changes how a recruiter reads the timeline entirely. Lucas: Right. Instead of seeing a jagged line, they see a V-shape of expertise converging. You’re not jumping; you’re building a pyramid. Luna: And that pyramid becomes your moat. No one else has that specific combination of skills. Lucas: Which brings us back to the initial question: is it worth it? For the average employee, probably not. Stick to vertical growth if you’re happy and progressing. But for the ambitious operator who wants C-suite visibility, lateral moves are the secret shortcut. Luna: Because the C-suite requires breadth, not depth. You can’t run a global company if you only understand one function. Lucas: Spot on. Every CEO I know started as a specialist and ended as a generalist. The trick is getting there intentionally rather than accidentally. Are you planning any lateral moves, or are you focused on vertical ascent right now?