5 Critical Questions if You Want a Promotion
Marion* is a high-performing Marketing Communication manager in a large software company, and in the course of the past 6 years she has been organizing and leading several successful campaigns that brought in thousands of new leads. In her passion for her work she also identified some critical spots where the company was losing money, and even if that was not part of her job description, she became active and helped recover over 1 million Euro in one year. She hired me because in spite of all her work she wasn’t getting promoted, which undermined her self-confidence and made her feel very frustrated.
Promotions are not a reward
Like many of us, Marion had always believed that if she did a good job, she would be rewarded. Even if this may be true, one thing needs to be clear: No one gets promoted as a reward for what they have done.
There is only one way to get promoted: You need a sponsor, meaning that you need an influencial person who believes that in your new position you will be able to add value to their organization by meeting their specific requirements.
Does this sound harsh? Possibly. Yet, that’s how we make decisions on what we will buy. We don’t buy things simply because they are great, but because we expect them to give us a benefit that is important to us – for example food when we are hungry, a Mercedes-Benz car for our image, a massage for our relaxation.
Critical questions
The following questions can help you look at your promotion from a different perspective.
1. Does my company believe that I am perfect for my present position? If the answer is yes, why should they move you from your current position and thus lose someone who’s perfect there?
2. What does my organization really want? This means two things: 1) Does your organization really want all of the things you are doing? and 2) You need to invest some time researching what your organization really needs AND wants – from their perspective, not yours!
3. What exactly can I do to fulfill those needs, and thus add real value? This means comparing your organization’s real needs with what you can honestly provide.
4. Who could sponsor me, because s/he believes I would be able to fulfill those needs if I where in that position? If your boss doesn’t see any advantage for themselves in promoting you, s/he will not do anything to get you promoted. Then you need to find someone else who sees your potential and who has the power to sponsor you.
5. Considered all this, do I really see a chance for a promotion in this company? If not, how important is it to me to be promoted?
Moving forward
By answering these questions with honesty, Marion realized two important things: one was that the missing promotion had nothing to do with the quality of her work; the second one was that she had focused so much on her work forgetting whether that was really what she wanted. We developed an empowering strategy that resulted in a new position as Business Development Manager in a different company, to her great satisfaction.
*name changed to respect my client’s privacy
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