Skip to main content

Strategizing your next promotion

In the last article, we went through the 5 high level concepts that are critical to developing a strategy.

Today, we’re going to discuss what those concepts mean in practical terms.

You’ve been working at the same job for a few years and you would like a promotion. There’s a position open that you are qualified for with a higher salary and greater responsibilities. What should you do?

If you only start working towards this promotion when you see the open position, you are already far behind. So let’s start a year earlier. You decide that you would like to advance in your career and you look at our 5 concepts.


Determination - What are you willing to do to prove yourself worthy of the next level?
  • Put in extra hours at work?
  • Take classes and study in the evening?
  • Volunteer for extra tasks?
  • Give presentations at conferences?
It is a good idea to pick a set of roles that you are going for instead of just one specific one, because that will raise your chances of getting chosen for one of them.

Remember there are always going to be multiple candidates for every position and you need to stand out. The more you are willing to do that will ensure that people think you’re the obvious choice, the better chance you have.

Timing
The best time to present yourself as a candidate for a new position is after a noteworthy success. People expect success to breed success. On the other hand, if your department or team has recently had some setbacks, even if they are not directly related to you, it would be wise to take a step back and wait for it to blow over.

Environment
The environment is the playing field and in order to play the game, you have to know the rules.
  • What are the qualifications for the positions you are interested in.
  • What experience and/or education do you need to qualify?
  • Who are the decision makers for these jobs?
  • Who among your colleagues do you see as competition?
  • Does your manager support your aspirations?
  • Are there additional tasks, workgroups or initiatives that you can volunteer for that will get you noticed by decision makers?
  • Are you working with the latest technologies and/or knowledgeable about where the market is heading?

Leadership/Direction
Let's say you got the promotion that you want. What would you do? Developing a vision is a great way of understanding what you have to offer the position. Share it with your manager and suggest that you work on it together.
  • Can you envision the position a couple years after you get the promotion?
  • What are you going to do to make it better?
  • Share credit with the people above you and also your peers and/or underlings.
When you collaborate and make sure that everyone is recognized, you are showing strong leadership.

Ask people for advice - more experienced people will love to tell you how they advanced in their careers. Less experienced people will be excited that you’re asking them and may have more knowledge/experience than you in specific areas.

Don’t cut other people down, there’s plenty of room on the totem pole and people will remember you. Always remember, respect must be earned.

Methodology
It is important that you actually have a plan to implement. The more you write down, the better understanding you will have of what needs to be done. Checklists are marked down after hard work. Make sure that your accomplishments are noticed, but without being a braggart. The plan should not be written in stone. As they say “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” Life is very dynamic and you need to be able to see a few steps ahead so that you can keep turning in the right direction.



Each situation or job promotion is going to have its own unique challenges. These steps should enable you to develop a strategy for any situation.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reward vs Risk

 When developing a strategy, there are 2 opposing concepts that must be balanced - Risk and Reward. There are two known philosophies to take into account when determining the methodologies: “The best offense is a good defense”.  “The best defense is a good offense” Understanding these 2 philosophies and when each is appropriate, is a key factor in determining a plan of action. Generally speaking, risk and reward are proportionate - the greater risk a person is willing to take (potential loss), the higher the potential for reward. For example, there are different bets you can make at a roulette wheel. If you have $1000 to gamble and pick a specific number to bet it on, you have the opportunity to win $35,000, whereas if you pick red/black you only have the opportunity of winning $1,000. In both cases, the odds are that you are going to lose, but the risk is much greater when choosing a specific number. When choosing an objective, you have to understand what you want to accompli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stop apologizing and just do it

 There’s a popular phrase, “presentation is everything”. If something is presented in the wrong way, it has a good chance of losing a good deal of appreciation. While most people understand this from a physical perspective - great food that is just piled on your plate is less appreciated than decent food that is carefully presented - this is also true when presenting something written or oral.   When somebody starts off talking by saying, “this probably isn’t going to work, but...” or, “I’m sure there are better ways of doing this…”, expectations drop. Why should they waste their valuable time on something that even the person presenting it doesn’t think is any good. So why do people do this? Nobody likes being wrong. There is a lot of posturing and expressions whose sole purpose is to allow people to save face.  People feel uncomfortable making a statement that they don’t feel confident that they can back up. It is easier to hide behind an excuse than to be proven w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Strategy in your daily life

So how do we use strategy in our everyday life? It should be used whenever you want to achieve something to which there is no obvious answer. While the shortest path between two points is a straight line, it is often not practical or possible to follow it. There are factors and ramifications involved in the different methods and stages of getting from Point A to Point B. Strategy is understanding what is involved, weighing the pros and cons and consciously deciding the best method for you. As a very basic, practical example: You are standing on the corner of a busy street (A) and need to get to the bus stop on the corner diagonal from you. The bus that you need is going to turn left at the corner to get to the bus stop. You need to cross 2 streets to get to that bus stop. Do you first cross From A to B or from A to C? Most people don’t think about it - whichever light turns green first is the road they are going to cross. It is the same distance to the bus stop no matter which ...
Post a Comment
Read more