Never Give Anyone a Promotion (part 2)

Here is part one of this series.

So picture this: a supervisory position opens up in your organization and you post it internally. A bunch of your good employees apply for the promotion, you interview them all, and you pick the right candidate. You know you’re going to have to break the bad news to the unsuccessful candidates, but first you get to do the fun part: delivering the good news to the lucky person who’s getting the promotion.

This part’s a no-brainer, right? You just call her into your office, give her a big smile, offer a hearty handshake, and say, "congratulations, we’re giving you the promotion!" Then you give her a raise and a new title, go over a few details, and bingo, you’re done.

Wrong! Rewind the video my friend, because if that’s how you’ve been doing promotions you’ve been fumbling one of your greatest management opportunities.

In the previous post we looked at the goodies that come with promotions. Those are the things that make people want to be promoted. Now let’s look at the other things that come with a promotion, the things that determine whether the newly-promoted individual will succeed in her new position:

• Shifting Responsibilities. Succeeding in a higher-level position requires the candidate to clearly understand and accept the new responsibilities that come with the position. Just as important, she must commit to letting go of and delegating the responsibilities of the previous position.
• New Skills. You need to spell out the new skills the candidate will need to acquire in order to succeed in the new position. The candidate must acknowledge that she will need those skills and currently lacks them, and make a commitment to acquire them.
• Need for Growth. This is the time to candidly address any current deficiencies in performance or behavior that the candidate must remedy. Again, the candidate must acknowledge them and make a commitment to remedying them.
• Recognition of Strengths. Just as important as the need for new skills and for remedying deficiencies, you must review with the candidate all of her great strengths and fine characteristics, all of the wonderful things about her that earned her the promotion. Personally, I really enjoy this part of the promotion meeting, but many managers have a hard time doing this with sufficient detail and emotional sincerity to truly make it sink in for the candidate. However, it is vital that the candidate acknowledge her strengths and commit to continuing and developing all those wonderful things after the promotion. One of the most common reasons that previously successful employees fail after a promotion is that they change in negative ways, abandoning some of the behaviors that could have helped them succeed.
• Risk. No matter how successful the employee was in her previous position and no matter how confident you are that she'll do well in the new position, there is a genuine risk of failure. If you're running a selective organization, you must tell the candidate that in your position you absolutely cannot pretend that anyone is succeeding who is not -- even a person you like very much -- and what will happen if she doesn't succeed. Don’t let an employee just slide unthinkingly into the new position with all her attention focused on the raise and the cool new title. An honest assessment of risk is sobering and conveys to the candidate that deciding whether to accept the promotion is not a decision to be made lightly.
• Join the Leadership Team. Every one of your employees who has supervisory responsibility is part of your leadership team. (Hopefully, you’re actually treating all those folks as a true leadership team!) A frontline employee moving into management must be welcomed to the team and agree to genuinely join the team. This may require a shift in self-identity that is subtle but important.

Notice that each item on this list requires some kind of commitment from the employee. When promoting, your goal is to do everything you can to ensure the future success of the promotee, which in turn will contribute to your success and to the success of your organization. In order to maximize the likelihood of success you must gain the employee’s commitment to each of the above items. You do that by putting these items together with the goodies from yesterday’s post and offering them as a package deal. To say "yes" to the goodies, she also needs to say "yes" to all these commitments.

In the next post on this subject, we'll review the nuts and bolts of how you can successfully conduct the promotion offer process.

Here is part three of this series.

Comments

[Emily]

I was recently "given" a promotion and wish that my deficiencies, need for growth, and risk of failure had been discussed with me beforehand. I really did feel like I was getting a "gift" instead of taking on new responsibilities and a new role. Instead of being able to prepare myself before assuming my new position, I have had to play catch-up in readjusting my self-identity and committing myself to my new role. All these steps seem key when offering (not giving) someone a promotion and it would benefit many workplaces if they operated on such terms all the time.

[Napolean21]

I too was recently given a promotion. I would love for my employers to go over all these steps with me. While they did cover many of the steps above, the ones they missed are important. I'm not sure what I was doing right before that prompted them to promote me, and I am really unsure of what my responsibilities are. This puts me in a difficult position with the people I now lead, because I'm not sure what I am allowed to do to help them. I think I might have a meeting with my superiors and bring in this list to discuss with them. I will keep you updated! Thanks!

[Reagan]

Emily: You've eloquently described a very common situation, in which newly-promoted employees often feel unnecessarily "behind the curve" because they end up having to prepare themselves for the new position after they already have it!

Megan: You've given me a great idea for a new post: "never give your employees new responsibilities without clearly defining their new authority." And I guess it wouldn't hurt to define the new responsibilities clearly while you're at it!