1 Weighing up the pros and cons of a promotion
If you’re thinking about a promotion, you’re no doubt a motivated person who wants to play a bigger role in your current company or organisation. In this book, we will discuss ways to reach your goal and make the most of all your potential.
Let’s take a step back for a moment. In principle, promotion is a very attractive proposition. It shows that others value your talent and skills and that they want to keep you within the business or organisation. Also enticing are the more tangible benefits of a move up the career ladder: very often a salary increase, a souped-up job title, improved benefits, and so on.
There are lots of positive sides to a promotion, a confidence boost the least among them. Your life may change quite dramatically though, so do take some time to make sure that you’ve thought about the ‘bigger picture’ before you launch your campaign.
Step one: Think about your motives
There are many positive reasons to think about promotion. If you’re keen to progress in your current field or with your current employer, then clearly it’s something that will cross your mind regularly. Promotion means taking on new responsibilities, tackling new challenges, learning new skills, and making a bigger contribution to the organisation as a whole, all of which can be tremendously exciting and a reward for a job well done.
Being promoted can mean, though, that you spend less time doing the job that you’ve proved your strengths in. For example, let’s say you’re a graphic designer. You love the creativity that your job affords you and enjoy spending time getting things just right. If you’re promoted and become a design manager, your focus may change so that your priority becomes supervising other people’s work and you don’t get to do much design yourself any more. How would you feel about that? Honestly? If you accept it, fine; but, if you know now that it’s not something you’d feel happy about, you’re not ready for a move just yet.
Step two: Think about how your working life may change
As mentioned above, hopefully your bank balance will feel the benefit of a promotion, if nothing else! However, it is likely that there’ll be more pressure on you in certain areas, and you may also face some situations that you might find tricky on a personal level. For example, you may have to deal with:
extra work
extra stress
longer hours
less time doing what you love/ what you’re good at
people management responsibilities for the first time
more complicated internal politics
being your friend’s or partner’s boss
working with powerful people . . . and their egos
TOP TIP
If you have family commitments—whether they be young children or caring responsibilities for older members of your family—do talk to your partner about how he or she may feel about taking on more themselves. If you are the sole carer at home, it’s likely you’ll need extra help from other sources to keep all your bases covered. Ask friends if they could recommend childminders or other carers who could help: it’s always best to find someone via a personal recommendation.
If you’re not that confident about your own abilities, you may also find that any feelings of insecurity you have are magnified. On a brighter side, though, you might be excited by the idea of:
more money
more status
satisfying your ambition
gaining credibility with your peers
proving others wrong
a real sense of achievement
TOP TIP
Try not to go for a promotion solely for the money. It’s always great to have a pay-rise— that goes without saying—but sometimes a wonderful salary can’t compensate you for some aspects of a job that you may really not enjoy. Think about what a promotion will do for you in terms of your overall career and don’t be forced into applying for something if you just don’t want to do it.
Step three: Be ready to put the work in
If you’ve decided that you want to go for it, the next chapter will help you make yourself promotable. Do realise that you’ll need to put some work in: some people are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when a great new job comes along but sadly we can’t all rely on having that option, so you’ll need to make sure that:
you’re cutting the mustard in your existing job
you look and sound the part
you’re building positive relationships with the right people
you’re ready for the challenge
Long-term promotion campaigns: The 3–1–6–1 plan
If there’s no promotion opportunity on the horizon but you know that it’s something you want to work towards in the long-term, coming up with a plan—and sticking to it!—is a very effective way of reaching your goals.
To get started, ask yourself what you’d like your life to be like in three years’ time and write down what comes to mind in as much detail as you can. Write in the present tense, as if it has already happened. Next, repeat this for one year’s time, six months’ time and one month’s time. This ‘3–1–6–1’ plan will help motivate you for the future, as it breaks down the bigger picture of your life into an actionable plan that you can start on right now.
A ‘reality check’ will help you recognise the right opportunity when it arises, so spend some time on this when you’re job-hunting. Divide a page into four quarters, headed:
Role
Organisation
Package
Boss
Now ask yourself what you want from your next career move. Think about the ‘ingredients’ that make up your ideal role, putting these into the quadrants on your page. Once your criteria are mapped out in this way, you’ll have a visual aid that will help you to weigh up the opportunities that come your way. When you’re invited to an interview for a new job, you can use the sheet to come up with strong, targeted questions about the potential role and the organisation.
Good luck!
Common mistakes
You want promotion at all costs
Being recognised professionally is a big achievement and one that can give you a real confidence boost. Do bear in mind, though, that a more senior job can affect your day-to-day life in more ways than one: you may be working longer hours, so it’s likely you’ll have less time at home than you did before and this may cause friction if you have family commitments. Also, you may find that some of your work friendships change: being the boss is quite a different proposition from being one of the team, however hard you try. Be prepared for changes in all areas of your life.
You don’t do anything
If promotion is a long-term goal for you, a plan can be a huge help, as it works by provoking specific and related actions which together create the desired effect. There’s absolutely no point, however, in writing a plan, carrying out the first action, and then leaving it to gather dust. You have to be ready to keep plugging away at your to-do list in order to get a good result. You may get downhearted at times but try to keep setbacks in perspective and to keep your goal in sight.
STEPS TO SUCCESS
Winning a promotion is a great achievement and a fitting reward for a job well done. Promotion can, though, affect more areas of your life than just your work; so do make sure you’ve thought about the bigger picture before you decide to go for it.
Make sure you want to be promoted for the right reasons. A bigger salary is wonderful, of course, but it might not compensate you enough for working for the boss from hell or giving up all your weekends.
Think about how a possible promotion might affect those you are close to. For example, if you have children or other caring responsibilities, you may need to ask others to help you out more or you may even need to rethink your current arrangements completely. The last thing you want is to come home from a new, potentially more stressful job to find more strife at home, so talk to your partner or family members about your plans first.
Be ready to change your ‘persona’ at work. It’s hard to go from being one of the team to being the boss, but that is something you’ll have to get used to as you work in more senior positions.
Be prepared to put in extra work to make yourself an excellent promotion candidate. Turn to the next chapter for more help.
If promotion is something you’re working towards long-term, put together your own 3–1–6–1 plan. It’s a very useful way of breaking down the bigger picture of your life into small action plans you can start working on now.
If you do put together a plan, stick to it!