
A portion of the Augustus Saint-Gaudens memorial to the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the history of which was depicted in the 1989 film Glory. Its commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, received all three types of promotions during his career. Photo courtesy U.S. National Gallery of Art. Visit the memorial itself in downtown Boston, across the street from the State House.
There are three types of promotions: promotion in place, promotion in line, and the diagonal jump. A promotion in place is a change in grade with little change of responsibility; a promotion in line is a change in grade with substantially changed and increased responsibility, usually to the next supervisory level; and a diagonal jump is a change in grade combined with a move to a different organization. In this article, I'll focus on the promotion in place; I'll cover the other two in articles to come.
Promotion in general is no longer a reward for past performance. Rather, it's almost always about the needs of the employer. To achieve a promotion in place, your task is to present your employer with an enticing opportunity to get more value from you. Here are some tips for making your promotion in place a success.
- Attend to relationships
- Promotions in place are relatively rare, and everyone knows that if you're promoted, you'll still be around. Attend to your relationships with everyone you work with, especially your supervisor. Make them happy you were promoted.
- Get known as a resource
- Offer your expertise freely and publicly. Seek opportunities to present status, overviews, and reviews of your area of expertise. Read, network, and volunteer for cross-functional teams. Attend conferences, even without employer support.
- Document your contributions
- Keep a working journal, entering evidence of the value of your contributions, your positive attitude, and your willingness to go beyond expectations. Writing about these things creates an urge to do things you can write about.
- Know that your contributions won't change in kind
- Your contributions before and after promotion will be similar, but promotion creates opportunities to make more important contributions. You might find yourself attending higher-level meetings, or you might be offered spots on more mission-critical teams.
- Understand your employer's goals
- A promotion in place
is a change in grade
with little change
of responsibility.
If you get promoted in
place, you'll still be around. - We promote in place because we want to keep good people by keeping status, title, and compensation in alignment with value delivered. If value delivered gets ahead of status, title, or compensation, the organization begins to obstruct further contributions ("He's getting too uppity"), which can lead to conflict and frustration.
- Check the resources
- There are risks. Promotions in place are usually based on contributed value which we expect to increase after the promotion. But increased contributed value usually requires increased resources, including things like training, space, and access to conferences. Before you accept a promotion in place, consider whether the available resources will support it.
Because contributed value is so important to a promotion in place, the temptation to appropriate credit for contributions of others (especially subordinates) can be overwhelming. Be aware that you could become a target, or even succumb to temptation yourself. Openly public generosity is the key. Top
Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
For more on promotions, see "How to Get a Promotion: the Inside Stuff," Point Lookout for August 16, 2006, and "How to Get a Promotion in Line," Point Lookout for September 13, 2006.
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
The Advantages of Political Attack: III
- In workplace politics, attackers have significant advantages that explain, in part, their surprising
success rate. In this third part of our series on political attacks, we examine the psychological advantages
of attackers.
How to Undermine Your Boss
- Ever since I wrote "How to Undermine Your Subordinates," I've received scads of requests for
"How to Undermine Your Boss." Must be a lot of unhappy subordinates out there. Well, this
one's for you.
Social Entry Strategies: I
- Much more than work happens in the workplace. We also engage in social behaviors, including one sometimes
called social entry. We use social entry strategies to make places for ourselves in social groups at work.
Projects as Proxy Targets: I
- Some projects have detractors so determined to prevent project success that there's very little they
won't do to create conditions for failure. Here's Part I of a catalog of tactics they use.
Big Egos and Other Misconceptions
- We often describe someone who arrogantly breezes through life with swagger and evident disregard for
others as having a "big ego." Maybe so. And maybe not. Let's have a closer look.
See also Workplace Politics and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
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And on July 13: What Do We Actually Know?
- Precision in both writing and speech can be critical in determining the success of collaborations in the modern workplace. Precision is especially important when we distinguish between what we surmise or assume and what we actually know. Available here and by RSS on July 13.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group