How do I get promoted? Part 2

Getting promoted within an organization is about more than just proving you can do the job. Like it or not, if you want to work your way up that ladder, you’re going to have to start making some friends. Not just any friends, but the right kind of friends and they need to be made in the right way. In this case, we’re talking about becoming friends with your supervisor, but not necessarily in the “going out for beers” sense. 

In a previous post, I talked about “the foundation” for promotion. That foundation is essentially the attitude you bring to your work each day. Whether you love what you’re doing, or not, that attitude will be communicated to other people. It may happen subconsciously, but you’re going to be telling people all day long what you really think about your job and your company by the way you approach your work, and the way you speak to others about it. 

Do yourself a favor and start your promotion journey with learning to love your current job first. If you make the effort to love your job, you will very likely find that you get more satisfaction from what you currently do. That’s not to say you should be satisfied, but rather that you will experience joy from the work you’re doing. Enjoying what you do to serve other people is much better than feeling like it is pointless or miserable.

Once you have begun to love your work, it is time to add a layer of complexity. You must now start to show the right people that you love what you do. You will accomplish this by setting up a weekly personal interview with your supervisor. These are sometimes referred to as “1 on 1” or “1x1”, but whatever your company calls them, they are a critical piece of getting promoted. You do not need to spend a lot of time in these meetings, but you do need to make the minutes count. 

So, how do you get started? If you’re busy, then I guarantee your supervisor is at least as busy as you are, and probably much busier. That means they will value their meeting time very highly, and they will likely not be inclined to meet with anyone they perceive will be wasting time in pointless meetings. On the bright side, most good supervisors are well-acquainted with the value a 1x1 can provide, both for the employee (you) and the company. This means, you probably won’t have to spend much time convincing your supervisor to meet with you, but here’s how I would approach it (and it has worked for me every time I’ve tried it):

Go to you supervisor and say something like “you know, I have really enjoyed the work I have been doing here, but I feel like there is still plenty of opportunity for improvement for me, and I was wondering if I could meet with you once a week to show you what I am doing and get some feedback and guidance. Would you be open to that?”

They will almost certainly say “Of course!” Then, they will likely ask you to find a time on their calendar that works and schedule it. Try to make this the same day and time each week, and never pass up the opportunity unless you are sick or dead. Sometimes, they might ask to reschedule, just do it and don’t read anything into it. Sometimes you may not have anything to say, and that’s ok! Just don’t let that happen the first few times you meet, as that will set a bad precedent. However, some of the best 1x1s I have had with my supervisors in the past were meetings where I arrived with little to report and we got an opportunity to talk about family, friends, fun or fitness. Discussing non work-related activities can be a great way of building rapport with your supervisor, and it will help to humanize you to them (i.e. they won’t necessarily think of you as “Bob the Machine” anymore, they might think of you as “Bob, the Father of Two who can help me build my legacy in this company”).

Ok, so you’ve got your meeting...now what? You will need to take two things with you to this meeting every week. The first thing is a statement of what you have done since the last meeting. This doesn’t have to be long and detailed, just enough to give your supervisor an idea about what you have been doing. The statement will implicitly inform your supervisor about what you think is important about your work, and it will tell them a lot about you personally. You won’t be able to fake this, so please don’t try. The best thing to do is just be honest and tell them what you are working on. They will probably do some probing and ask you about different aspects of your work, just discuss it with them like you would with anyone else at work. Tell them what you think is going well, and what may not be going so well. 

This is where the second thing comes in. You will want to come up with something that your supervisor can help you with each week (at least, for a while). It should be something you legitimately need help with, and something that you couldn’t necessarily do yourself. Perhaps your work has a dependency on someone else or another team in your organization, and things would go more smoothly if you could persuade that person or team of the significance of your work. This is the kind of thing where supervisors begin to feel like they are valuable to you. 

It also doesn’t hurt that there is a principle at work in this kind of request that favors the person making the request. Whenever you ask someone to help you do something, it makes that person love you just a little more than they did before. You may observe this most easily in a parent-child relationship. The parent tends to love the child more than the child loves the parent. This is largely due to the fact that the parent is engaged in working for the child’s benefit. The more the parent does to provide for and protect the child, the more the parent finds that they love their child. The same principle applies in other circumstances. The more meaningful, appropriate work you can assign your supervisor, the more they will come to care about your well-being and your career. 

Bottom line: The last pieces to this puzzle are time and consistency. There is no magic number, it’s simply being consistent each week, and continuing to love what you are doing. If you are maintaining that perspective, then it doesn’t really matter how much time passes because you will be enjoying your job regardless. When the time is right, you probably won’t even have to look for the new role. Once I became adept at this, my supervisor offered me the option of selecting between 3 different roles, all of which would have been fun for me. I was able to choose the role I wanted, and that gave me the opportunity to make an even bigger impact on my company. I continue to love what I do, and I make the effort to communicate that to others. 

Challenge: Spend some time this week reflecting on all the issues you have in your current role. Chances are good that you’re already asking your supervisor for help with many things, but if you’re like most people, it’s typically only after the damage is already done and they have to come clean up a mess. See if you can find the things they can help out with before they become problems. Make a list of them, and then choose the two most important items as your first requests. Think about how you would like to be asked, if you were the supervisor. Once you’re prepared, approach your supervisor and ask to set up the 1x1. 

Be strong and of good courage, and good things will come your way.