Chapter 12: How to Get a Promotion

Overview

In June 1974, Marty had been the director of personnel for 3 years when his boss, Pam, decided to move on from her VP spot to another organization. At the time Pam gave her formal notice, everyone was quite surprised. She was well respected, knowledgeable, and loyal: a lifer.

Despite the surprise over her resignation, though, the shifts required to fill the opening in the organization took place in less than 1 hour. Marty accepted a promotion to VP of personnel; Jackie, who had formerly been assistant director, advanced to Marty’s old role of director. And I gladly accepted a promotion from personnel clerk to assistant director of personnel after only 3 weeks on the job—mostly because I was there.

“There” was also a good place to be 1 month later, when Jackie resigned from her director position to head back to college. Only 6 weeks into this job, I had had two promotions.

In the past, the most important criterion for achieving a promotion was showing up every day—seniority was the most direct road to promotability.

As the 1970s turned into the 1980s, pay for performance was the name of the game, and the tenure-based promotion system was slowly replaced by a merit-based promotion system—which was also flawed. In the merit-only system, little regard was paid to the skills and knowledge needed for the new position—only how well the candidate did in his or her current spot was considered. This system allowed the promotion of many underprepared and underqualified people into management positions as a reward for doing well, as my client Lin attests:

I accepted the position of regional corporate sales manager with a major lender about 6 weeks ago. During the interview process, I thought my manager, Linda, was more task-oriented than strategic, but I needed a job, and I wanted to believe that she knew what she was doing.

After a few days on the job, Linda shared with me that she had been executive secretary to the president of a small lender prior to its purchase by the larger lender—and that as a reward for sticking with the organization during a complicated merger process, she had been promoted from executive secretary to vice president of corporate lending. She told me that she had earned her promotion because she had been with the smaller lender for 15 years, this had been her first and only job, and she had maintained an excellent performance record the entire time.

Now I have a boss who has never made a corporate sale, never met with a client, never managed to do a budget, never planned a regional marketing strategy, and never managed professional staff. Because she doesn’t really know the process, she micromanages every task. I think I’ve made a big mistake accepting this job.