When Will You Get Promoted?

You aren’t getting promoted tomorrow, unless your company needs to promote you tomorrow. Brutal truth, or is it time to reset expectations?

Over the last 12 years, outside of the strange COVID period, and the recent flirtation with recession, I mean slow down in growth, negative growth, stagnant growth, for two quarters, what?! So a technical recession? Sorry, maybe a little Econ humor.

Regardless, things have been quite good economically over the past 13 years as a whole. Some ups and downs, certainly. But not as bad as it can be made out to be. Tech had a significant blip recently, but their stocks rose so a lot of people now don’t really care - that's the reality. And for talent let go, the mindset, “they’ll find a job easily” creeps in. And people forget that job openings don’t equal hires. So many openings…maybe not as many of those are actual hires? And all those tech employees…yeah, many made salaries most non-tech orgs would never pay below SVP/C-level. So their expectations are significantly skewed on what the market will pay for their level of role.

All that to say, it’s been a good up swing in the market, for some time. So why do so many think that as things have tightened up, they should get promoted? Generational perspective? Maybe. Never seen a recession, or slower growth, probably. What happened to the, you get promoted when the job is open and to you are first in line, and you have earned the promotion? Old school, yes, but perspective check…you don’t get promoted every year or two (or 3,4,5 years in some circumstances), like clock work. It’s a process and the bigger the company, often the longer the process with more competition, process, and evaluation. It’s time to slow down and reset- expectation check. Promotions are not an expectation, unfortunately. Opportunity must be there and for some orgs, it's just not at certain points, depending on growth and their overall strategy.

Your career = Candy Land 🍭. If you’re familiar with the game, you get that chutes 🛝 and ladders 🪜 are more realistic than rocketship 🚀 growth. Fulfillment and meaning, don’t start with bigger titles and salaries, so it's a constant balance with having drive, going for that next role, but also being "happy", but driven in your current role. You never want to be content and satisfied as a growth professional, but you also can't be so impatient it impacts you and the company negatively.

Some professionals, some with less experience, maybe some with a career change, expect promotional opportunities to drop from the sky, like a torrential down pour. As if jobs are not created for all and limitations don’t exist. Well I hate to break it, but if you work for a company, it's a business at some level, that come with corporate parameters, budgets exist, and opportunity for growth must be created, it doesn't just exist, along with a whole host of priorities -

• P&L

• Margins

• Stock price

• Bell curves

• Demand

• Customer Expectations

• NPS

• Headcount

• KPIs

• SLAs

• Performance Reviews

• Succession Planning

• QBRs

• Zoom/GoogleMeet/WebEx/Teams “meetings”

You get the point, there is a significant, very long list of priorities, before we even consider talking about people, development, and promotions. Some organizations don’t behave in this manner, but many do. The stark reality is a business is often not graded on its advancement of people outside of Glassdoor and similar sites.

The characteristics to get promoted, may be changing -

• Patience

• Timing

• Track record

• Seniority

• Experience

• Relationships

• Politics

• Playing the game

These were all factors before, but they are now an even bigger necessity. Your secret may have been that “web developer” title yesterday, and now, it may actually be the soft skills, showing your face to position you for promotion.

Reset your expectations for the reality of your career and life, so you are working with the right level of mindset for your situation. Does this mean you lower or temper expectations, of course not. Not at all! Raise your expectations where you believe you can and want to achieve, or even beyond, but lower your demands for immediate gratification because you showed up every day on time for a month. You don't get a cookie because you hit your expectation or targets. Business doesn’t work like that, not in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, on Main Street, or on the farm. You put the time and work in to drive results and get noticed.

If you don’t like this path, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror and dedicate yourself with a new level of commitment, move on, or start your own venture. Regardless, it's important to stay positive, but face the reality and work to achieve it, not expect or hope based on false expectations.

OpCo: The People Ops Blueprint — Operations | People | Culture | Opportunity

If Performance Operations Culture means something to you, or you would like to be notified for future posts on operations leadership, culture, and people related topics, make sure you click the 🔔 on my LinkedIn profile page. For additional daily content, check out grahampeelle.com. You can also find additional articles on Medium. Climb Higher & Raise Your^ROI

LEARN: Learn | Explore | Ambition | Reform | No

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain