Making your promotion case: Preparing for Career Advancement Conversations (Self-advocacy series 4/7)
Asking for a promotion or raise can be intimidating, often causing individuals to shy away from a potentially uncomfortable conversation. However, it’s crucial to advocate for yourself and seize opportunities for professional growth. In this article, we will explore three key steps to put your promotion case together and be ready for the conversation.
1. Document Your accomplishments. Before approaching the conversation, document your top 3–5 achievements across various work areas. Specify the strategies you employed, the results achieved, and the context in which you operated. For instance, describe how when you took over the customer success team at the beginning of the year, they lacked infrastructure and fell short of their targets. You restructured the team, defined clear roles and responsibilities, introduced new metrics and processes, and achieved a 10% customer growth during layoffs and fewer resources.
You can document your wins as a leader and the impact on teams and culture. Maybe you have created a high-performing team that receives consistent positive feedback from key cross-functional partners and have gotten your people promoted and recognized throughout the organization. For culture, perhaps you led successful offsites that resulted in more cohesive teams and the reduction of silos or put in place a series of cultural practices that have increased engagement and morale, innovation, retention, and high performance. Or, you are a great culture carrier and can be relied on to do the right thing and represent the organization the way it wants.
It is helpful to keep a running list of accomplishments that you add to monthly so that when it is time for your promotion, you already have the information; it is just a matter of packaging it into three big advancements. If you are not delivering your results, it may be challenging to get promoted. In that case, do not just evaluate the last six months to a year, but look at a longer horizon to see how the context and global factors have played a role. Maybe the expectations have shifted, and your new bar for success should be just maintaining the current customer base rather than gaining 5% additional customers because this is in the context of your competitors seeing a norm of 10% loss. You could have set your goals when the context was much different, so you must adjust expectations.
2. Share Your Vision & Benefits. If your track record and accomplishments are about the past, the other focus should be on your future potential and how you show you are a franchise player. What is your vision for your role and the department in the short and long term? Where do you want to take it? Connect the dots to demonstrate how your promotion can benefit your unit, other teams, and the entire organization. Explain how the promotion will empower you to accomplish more. Consider how it will enhance your ability to collaborate with other department heads because they want to work with their title peers. If you are already great at people management, a bigger team will allow you to have more impact in bringing out people’s best, contributing to engagement and retention, and the goal of entering new markets. Always tie your case back to the business benefits and the advantages for the team and company.
2A. Use the “I /We” Formula. Alexander Carter, Columbia Law Professor & Negotiation Expert advocates using this formula to emphasize multiple benefits. “Here’s what I’m asking, and here’s how we, as an organization, will benefit from my enhanced role.” “If you bring me in at the VP level, we, as an organization will benefit from the combination of operational and technical experience.” Making a case that is just about you is a losing proposition. For example, “I really need this because my kid is entering college this year.” Aim to maintain your objectivity.
2B. Identify Your Successor. In your vision, name your potential successor. Ideally, you have been grooming them to step into your role seamlessly. If this is not the case, perhaps your possible appointment recently took a job elsewhere, outline a plan to prepare an internal candidate or consider external hiring to bridge any skill gaps needed for the team’s growth.
3. Convey Passion. Express your enthusiasm and passion for a more extensive scope and opportunity. Make it clear why you’re driven to take on more responsibility and how it will invigorate your work. Demonstrating your eagerness reduces uncertainty and inspires confidence in those who support your advancement and may be taking risks. Let your passion shine through to energize yourself and also those around you.
When it comes to requesting a promotion, preparation is critical. Have a concise statement highlighting your current achievements, aspirations, and the reasons driving your pursuit.
Quote of the day. “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” -Chris Grosser
Question of the Day. What lessons have you learned about asking for a promotion? What worked and what hasn’t? Comment and share below; we’d love to hear from you!
The next blog in this series 5 /7 will focus on refined strategies for influencing.
As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to communicate effectively including strategically self-promoting, contact me to explore this topic further.
