Promotion denied? Read this.

I received an e-mail from reader Hooi San (not her real name) over the weekend. She holds a post as an analyst-programmer. She's apparently very hard working, habitually stays late to finish work, sacrifices her weekends to meet deadlines and does all she can to meet her work objectives. For the last 3 years she has not been promoted but had received nominal salary increments and, in her words, pathetic bonuses. A relative junior whom I'll call Eugene came in at Hooi San's level and got promoted after 2 years. Eugene's work I'm told is not as good as hers but he is a socialite and occasionally lunches with the boss. Hooi San doesn't get along well with him and feels that his promotion was political. She wants to know where she went wrong.

If you've been in, or are currently in, a similar situation, do check to see if any of these apply to you.

1. Your boss gave you no written performance targets and you did not insist on one.
2. Your job targets had changed but you didn't realize it or didn't bother to get them formally recorded by HR.
3. You insist on delivering work on your terms and not on your boss's terms. You do not ask if your work was satisfactory. You just assume it is.
4. You show no positive reaction to efforts to expand your job scope. Instead you've established yourself as a boundary watcher, often complaining about being asked to do things outside your job scope.
5. You have an attitude and habitually make exceptions for yourself, perhaps evoking co-worker complaints.
6. You have a consistently mediocre track record from your boss's point of view or been tainted with an office scandal.
7. You are by nature a timid mouse, perpetually hiding in your corner and offering no cheese to anyone. Any enthusiasm on your part is shortlived. You do not join company social gatherings.
8. You are unable to rally a group of people into achieving something useful (leadership) or if you did, you failed to have your boss acknowledge it.
9. You've become irreplaceable (and hence unpromoteable) because no one else has the skill and knowledge to replace you in your current job.
10. You've never asked you boss what it takes to get a promotion.
11. You have a tendency for insubordination like dragging your disagreements with your boss out into the open, going over his head for decisions or even disobeying direct orders.

Let me highlight a few unpleasant realities about this list.

Firstly, working hard does not necessarily mean you deserve to be promoted. Its the results that count. Results mean getting it right from the boss's point of view, not yours. And as you know, results can be obtained in many ways, one of them hard work.

Secondly, results don't mean an automatic promotion. It is faulty thinking to think one can rise in rank simply by doing more of the same thing, by shooting 5 birds instead of 3. Promotions are about role expansion, doing bigger things at different levels. By constantly harping about being asked to do things outside your job scope, you actually shoot yourself in the foot.

Thirdly, like it or not, your future in the company depends on your relationship with your immediate boss. Yes, the one who signs your appraisal. While having different opinions is normal, if you decide to wage an outright war with your boss, you pretty much know how the story will end.

Fourthly, while bosses are fond of saying that everything depends on your performance, they seldom say that the ability to resolve people conflicts and take charge is also key to your promotability. Why this happens is another story which I'll write about later but when it comes to assessing the suitability to promote, there's more to your typical performance appraisal than meets the eye. Much more and its not all necessarily political.

By the way I use the word techie here as a general name for the 'craftsmen' of the corporation, people whose day-to-day work involves special tools like programmers, tech support, folks in accounting and so on. I'm also not saying that the employee is always to be blamed for not being promoted because there are many jerk bosses around. I'll write about that later.