Promote Yourself (19 page)

12. I think I'm my manager's boss, not the other way around.

Now I want you to take this short quiz. If you have fewer than three Trues, you're not terribly obnoxious. If you've got three to five, you're moderately obnoxious, and if you've got six or more, you've got some serious obnoxiousness issues and you might want to fix that.

 

Visibility Creates Opportunities

Call it visibility, standing out, or getting noticed, they all create opportunities to get ahead in your career. If people don't know about you and what you've done, how will you ever get tapped for a promotion or get a performance bonus? A lot of people don't like to talk about their accomplishments—but then they get incredibly resentful when they get passed over for something they know they deserve. The only solution is to speak up. If you don't, there's a good chance that no one will ever find out. And if they don't know what you can do, they'll never think to turn to you when they need help and they'll never ask you to join a team that really needs someone with your talents and skills. The trick is to do it strategically, in a way that adds value to your team and supports the people around you. It's pretty rare for someone to accomplish great things without any outside help at all. And you'll never be able to perform at your full potential if your team doesn't support you.

 

6

What Managers Look for When They Decide Whom to Promote

 

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

—GENERAL COLIN POWELL

 

Remember back in college when you were getting ready for finals? Some profs were good about letting you know what the most important themes were. That helped you focus your studying on the topics that really mattered. But if you're like most people, you had at least a few instructors who said that
everything
you'd covered during the whole semester—every page of every book—would be on the test. Those exams were nearly impossible to prepare for—who could possibly master
everything
?

It's a similar situation when you're being considered for a promotion. Wouldn't it be nice to find out the qualities/skills/abilities/traits that are the most important to managers when they're looking for future leaders to promote?

I thought so, too. So my company surveyed 1,000 managers to find out what's most—and least—important to them when making hiring decisions. And, thinking that there might be a disconnect between what
is
important and what young workers
think
is important, we also surveyed 1,000 young workers (ages twenty-two to twenty-nine) to get their thoughts. Understanding both sides of the equation will be invaluable as you plan your career. At the very least, it will help you assess your current skills and may point out some areas that you need to develop or hone. When you know what your audience (managers) wants from you, it's much easier to sync with them and deliver exactly what they want—and more—by focusing on the traits you'll need to move up and get promoted faster. It will also help you target specific opportunities within your company to build your brand. On the other hand, if you
don't
know what your audience is looking for, how can you possibly meet their expectations? As a result, you'll spend too much time focusing on the skills that aren't as important to managers, and your weak points will prevent you from getting ahead.

Here's what we found out:

 

Soft Skills Rule

As we discussed in Chapter 3, soft skills are the most important skills to acquire. Hard skills—your technical abilities—are valuable, but not as valuable as soft skills. Given that, we weren't terribly surprised when managers put three soft skills at the top of their list of what they're looking for in the next generation of leaders. In order, they are:

1. Can prioritize work

2. Positive attitude

3. Teamwork

Of course, numbers on a spreadsheet can't always convey subtleties and they can't capture differences between organizations. For Mike Flores, VP of Global Strategy Alignment at McDonald's, critical thinking and teamwork skills are at the top of his list. “We're looking for somebody who is good at listening and absorbing information and being able to process it, who asks the right questions, and who is able to work well with other individuals in a team setting,” he says. “Overall, if you come in with an open-minded curiosity, a certain instinct for working together, and the ability to solve problems you can shine pretty quickly here.”

Still, some managers, including WWE's Jason Hoch, are focused on the bottom line: “It's important for the younger generation to be thinking in terms of ‘How do I drive business? How do I drive revenue? How do I have a vision around what's next?' People who do that are the people that can go places.” And Allan McKisson, VP of HR at Manpower Group, sums it up like this: “Do you make things better and help the people around you?” Ultimately, managers want people who can prioritize and achieve goals, are likable and are team players.

When employees understand what managers are looking for, they can get ahead faster. When surveying managers and employees, we found some interesting discrepancies between the traits managers say they value most and are required for advancement, and the ones young workers
think
are the most important.

On the following page is a list of the top twenty, as rated by both managers and employees. It's to see the similarities and differences between the two columns.

But don't focus too much attention to the Employee column. As harsh as this sounds, when it comes to career advancement, it doesn't really matter what
you
think is important—it's what your
manager
thinks that carries the weight. If you're not focusing on the skills that managers value most, you're not spending your time the right way. Use this chart as a guideline—not every manager has exactly the same priorities so it's a good idea to ask yours for their own top ten or top twenty list. Then use that information to help you decide where to put your efforts. For example, take organizational skills. Managers put them at number 4, while employees put them at number 9.

 

The Hardest Skills to Find

Coming up with a list of ideal skills and qualities is one thing. Identifying people who have those skills and qualities is something else entirely. So we asked our panel of managers to go through that same list of twenty skills and tell us how easy they think it is to actually
find
people with those skills. Here's what they said (the number in the third column is the percentage of managers who said it was “hard” or “next to impossible” to find people with that particular skill).

How are you doing relative to what managers say is important? If you've been spending all your time developing your digital savvy, expanding your global perspective, or doing extracurricular activities (skills that employers feel are a dime a dozen), you might want to consider focusing instead on developing your strategic thinking, analytical, and communications skills, and on boosting your knowledge about your industry (the skills employers have the hardest time finding). Unless, of course, you're happy right where you are and have no interest in advancing your career. If you're reading this book, I have a feeling that isn't the case.

Just a quick note on why the top five are so important. First of all, leadership. Good managers are always looking for people who have either natural leadership ability or who have the ability to learn. But as you well know, that isn't always easy. I'm sure you've met your share of leaders who really have no leadership capabilities.

Next, we've got strategic thinking and analytical skills. In today's business world, words aren't enough—you have to back up almost everything you say with hard data. If you understand metrics, can work with numbers, and use them to sell your point of view, you're a hot commodity.

Communication skills are so important that we spent most of Chapter 3 talking about them, so refer to that chapter if you think this is an area you need to work on.

Industry knowledge is important because companies need to know how they're doing relative to the overall industry, what their competitors are up to, what their customers want but aren't getting, trends that might affect them in the short and long term, and so on. This supports my point about why it's more important to be a specialist than a generalist: The better you know your industry and your customers, the better you'll be able to serve them.

 

Two More Critical Skills

In addition to the skills on our list, there are two more that many employers feel are in short supply: follow-up and preparation.

People think by sending an e-mail, that's it,” complains Andrew Goldman, VP, Program Planning and Scheduling at HBO/Cinemax. “Frankly, that's just the first step. You have got to follow up, to make sure the e-mail was received and understood.” Goldman adds that young employees are often not adequately prepared in meetings—especially when they're interviewing for a promotion in his department. “I have interviewed tons of people for my groups and I can tell immediately if somebody has come in doing their homework or not. That to me is a big thing. With the Internet, you can do your homework while waiting in the lobby on your smartphone. I don't recommend it, but you have to go in with smart questions. To not come in prepared is the worst thing you can do.”

Finally, we've got relationship-building skills. In a world where information is only a few clicks away, being able to get answers isn't nearly as important as being able to work with others—often across multiple international borders, time zones, and languages—to create solutions.

 

You're Not Alone: Companies Have a Responsibility for Developing Talent Too

In addition to the soft and hard skills managers are looking for in their employees, there are some key factors that the companies themselves have to provide if they're going to be able to develop talent from within. One of the best—and cheapest—is mentors. It's harder to succeed if you don't know how to maneuver within the corporate system. That makes you less efficient, which ultimately costs the company money. Every organization has people who've been around awhile and who've accumulated wisdom that more junior people can benefit from. Even if your company doesn't offer an organized mentorship program, find one for yourself. And don't think mentorship is a one-way street. As a young person you have plenty of knowledge that can probably help make some of the more senior folks more efficient (social media, for one).

Smart companies will put training programs together to help employees develop their soft skills, which will eventually help them become better managers and leaders. In order for employees to learn soft skills, they have to be challenged and put in positions where they have to work in teams to accomplish business objectives. If your company doesn't offer this kind of in-house training, go back and review the sections in Chapters 2 and 3 on how to acquire soft and hard skills. There are many free and low-cost ways to learn anything you need to know.

Liam Brown, COO of Marriott International, summed it up nicely. “They need to know precisely what they are supposed to do, they need to have the tools to do the job, and they need to know that somebody cares about them,” he told me. “If we have entry-level associates who demonstrate those capabilities and those abilities, they can rapidly grow into the leadership ranks.” Marriott's promote-and-develop-talent-from-within system produces some great results. “Twenty-three years ago I was a general manager of a Courtyard by Marriott and today I oversee all of the select service and extended stay hotels in the United States,” says Brown. “And we have lots of stories like that. A Regional Director who started off as a gatehouse attendant making $3.75 an hour at a Residence Inn and now oversees twenty hotels and has a senior role in the company, and we have a number of Vice Presidents who started off in hourly roles such as waiters, concierges, doormen, and so on.”