How to Approach the Promotion Conversation

Starting a conversation about promotion with your boss can be a little daunting. As with most important conversations it’s worth putting a bit of thought into, in advance, and planning out what you want to say. There’s plenty of do’s and don’ts and here’s a few of them.

Don’t start with ‘How do I get promoted?’

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times – this is one of the most infuriating questions to be asked. It demonstrates to me that the person talking to me is lazy, lacks any kind of self awareness and expects me to do the hard work for them.

Always go with your own ideas. Even if they’re wrong, at least you’ve shown that you’ve tried and given it some thought. Think about the things that people in the grade above you do. Which of those are you demonstrating? How will promoting you benefit the team? What will you do differently at the next level?

Don’t make it all about you

It’s really tempting to try to spend as much time as possible explaining how awesome you are. It happens to me a lot – people in my team just transmitting at me about what they’ve done and what they’ve achieved. It’s as if they think I don’t know them. That the senior team don’t talk about people all the time. I get to hear all the time who’s done well, who’s messed something up and I know who’s on the watch list for promotion. Having someone transmit at me is just boring. At best it achieves nothing, at worst I walk away thinking less of the individual.

You need to get onto the other person’s agenda. Spend time asking about them. What are they trying to achieve? How could you help them? Where do they see growth? What are the opportunities? That way you’re much better positioned to have an actual conversation, rather than just transmit. And everyone prefers a conversation! You can then pepper the conversation with the points you want to make. For example: “It’s really interesting that you are working with that client, the service I provide would be perfect for them. How about we work together to introduce it to them?”

You don’t have to agree with them

It’s a conversation. That means you should have your own opinions and hold up your side of the conversation. It’s not impressive listening to someone who just agrees with everything you say, who is clearly just sucking up to you. I want to hear different points of view, different arguments. Don’t be deliberately combative and difficult – that’s not fun either! But do be yourself and don’t be afraid to challenge their perspective.

A great conversation is one that makes the senior person think. Bring new ideas up. Challenge them on something. Give them a different perspective. Always discuss and present solutions, not just challenges/problems.

Do leave them with your top 2/3 points

As I said up front, it’s important that you plan for conversations like this. And as a minimum you need to think what are the top 2 or 3 things you want them to remember from the conversation. Be clear about your ambition and that you think you are ready for promotion. Ideally build these points into the conversation but, if you are struggling to do that, don’t be afraid to reset the meeting if you feel it running away from you. For example: “I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, but the main reason I wanted to have this meeting is…”

I said don’t make it all about you, but you also don’t want to waste the opportunity to remind them, or educate them, as to why you’re a top promotion candidate. Is it the significant growth potential of the service you provide? Is it that you are a superb coach and great at training more junior staff? Is it that you plan to do something, you want their support, and you’d like them to monitor your progress or sponsor it?

Don’t forget – This is just the first step

It’s highly unlikely that at the end of the first conversation you will have won them over into thinking you are the next, best, promotion candidate. So don’t let it end there. Agree a reason to meet regularly, preferably by working together on something or just scheduling catch ups throughout your promotion journey.

Ideally you should agree what things you still need to demonstrate to be ready for promotion, work out milestones and regularly meet up to assess progress. That way you fully understand your promotion journey and have buy in from your boss on the steps to get there.