Smart Promotions

As you consider promoting employees, forget the question “what have you done for me lately?” and instead ask “what will you do for me in the future? If you avoid thinking of promotions as rewards, and instead think of them as ways to get your top Creatives into positions where they can do more, you’ll improve your firm’s effectiveness dramatically.

I recently attended a friend’s military promotion ceremony. One line in the promotion orders really stood out: “Lieutenant Colonel Smith, having demonstrated the potential to serve in the higher grade, is promoted to the rank of Colonel.” I like that: having demonstrated the potential. What this suggests is that he isn’t being promoted because he’s done well in the past, he’s instead being promoted because he’ll do more in the future.

At the reception afterwards I talked with another officer who told me how he didn’t expect to get promoted again, because he’d gotten out of the military to be an airline pilot, only to come back in when he got laid off. He said he’d been doing well since coming back, and his commanders had told him he was doing great, but he never seemed to get the assignments that would help him get promoted and he saw little chance of going farther. He was pretty bitter about this, and was sure he was being discriminated against because he’d gotten out for a few years. I thought he was right, but I think he missed that line during the promotion ceremony: rather than demonstrating “the potential to serve in the higher grade,” he’d instead demonstrated the potential to leave the military when he thinks he can make more money on the outside.

When you look to promote someone from within, consider more than just their creative skills. Look at their existing leadership ability...do they exercise leadership among their peers, even without a formal leadership position? Are they able to motivate others? Do they seek out opportunities to improve themselves or to contribute more? (and not because they’re sucking up, but because they truly want to do more) If they don’t quite have the leadership skills you think they’ll need, do they seem willing and able to learn? Ask yourself if that person even wants more responsibility and authority. If they don’t, then why put them in that position? Look at their job history too. If they’re changing companies every couple of years you might not want to use them to fill a position only to have to fill it again in a short time.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you ignore their past performance...obviously, how they’ve done up until now gives you an indication of how they’ll do in the future. But you don’t want to give them a promotion simply as a reward. It might be easy in a creative firm to spot the most talented people, but remember that creative talent and leadership ability are different...being a Creative doesn’t automatically mean they’re ready to lead Creatives. Carefully consider the requirements of the position you’re promoting someone into and ask yourself if they really have the potential to do it well.