Self-Promotion
No one cares more about your career than you do, nor should they.
My first and only “underperformed” annual review came at the 26-year mark with Microsoft. It was my first review as a Partner. And it was totally preventable, simply by heeding the guidance I had followed for so many years.
There is an interesting dual focus when it comes to your work. You have the day-to-day operations that you are doing with your coworkers. And you have the infrequent assessment of that work that determines your rewards, in terms of higher pay and higher levels. The phrase, “Do what you love and the money will follow,” is one attempt to frame a healthy relationship between these two. But if that phrase lands flat with you, you’re not alone. You may, instead, turn to an alternative phrase to capture this relationship: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
I would love for it to be the case that if you simply do your work expertly, you will be rewarded for it. But it is never that easy. You will always have to make a case for yourself. This may again be where you say, “I’m an engineer, not a salesperson.”1 And I will again respond, “You need to be a salesperson as well.” Here is how you play the long game2 with your career advancement, maximizing transparency and minimizing surprises.
It begins with getting in the right mindset. Here’s another oft-uttered phrase of mine3: “No one cares more about your career than you do, nor should they.” That phrase is intentionally harsh, because it is designed to wake you up to the fact that you need to take the driver’s seat when it comes to your career advancement. You don’t control the promotion process, but you can significantly influence it.
Here are the advocates you have for your cause, in order of level of care: (1) you, (2) your manager, (3) your manager’s manager, … (n) your CEO. I have coached many managers about the importance of their role in the advancement of their employees. I emphasize that getting rewards right is a manager’s most important job. But for the purposes of this post, I’m going to be focusing entirely on your #1 advocate: yourself.
Don’t artificially limit your scope
Drive career conversations regularly with your manager
Maximize transparency and minimize surprise
Beware the dark side: it is not you vs. your peers
Don’t limit yourself
Never utter the phrase, “That’s beyond my pay grade,” or any similar phrase such as, “I’m not a Senior Engineer yet, so I don’t need to think about this.” Such phrases view your current level as a limit, confining your efforts to what is “level appropriate.” This mindset will stunt your own career growth. Your current level doesn’t define your upper bound on capability. It defines your lower bound. Your current level is your min bar of conduct and execution.
Which comes first, (a) your promotion to the next level or (b) your ability to succeed at the next level? “A” is a sink or swim promotion. “B” is a high-confidence promotion. A small company can get away with “A”, but any established company is going to take the “B” route. Promotions are not about potential; they are about recognition of accomplishment. This is why artificially limiting yourself is going to keep you from getting a promo. The right mindset is to “act as though you are.”
The description that we gave employees at Microsoft was, “Promotions are given when you’ve demonstrated that you’re already operating at the next level, and can continue to do so.” The “and can continue to do so” ending is good to stress. This captures the min bar nature of your current level. e.g. When you are promoted to Senior, there are expectations that you will model Senior to others. I would always tell people new to Senior to “Embody Senior.”
Getting concrete with your manager
There are three features that your 1:1s with your manager should have. If any of these are missing for you, make that be agenda item #1 for your next 1:1.
Your 1:1s with your manager should be frequent. Weekly is ideal, but every other week can be workable.
You should own the agenda for these 1:1s. That doesn’t mean your manager doesn’t get the floor. What it means is that your agenda should allow for that.
Somewhere between once a month and once every two months, your 1:1 should include a concrete career conversation where you discuss progress towards the next level.
In school, it was more obvious where your grade was coming from. The syllabus shared how homework, tests, projects, participation, etc. contributed to your grade. In the professional environment, it’s not always this obvious. You need to leverage your HR resources to find your Role Library, or Career Stage Profile (CSP), or whatever your company has named it. These resources will give you a high-level articulation of expectations for each level in each role, to help you understand what is expected at your current stage and at your next stage. This is as close to a syllabus as you’re going to get. Leverage it!
I remember the first time I ever read through Microsoft’s Software Engineer CSP. I read all the levels (at the time, these were just numerical: L9 - L13), and I read all the roles (IC, Lead, Manager). The further up I read, the more eye-opening it was to the potential of my role. For instance, there used to be some language around L13 (old name for Partner) about designing and implementing a new process that is adopted across the company (keep in mind that this is from a time when Microsoft was about 15,000 employees). Reading that triggered two simultaneous thoughts: “Wow, that sounds important!” and “Wow, I have a long way to go!”
Take a copy of the description for the next level and put it in your External Brain4. Ahead of each career conversation 1:1, go through all the target behaviors listed. If you have a good example of you exhibiting that behavior, write it down. If there’s a behavior you’re struggling to demonstrate, mark that. Then bring that into your career 1:1 conversation. Ask your manager if your examples are valid or missing the mark. And then ask your manager for ideas on how you can take steps to progress on the circled items.
In aggregate, three or more of these career discussions with your manager ahead of your review will give your manager concrete examples to help them make a case for a promotion. Your linear approach to improvement will underscore that you are taking the work involved in a promotion seriously. And, finally, your objective handling of the feedback your manager gives you will demonstrate “executive maturity.”
No surprises
An underperformed review needs to come as no surprise to the recipient. There are two things that can lead to a surprise. The first is if you don’t use the above 1:1 approach to its fullest. These career discussions give you and your manager plenty of opportunities to openly discuss what challenges you face for your next promo. If either of you shy away from this vital part of the conversation, don’t be surprised when the results are surprising.
The second potential blind spot comes from not being aware of any new rules for your new level. This is exactly what bit me in my first Partner review. HR’s role descriptions tell you a healthy amount of what you need to know for a given role. But for every level you ascend, there are an increasing number of expectations that are not as clearly captured. In my case, the unwritten rule at Partner was “almost all Partner managers are M2+ (manager of managers).” In the year that followed my promotion to Partner, I was in an M1 role. This wasn’t forbidden, but is a red flag. By default, an M1 manager will have less scope than an M2 manager. If I had been aware of this rule at the start of my year, I could have taken on some broader scope initiatives to compensate for this.
Once you get promoted, ask your manager what new rules you need to be aware of that aren’t captured in the Role Library. Because these rules aren’t written down, there’s a chance that your manager will not detail all of them. To increase the likelihood of discovering all the new rules, reach out to your peers who have been at this same level for longer and ask them what new rules stood out to them.
“The dark side clouds everything.”
Healthy advocacy happens in various forms, but the common thread is that it takes the form of you articulating the value proposition of your outcomes. 1:1s, status mails, pull requests, reviews, etc. are all viable venues for this advocacy. Use the many possible forms to regularly and authentically advocate for yourself.
As you develop your advocacy skills, there is a dark path you need to avoid. When discussing the dark path, it is imperative to reference a true SME on darkness, Yoda. Here are key Yoda quotes to help us:
“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.”
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
“The dark side clouds everything.”
The dark side of self-advocacy is the home of these three thoughts, which I have put in order of how far down the path one is when they’re having these thoughts:
The ultimatum: “I’m due (or already overdue) for a promotion now.”
This thought comes from frustration that management doesn’t realize everything you’re doing. And the solution is a comprehensive advocating strategy. This is why I have emphasized the need for regularity throughout this post. The healthy alternative to this frustration is to seek guidance on how to advocate from your manager and mentor. There is a lot that goes into the reward discussion process that you as an individual don’t see. But through regular career dialogues between you and your management chain, expectations and opportunities become more clear.The comparison: “I’ve done more than these other <myLevel> peers of mine: <name1>, <name2>, …”
This thought comes from the same frustration as #1, but takes it a step further down the dark path by drawing comparisons with your peers. Over my years of managing and mentoring, this is a thought that when I hear it voiced, I interject immediately, “Stop! This is a very dangerous line of thinking. This pits you against your colleagues, who you’re supposed to be partnering with for collective success.” Yoda’s “dominate” and “consume” quote above is very fitting here. The more time spent here, the more isolated you will become, because your interactions and observations will have an increasing element of “keeping score.” And just like a marriage where the two are keeping score, such a relationship will not grow, and will not last. You need to have an abundance mindset when it comes to promotions. There’s room for you and all of your peers at the next level.The victim: “The team/company is trying to screw me.” or “The team/company is giving me the absolute minimum they can to not lose me.”
How do you refute this thought? When I’ve encountered this, I try to highlight the culture that we are nurturing at this company and how much healthier of an environment we’re working in, but I’ve rarely made a dent. The common responses are, “These are all part of the show the company puts on to feign care,” or, “These are all part of the absolute minimum.” I don’t see how this is externally changeable. You have to talk yourself out of this one. You have to look at the give and take between you and your management chain and assess the overall deal that you’re getting. The company won’t be perfect. Nor will you. But how does it net out? Is it win-win?
“Your path you must decide.” - Yoda
Footnotes
The “Important vs. Urgent” section of Play the (Really) Long Game
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got on this topic you hit on: "strive to think and act like you are already at the next level". Even if you aren't ready for a promotion it will help you exceed expectations at you current level!