Harvard Business Review (HBR), a monthly popular science magazine about business and management, conducted a series of interviews with Harvard Business School experts, authors of books on career development, and leaders of large companies about the secrets of successful career building. HBR editors have combined the stories of experts into a book that talks about a set of tools that help you set career goals and determine the steps necessary to achieve them.
Forbes publishes an excerpt from the book “HBR Guide. How to manage your career", which will be published in July by Alpina Publisher, dedicated to how to correctly express your desire to get a promotion, build a dialogue with your superiors and achieve your goal. Rebecca Knight, a freelance journalist from Boston, spoke with experts for this chapter; Lecturer at Wesleyan University whose work has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today and the Financial Times.
Many people feel nervous before asking their boss for a raise. But when you're ready for the next step in your career, it's important to speak up. How to prepare for a conversation with your boss? What information should you have on hand? And how to present your arguments?
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The organization will not take care of you just because you perform well. A certain amount of self-promotion is required
“Asking for a raise makes you feel vulnerable,” says Sabina Nawaz, a consultant to executives who speaks and writes on leadership. “You are not in control of the situation, you are putting yourself in the hands of a boss who will judge you and may decide that you are not worthy of a promotion.” You may worry that you are annoying your boss or that you will appear greedy or selfish. But as you build your career, you must learn to advocate for yourself, says Joseph Weintraub, founder of Babson College's leadership and teamwork counseling program. “You can't expect an organization to take care of you just because you do a good job,” he says. “You need a certain amount of self-promotion.” Simply put, “if you don’t ask, you don’t get.” Here are some tips on how to ask for a raise.
Ponder
The first step in the process is to decide what exactly you want, Weintraub says. “Do you want more power? More money? More responsibility? Is there a position in the organization that you dream of, or does it need to be created? Do you want to move upward or might you be interested in moving horizontally? It's also important to "look at your skill set and see how it fits with the organization's objectives," he adds. This will help you link the promotion request to the organization's broader strategic goals.
Love
There have always been office romances. For some, love strikes right at the workplace. What to do in this case? The site has detailed articles about correct behavior.
- The subordinate fell in love with the boss. In this case, you need to weigh the pros and cons. If the boss is married, it is better to give up trying to win him over. But if he is free, options are possible.
- The manager pesters or harasses. He may even make a personal request to you. In some cases, a frank conversation will help, in others, changing your image, choosing more modest and closed clothes. But the potential problem here remains in any option.
Do your research
It is also useful to stock up on external data, says Nawaz. “The more senior you are, the more likely it is that your boss is not the one making the decision to promote,” she notes. “Other leaders will also have their say.” She recommends "asking for feedback from mentors" to learn about your strengths and weaknesses, and talking to colleagues to "check your reputation within the company."
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Past experience is a precedent. Find out how others have achieved promotion. This will help you find effective strategies. Also ask your colleagues if they think you are ready for a promotion. And when it comes to meeting your request, “it's not just business results that matter; you have to be the person people are willing to follow.”
The new boss has arrived
The entire office was shaken by the terrifying news: the old boss was leaving his post and was being replaced by a completely new, unfamiliar person. With its own rules and prejudices.
This is a difficult psychological test: one way or another, you will have to change your behavior, adapt to the boss’s rhythm - nothing can be done about it.
ATTENTION ! It is better to get along with the director from the very beginning, since the first impression is the most important.
- Don't ignore the moment of getting to know each other. Show sincere interest in the new team member, congratulate the person on his appointment to the position.
- Don’t grieve with your colleagues that “it was better in the old days.” Solve problems as they arise and learn to work effectively in any environment, even if you don't like it.
- Get rid of prejudices: you don’t need to meet every order of the new boss with hostility. New is not necessarily bad.
- Understand that the boss adapts too. Employees usually imagine the boss as a robot who gives orders. This is not true: the manager is worried, worried and tries no less than you.
- The conclusion follows from the previous paragraph: work with the director, not against him. Discuss the nuances of current projects more often, express your own suggestions, and be active.
In general, a sociable and friendly person will easily find contact with a new acquaintance. The main rule is to be interested in the interlocutor. There is no need to get hung up on your personality: openness combined with education and professionalism will turn you into a brilliant employee.
Give arguments
Once you understand your aspirations, prepare a compelling argument for why you deserve a promotion. This is especially important if your request for a higher position conflicts with the promotion schedule. Be prepared to encounter an attitude that asks, “What have you done for me lately?” says Nawaz. She recommends preparing a note that "clearly outlines your accomplishments." On one or two pages, list “the specific metrics that reflect your contributions,” describe “the solutions you proposed,” and the financial results for which you were responsible. You can also include “data from other departments or from customer or employee surveys” that indicate your success. “You must prove that you are already performing at the level to which you are asking to be promoted,” she says.
Weintraub also recommends thinking at this stage about “who could fill your position” and how to support that person. Show your boss that “you work to develop others,” he advises. “Not only does this demonstrate your leadership abilities, but it also makes things easier for your boss since they will know who to appoint to take your place.”
Characteristics of a leader
So, a good leader should be:
- a manager who skillfully uses available powers;
- a leader who can captivate;
- a diplomat who competently builds relationships with partners, colleagues and subordinates;
- an innovator, capable of correctly using modern trends and trends;
- a mentor who helps to cope with complex, confusing situations;
- a wise personality with extraordinary abilities, strong will, determination, prudence, and so on.
The success of the entire team will certainly depend on the style of work with subordinates chosen by the leader. Let's say that a favorable environment increases the quality and effectiveness of the group. As a rule, those bosses who have managed to build strong, healthy relationships in their teams achieve greater success. What rules will help a manager establish an effective work process and good relationships with his team? Let's list some.
Pick a moment
There's no perfect time to ask for a raise, but you should choose your timing wisely, Weintraub says. Obviously, the week after a company layoff or the day your team lost a key client is no good. It's better to ask "after something good has happened." For example, you just closed a big deal or the company announced good quarterly revenue.
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Nawaz agrees: “If you're experiencing customer churn, the best thing you can do is jump in, roll up your sleeves, and do your job to stabilize the company.” At the same time, you should not give up. If your promotion will help the organization achieve its goals, persist.
Plant the seed
Asking for a promotion is not a one-time conversation, but rather a series of conversations, says Nawaz. She recommends that you start from your notes with something like, “I'm glad to work here and be able to influence the company. This is what I have already achieved. I want to constantly discuss with you what it takes to get to the next level.” Weintraub suggests "having a conversation about the pursuit of excellence" while making the case for your promotion. "Tell your boss, 'I want to make sure I'm not just good, but great.' Then ask, “What can I do to convince you that I’m ready for the next step?” “Demonstrate a willingness to grow and learn,” he advises.
Desires/resistances
There are always a lot of desires in our heads, we constantly want something - this is the norm. The problem is that there are a lot of desires, and we are not aware of everything. Sometimes we talk about one desire, but inside we think about another, and as a result, both are not realized. It seems to us that we need to take it and do it, but for some reason we put it off. Most often this means that there are conflicting desires.
Resistances are other desires.
I have a not very good but important story about this.
In 2016-2017, my health deteriorated sharply: I had to have heart surgery, and there was a problem with my lungs. They were going to put me in the hospital for a year. I think: “Why? Everything was fine before!” And my health is getting worse and worse. I went to see a psychologist I knew, and she asked: “What hurts you the most?”
- Heart. - Okay, I am the heart. Ask me questions. - Dear heart, why are you sick? - No, I, my heart, would rather ask you - why do you need me to get sick?
What will be bad if I recover suddenly? I immediately replied that if my heart gets better, then I will not go to the hospital and finally rest there. When I said this, my jaw dropped - what nonsense?! It turns out that I was so tired and worked under stress for so long that my subconscious sent me to the hospital?
Opposing desires can be realized in “roundabout ways.” The opposing desire must be satisfied so that it does not do it for you. So from the next day I took two weeks off, turned off my phone, and my health began to improve.
The story is not about management, but after it I began to track the reasons for my actions. Sometimes this can seriously affect your health.
Increase the priority of an important desire.
In a situation of confrontation, an important desire can be linked to another and increased priority. You can also connect hormones that will motivate us. This will help overcome the opposing desire.
Take care of the sprout
Once you sow a seed, “nurture it,” says Nawaz. She advises asking your boss for performance reviews “not so often that it becomes annoying, but, say, once a month or quarter.” Be specific. If, for example, your promotion comes with increased responsibility toward clients, say something like, “I've been talking frequently with our key corporate clients over the past month and here's what I've learned. How can you evaluate these steps?
Another good strategy, Weintraub says, is to tell your boss “how you would spend the first 90 days in your new role.” “Show that you have prepared and are serious” about getting the promotion.
You must prove that you are already performing at the level to which you are asking to be promoted.
Desired roles
We constantly want to be someone and realize ourselves in different societies: a good father, a successful leader, a sought-after developer. What we're interested in here is the roles we want to be in. We are not completely sure about them, because they are the ones that cause a lot of conflicts and emotions.
At the beginning of my management career, a new employee took a job with us. He wanted to be considered a cool developer, but he seriously doubted it. When I gave him critical feedback, he immediately became emotional and resisted.
Any simple idea had to be conveyed for half an hour. During this time, I went from “I didn’t mean to offend you” to the moment of “Do this” - it was tiring. So I did three simple things. I told:
- about facts;
- through your emotions;
- like with an expert.
It works like this: “I see that such and such happened.
I'm afraid that there will be such and such a problem with the customer. What do you think can be done about this? You know better, you encounter this more often. So far I see this way out of the situation.” Feedback in this format works better for someone who has the desired but challenging role of being a cool developer. Over the past six months, our interaction has improved. Through these phrases, he realized that I didn’t want anything bad, and he calmed down.
If a person wants to be someone and this causes a problem, let him realize himself.
Praise for any achievements, even small ones. There is always something for it - it doesn’t happen that a person is a failure in everything. If you praise people, they calm down and the situation improves.
Don't take risks
Having an offer to move to another organization could lead to a promotion at your current job. Either way, such an offer will boost your self-confidence and give you a better idea of how much your work is worth on the market. (This is especially true if you're seeking a promotion primarily for financial reasons.) However, if you're trying to get your boss on your side with this strategy, you're taking a risk. “Forcing promotions is not the best way to win friends and influence people,” Weintraub says. “As a rule, people react poorly to ultimatums,” echoes Nawaz.
Such tactics often “have a negative impact on relationships” and “lead to the artificial promotion of people who are not ready for a more senior role,” she says. "Play this card with extreme caution."
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Where does the energy go?
Let's make a list of what we have.
- Hormones and neurotransmitters
. They move us forward. Not always in the right direction.
- Emotions and experiences
. They spend our attention, sometimes on things we don’t need. - Focus of attention
. Constantly knocks you out of your current thoughts. - Desired roles
. We spend energy on them, trying to live up to them. - Beliefs
. They take energy for confirmation. - Images and scenarios
are also energy consumers. - Lots of wishes
. Each of them “eats” energy, even if not performed.
Initially, our body has physical energy that we use for all this. To become more effective, I began to work through every moment. I aligned my hormones
to receive them on time, worked with my
emotions
, learned to use them,
removed unnecessary things from focus
: I wrote them down and constantly unloaded them.
I worked through my desired roles
, beliefs, images and scenarios, and removed the desires that interfered.
Got better. But then I thought that there are unique people who don’t do all this. At the same time, they spend their energy on business and achieve great results.
Be patient (to a certain extent)
It would be great if your boss agreed to promote you right away, “but don’t count on it,” warns Nawaz. Promotions rarely happen overnight, and you shouldn't be discouraged if you don't succeed immediately. “Be realistic,” she says. In the meantime, “keep up the good work, openly look for ways to increase your influence, and improve your effectiveness.”
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But don't ignore the signs that the situation is not going in your favor. “If you see others getting promoted and you not, talk to your boss,” Weintraub advises. - Ask: “Will you recommend me for a higher position when a vacancy arises?” Once you realize that you are “not on the boss’s short list,” “think about whether you want to stay in this organization or should look elsewhere.” . But the good news is: “at least you know what the situation is.”
Hormones
This is neurobiology, the topic is closer to psychology.
Since ancient times, we have a built-in motivation system - hormones. Hormones are secreted by endocrine glands, such as the thyroid, adrenal glands, pancreas or gonads. Hormones cause some reactions in the body: hunger, weight gain in the form of muscles or fat, aggression. Hormones do not act instantly: a stimulus appears, the brain orders the glands to work, the hormones are released, carried by the blood throughout the body, the cells in the body capture the hormone and a reaction begins.
Hormones are divided into different classes, but for simplicity we will divide them into two groups: motivating and demotivating.
Motivating hormones.
- Dopamine
. We get it when we feel that we are developing, accomplishing tasks, and feel that the current experience is positive. - Oxytocin
. Stands out when we feel accepted and cared for. For example, when we are inside a group and we are accepted in it. - Serotonin
. Hormone of respect and recognition. - Endorphins
. This is sport, laughter, stress.
The demotivating hormone is cortisol
. It is produced when we do not feel psychological and/or physical safety.
Why know about hormones?
In everything you do, consider your hormones.
If you want to get something new from an employee, praise him and show that he is developing.
If you set people up for something opposite, they won't do it. Analyze what hormones, when and from what do you get them? If you understand that your current intake of hormones is not leading you to your goal, change your behavior. Each person has a certain need for hormones: an excess of some and a deficiency of others. Sociable people feel an excess of oxytocin: family, many friends, 30 relatives gather every Saturday, but there are not enough endorphins - there is no time to play sports. If you determine the deficiency of a hormone in a particular person and give it to the person, he will want to continue working with you.
Hormones and neurotransmitters are our engines. In everything you do, use all your engines.
One of my employees worked in fear for a long time, constantly afraid of everything.
This is bad: at this moment creative thinking is switched off, it is difficult to solve problems where you need to sit and think. He did something simple, but couldn’t do creative tasks. I tried for a long time to understand why he needs this condition, why does he always strive to be stressed? It turned out that during stress, cortisol is released, the body thinks that this is a danger, and releases additional endorphins. They act as a built-in pain reliever and give us a high. This man was not addicted to stress, but to the endorphins he received during stress.
When we came up with this, I suggested going to the gym. After this, the employee felt better and was no longer constantly dependent on stress. It's not just about sports, but sometimes simple solutions save the day.
By the way, preparing for reports at night and not sleeping is also a form of addiction. Endorphins are similar in structure to heroin.
Note. I recommend the book “Happiness Hormones” and my reports at the link at the end. From the point of view of hormones, I tell you how to work with customers and employees, primarily remote ones. These ideas are also suitable for achieving individual happiness.
Create a “resume of achievements”
At some point in her career, Gretchen Van Vliemen, then a human resources manager at a Chicago company, decided she was ready to talk to her boss about a promotion. At the first stage, she determined what position she wanted to get. “I figured out where there were gaps in the company that needed to be filled,” says Gretchen. “It was clear to me that if I could connect my career path to the company’s core goals, management would have more reasons to promote me.” As a result, she chose a new position: vice president of human resources. This job involved managing the human resources department and finding and hiring new employees for the company.
It's not just business results that matter. You must be the person people are willing to follow.
Before speaking with her boss, Gretchen wrote a “resume of accomplishments” that included numerous examples that showed she was capable of performing the responsibilities of her position and was ready for the next step. For example, Gretchen described how she redesigned internal guidelines for a company using both the skills she honed as a consultant and ideas from the team she was already leading. (Instructions have been distributed throughout.
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Gretchen also developed a plan for how the team would cope if they were promoted. “I made a list of responsibilities that I could easily delegate to the team members I had specially trained,” she says. Then she arranged a meeting with the boss. “I spoke clearly and concisely, based on my resume,” she says. She understands that these things don't happen right away, Gretchen told her boss. And indeed, he did not say “yes” right away. Some things made him uneasy. “He asked tough questions about how I would find time for my many new responsibilities,” she says. The meeting ended with the boss promising to return to the issue in the coming months.
“In the meantime, he gave me some short-term goals.” Gretchen was successful. She was promoted and today works as vice president of human resources at Stratex, a human resources services company.
Images
Man constantly forms images because they simplify life. Why ask each tiger whether he is dangerous or not? The person simply accepted the general format that all tigers are dangerous by default.
One of my customers believed that all employees who smile a lot are bad because they are strange. He chose stern men without emotions as his employees. I don’t know what influenced this, perhaps I was beaten by a clown in childhood.
If you see such a bad image that concerns you, refuse to work with the person. But if that doesn't work, try two methods.
The image is formed from a lack of information.
We complete the image on the information that is available. So please provide more information. If you manage remote employees, tell us more about yourself and the company. Provide more information and perhaps a destructive image will not gather around you. Sometimes it doesn't help, but it's worth a try.
Behave outside the box when things are bad.
Now I recommend that all managers ask customers and employees one question: “How do you like working with me?
What can be improved? The question breaks the mold like a karateka breaks bricks: people are not used to hearing such a question. Any images are broken for everyone if the leader constantly asks such questions. Note. I recommend the book “Games People Play” by Eric Berne
— she goes deeper into the topic.
