Unstuck – The Blog

Category: career

  • Don’t surprise your manager! – My advice on how to develop your career.

    Don’t surprise your manager! – My advice on how to develop your career.

    So you are applying for an internal position, maybe even one that would count as a promotion. I will give you my best piece of advice here. The most important one is not to surprise your manager with the application. When applying internally, you need to consider the working relationship with your manager, and how to make sure that this relationship does not get hurt from applying. This is different when applying outside of your current company, so keep this in mind when reading this post. I will be back another time when it comes to searching for a position outside of your current employment.

    So why am I saying that you should not surprise your manager? The first thing is that when you apply internally, your manager will most probably get to know that you did, even if you are not saying it. The conversation that will take place if you where not open about applying might be good, the risk is however that the trust that was there is damaged.

    Any manager worth his or her salt will be interested in your development and try to invest as much energy as possible in making you ready for the promotion that you want. To do this, the openness has to be there, you have to be clear on what you want as your next step, when you see it and where. What you should expect in return is if this is the right one for you, and what kind of support you could get. So that is why you should not surprise your current manager with your application, as your manager, I wan’t to be a part of your development and surprises does not make it easier. More about development talks here.

    What I also do, is to prepare your succession. I have a plan for each and every key leader, with alternatives as successors, actions on how to prepare them. This is work that needs priorities, and to do this I need to know where the exit risks are. If you surprise me with internal applications, the priorities needs to be changed.

    The next part is that if you apply within the company for another role, and you did not do the work to talk to the hiring manager before writing your application, you are not playing your best game. You need to know what is important for the role, and what is not written in the posting. This is really hard to do if you never talked to your future leader. You want to stand out from the competition, you want to show that you are the one for the role – then make sure that you are prepared.

    If you need help on getting prepared for the next step, coaching can be one of the most powerful tools available. I’m ready to support you!

    If you feel better in an accountability group – check out my friend Mike.

  • Episode 3 – introducing Bob

    In episode 3, we introduce Bob. He will be our persona from all your stories and letters. He is changed in such a way that it will not be possible to know which company, country or person he really is.

    Bob had worked almost a decade for his company, loved it, had a good network at work an was really respected. He had absolutely no intention of leaving, on the contrary, he pictured himself as a department manager. After all, he had the experience and knew that he could do the job. Being well liked by the colleauges, it was obvius that he could contribute even more after being promoted.

    One day, that position was free, and Bob applied! After going through the normal process, he got the feedback that he would not be a candidate for the job. Furthermore, he got a list of arguments, a list of why not’s. And to his disappointment, there was more. He was expected to stay as a coworker and train the new department manager, since the new guy was really inexperienced.

    Long story short, Bob found himself leaving a job, a company and an environment that he had loved. He is now successful somewhere else.

    What can we learn here?

    There are at least two lessons here, one for Bob’s manager and one for Bob. We will only talk about what Bob could learn, this giving all of us the possibility not to go through the painful dissapointment he had to.

    If you, as Bob, have a dream, you think that you could do another job well, maybe the one of your manager – does the world know that? Most important, does your manager know? The point here is that if you tell people about your dream, it will be easier to get there, you will in some aspect be held accountable by your environment, which will help you get there. The other point is that if your dream is crystal clear to your manager, you should be able to know if there is support for your dream.

    It might be the case that your manager can’t support the dream, which gives you the possibility to continue anyhow, to prove that he or she is wrong, or to adjust the dream and the goals. All of these choices are better than being surprised and dissapointed that the support was simply not there when the possibility was.

    For sure, getting the message that your potential is not perceived in the way that you see it, that can also be dissapointing. It is still better to get that message early. That feedback, given in the right way, is a gift.

    As Bob, you have to work up the trust with your manager, the trust to talk about the dream. How, start with other people. Maybe your dream is crazy. But crazy dreams sometime comes true for those who will not let them go. So, ask your self, does your manager know your most important dream? Is the support clear?

    Otherwise, what is your plan now?