[00:01.2]
Hello, and welcome along to the next episode of Walk into Your Next Grade. I'm your host, Fiona, and I'm just going to keep the intro short because I hate podcasts with long intros. Anyway, this week's episode is about, well, we're moving back into more traditionally career progression territory, as you might know, if you've been following along for a few weeks, the last few episodes have been really considering the moves that managers need to make in their approaches and development journey as they become more robust managers, which will ultimately help them to progress in their career.
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And this is a sister episode to last week where we were talking about coping as identity and the experience of holding it all together and hoping that someone will notice. With this week, I wanted to explore the lie that we've been told that if I work hard enough and if I'm good at my work, my results will speak for themselves.
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Well, I put it to you that they will, but they might not say what you want them to say and that's really important when it comes to career progression because obviously we want to be positioning you as ready for the next grade and, ultimately promotable.
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I suggest that there's more that we need to do here than just work hard and do good work and hope that someone will notice and promote us, which is kind of a lie, but also for some of us has been really successful approach.
[01:52.9]
Right. Like early in my career, I know I got promoted several times in a row, just kind of got tapped on the shoulder and like, you've been doing all this great work, so we're going to promote you. And I was like, happy days. My husband who works in financial services was like, what is this?
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Like, this doesn't happen in the bank. It's like each promotion you have to apply for, you don't just get paperwork done that regrades you that that isn't a thing. And I totally appreciate that it's increasingly not a thing in H.E. as well, because a lot of institutions have phased out or cancelled entirely their promotion processes, but I still think it's important to consider because obviously this podcast is called Walk into Your Next Grade.
[02:42.1]
And I know a lot of you are here specifically because you're thinking about what you're next career step is and what the moves are that matter most as you look towards that next grade and are developing your management and leadership approaches, skills, identity.
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So let's dive in. So like I said, this one's for people who have progressed quickly and then it just kind of stops happening. So you might find yourself feeling like you're sort of languishing at a certain level of career development.
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Or seniority. And your instinct, based on everything we talked about last week about coping and on this pattern that has been reinforcing, that if you work hard, then you get promoted, your instinct now might be to continue to work harder, to say yes to more things, to get a bigger portfolio, all of that.
[03:41.1]
But at a certain point, that stops working and then what's happening is you're just saying yes to things, working really hard, burning yourself out and not progressing. So let's unpick it because I suspect some of you are probably sitting with quite a lot of frustration and resentment.
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And I want you to hold that really gently because I think it's natural but I also think it doesn't have to be that way. Actually, there are moves you can make that will help to unstick you and get you sort of moving forward in your career in the way that you really want it to and that you deserve it to, because you have been working really hard and you probably are ready for a promotion.
[04:23.8]
It's just now we need to do some different things that are going to activate that move and get you there more quickly. So what's actually happening is, like I said, the kind of. The work speaks for itself mythology, maybe, or law is no longer true.
[04:45.5]
So good work at a certain point becomes the baseline. It's no longer celebrated. You're not likely to be getting that same level of reward and recognition that you've had before it's just the baseline. And there's a book called, something like The Organisational Game by Harvey Coleman, I think, is the author.
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So this book sort of comes about it about this idea by talking about the PIE model. And I think I talked about this in a previous episode early on in the podcast. So a couple of caveats before we dive into this.
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Firstly, the book is now getting a little bit old. It's maybe 20ish years old, something like that. Secondly, it's written by a middle to older age white man, speaking specifically of corporate America.
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So I think we need to take that big caveat into consideration when we're applying the learnings from that book into a modern day H.E. context but it's worth considering. So he suggests that actually working hard is no longer it and instead as you think about progression, we need to consider the PIE model.
[06:02.6]
And what he says is if we think of the PIE as pie chart, only 10% of promotion decisions are based on performance. That's the P in PIE and I'm inclined to agree with him. I'm not sure if it's 10% but a relatively smaller amount than people typically expect is based on performance and that's because when it comes to promotion, certainly if it's in role promotion or what we would think of as regrading, then it's kind of a baseline, is this person performing at that next grade?
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Yes or no. And that's the extent of that bit of decision making. Then he says the rest of the pie is made up of I, which is for image and E which is for exposure. So performance, image and exposure.
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Where he said, I can't remember the exact percentages off the top of my head. I think it's like image makes up 40% and exposure makes up 60%. That doesn't add up, does it? That's 110. I don't know, something like that. Anyway, the point is, what he's saying is, you know, there's a lot more that goes into progression that is about image and exposure than we typically think and although I have some concerns about this framing because I think then we get lots of, we're open to lots of bias.
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We're open to lots of bias about, well, who's judging image and whose image are they hiring in? And favouritism and lots of those kind of ED and I concerns and the bit about exposure, I think is interesting, particularly when we're thinking about flexible working, the increasing pressure for people to be on campus and things like that.
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I think the research bears out that it's still people who are seen more are more likely to get promoted than people who are doing great work, but not seen so much doing that great work. So that's something to consider. The next bit I want to look at is the advice that I definitely have talked about on the podcast before and certainly talked a lot about when I was launching the Getting Ready for Your Next Grade programmes is the advice about operating at the next level before being ready for promotion and being seen to be operating at that next level.
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And here again the concern is that what that advice leads to is people who take on loads of volume, they're not necessarily exercising additional judgement or discernment. And so what you start demonstrating is actually capacity rather than capability.
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So you're showing that you can handle a lot of volume, a really wide remit or portfolio, rather than showing that you can take additional levels of accountability and responsibility and that you're making strategic decisions and all of those things that we know ultimately go into career development.
[09:19.9]
And then lastly, we've got this bit about that we talked about last time, about how when you are in the thick of managing everything, what that means is you're usually not practising the skills of leadership, so you're kind of aversion to anything that feels like politics stops you from practising the skills of leadership.
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And so then you're not being seen leading because you're avoiding doing things like networking and influencing, advocating and positioning because they feel ick to you and you think, well, I don't, I don't want to do any of those gross things and really importantly it's that I don't want to become one of those people like the quote, unquote, sort of nasty HE political leaders.
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So you just stay away from anything that feels like politics. So you're not practising networking and influencing and advocating and positioning. And you're probably really comfortable being of service, really, really comfortable being of service work.
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You know, you go like, in my experience, I was great at getting stuff done, really good at supporting leaders and making sure that things were getting sorted out so that the subject matter experts around my directorate were able to get on and do their jobs well, but that meant that I wasn't then moving up.
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I wasn't sort of ready to take up more space as a leader because I was so busy managing stuff and being really comfortable being of service.
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I also think we need to consider the institutional perspective. So as a line manager and as an institution at large, firstly, like I said, a lot of institutions have actually cancelled their promotion processes, so that is forced people to be applying for jobs elsewhere and thinking about moving sideways and upwards and, you know, not having that same brand or employer loyalty that we might have once had.
[11:31.7]
But when it comes to the line manager's decision or the leadership decision about who to promote, I think there are three things, in two other things, in addition to the assessment of the individual's readiness that the line manager or the person the promotions panel also will be considering before they even decide whether there's a vacancy or a role to promote into.
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So yes, they're considering the people in the team, `re they ready for a promotion? Yes or no. But they also are looking at the work that needs to be be done. What are the demands that are being put on the team around the work? And sometimes the decision is, yes, we should promote somebody because we have enough demand for a more senior type of work.
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Sometimes the decision actually is that we should split this role and bring in another person. And so what we discover actually is there's a bigger volume of work at the same grade, not necessarily the rationale for an additional level of management or a space to promote this person into.
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And the other one really key, especially now and these days, is budget. Does the budget actually have money in it to pay a higher salary? Often, particularly now, the answer is no. And so managers are having to be really thoughtful about what to do with that, how are they using their budget to best effect.
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So it might not lend itself to a, promotion opportunity. And I've seen time and time again people who often, often, but not always, this is with people who have studied at a Higher Education institution and then have got a job at the institution and stayed there, they get to a point usually like about six years in, where they're like, well, I've been here for six years, I think it's time I get promoted.
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And if we consider those things. So we're considering the PIE model, performance, yes, you might be performing well and maybe you just are showing up with exactly the same image that you had when you got this job as a grad six years ago.
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That's probably not going to lend itself to making senior leaders think that you're ready for promotion. If you're not getting out and taking those opportunities to be seen at events and meetings and things like that, that's probably not going to lend itself to leaders thinking you're ready for a promotion.
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And then obviously, like I said, if the work volume is more about how much work there is rather than how senior the work is or if the budget's not there, then that's not going to happen. So there's a question here for you. If you're feeling really resentful and frustrated about not getting promoted, ask yourself really gently, are you actually ready?
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Does the role that you're doing actually need to be regraded or is there something else going on here? Is it actually an issue about, Seniority or volume? Some of those things. What do you know about the budget situation in the department?
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Stuff like that. And then are you demonstrating leadership style thinking? So this is the unpack or the reframe for the bit of advice about working at the next level before you are ready for promotion.
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But I don't want you to take on loads of volume, but what I do want you to do is go back through the previous episode and the episodes that are to come and see where you're at in terms of your leadership thinking. Is there stuff in the team that needs to be resolved that you haven't dealt with yet?
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Is there accountability that needs to be held that you haven't come to yet? Is there more that needs to be sorted out so that you can demonstrate leadership thinking? Or are you showing a great capacity for managerial reliability?
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That's not the same. That's not. Management reliability is not the same as leadership thinking or bandwidth. So the shift here is, at a practical level, we want to be thinking about making the ask. So instead of waiting to be picked, as we might have once upon a time done, or sort of having a vague conversation with a manager about progression, instead we want to make the ask and we want to do it in a much more structured and, you know, sort of senior aligned way.
[16:24.1]
So that might sound like I would like to get to a grade bleugh, whatever your next grade is in the next 12 months, 18 months, whatever that timeline is for you, can you help me make a plan to get there? And that conversation is likely to open up a lot more helpful information, advice and guidance from your line manager that will help you to get ready for that progression than if you just say, oh, I'd really like to chat about progression because they'll go, yeah, okay, and what, and then what?
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What do you want to hear about progression? So this is asking for their support, sponsorship and advice and guidance in how to get ready for that next grade. The next one is communicating in terms of risk and strategy instead of personal requests for reward and recognition.
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So often the frustration that people hold when they're, sitting at this progression boundary is because they're thinking, well, I'm doing so much really good work. Shouldn't I be getting reward and recognition for that?
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Well, yes, you probably should but firstly, there are lots of different ways of expressing reward and recognition. So let's imagine you got a new job title, but you still were getting paid the same. Would that feel good if you got paid more but had the same job title?
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Would that feel good? If you got a staff award from the Vice Chancellor and went to a ceremony, but your job and your job title and your pay stayed the same. Would that feel good? So just be really wary of broad conversations about personal reward and recognition, because that doesn't always equal promotion.
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And thinking about communicating in terms of strategy and risk is where you're doing some of that thinking at the level of budget and at the level of the types of work and level of seniority that the work that you're doing demands and then making a pitch at that level.
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So I had a client a while ago who was invited to do a secondment and she really wanted it to be at the next grade. And when we talked about it, she started talking about reward and recognition. And I was sort of thinking, yes, I can see you're doing great work, but, no, I don't think that's going to be compelling enough for senior managers or senior leaders for them to make this decision to regrade this opportunity for you.
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So instead, we talked about, well, what types of risk are involved in this piece of work? Turned out it was a really high profile project that she was being asked to deliver and it had reputational risk outside of her directorate and outside of her institution.
[19:21.4]
It had ties to the local authority. All these things that if she screwed it up at her original grade, firstly, she could shrug it off and go, well, I'm not that senior but secondly, if the institution, if her senior leaders wanted for this to have some proper seniority about it and for them to demonstrate to that local authority and their other partners that they were taking this piece of work really seriously, then the person leading the project taking herself out of it, whoever got the job, the person leading the project would need to have suitable seniority to be able to make those decisions, to represent the institution at the appropriate level.
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And so she went in to negotiate for the secondment with that approach in mind, thinking about what risks would she be able to protect the institution from if she was operating at a more senior level. And that was a totally different conversation with her line manager than a broad well, I want to be rewarded and recognised for all this hard work I've been doing.
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And then the last bit is backing yourself. Right? So we know a, lot of institutions have cancelled their regrading processes, promotions are few and far between. A lot of institutions are downsizing and so the invitation is to have the conversation.
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I think it's really important to not assume that there are not promotions available and to definitely ask for your line manager's support and mentorship in helping you to get to the next level or get ready for the next level. But ultimately if no roles become available where you are, then back yourself, apply for roles elsewhere because often either you'll get them and that's really exciting and you can have a new opportunity and challenge and it also gives you some leverage to then go back to your original line manager and say, I've applied for this job, I've got, been offered it, I'd really like to go unless there's anything here that is going to help me to stay and that can open up a different type of conversation.
[21:45.4]
So that was a quick whistle stop tour through thinking about career progression, where you are considering what those next steps might look like and trying to disentangle from some of the myths and lore that we've been handed about what career progression looks like and what it is that keeps us stuck and feeling frustrated and resentful.
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And remember, you don't have to wait for confidence, I strongly advise against waiting for confidence because confidence is an outcome, it's not an input. You need courage to go in for confidence to come out. So give it a try. Get started.
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If you want some help. I'm running an event on 11th June in central London that is an in person session and it is going to help you with making the ask. So the scenario that we work on will be developed based on whoever signs up.
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So if you're interested in that, then come along. It's a management practice session. So real life practising, sitting in the chair, saying things out loud that you might not otherwise say, doing so with a really supportive environment with my lovely actor friend Sarah, who's coming along so that you've got someone to say what you need to say to.
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And, I've done this type of work a few times before and it's always really great because you get the opportunity to dial it up a bit and say, you know, what would it be like to be 10% more aggressive? What would it be like to be 10% less aggressive, more confident, more quiet, louder, things like that.
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And we work in teams so that you can kind of figure out tactics and strategies for the different scenario as a group and then you can sort of tag in and out and play through this scenario with Sarah, as you like to, pause and go, that didn't work very well, let's try that again.
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Or I might just jump in and facilitate and check out what worked well, what do we want to try differently and those kind of things. So if you are somebody who's thinking about stepping up and you're thinking about the need to practise that kind of self advocacy that we talked about last time, or making the ask for promotion in the way that we've just talked about in this episode, give that a consider.
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If you're London based or close to London, or happy to travel to London, then, yeah, consider coming along. Drop me a message if you want the details and I will send over all of the details. It's going to be central London, 11th June, management practice because there is nothing like sitting down opposite somebody, feeling the feeling of saying uncomfortable things and getting to practise that before you actually sit down opposite your boss and have to say it in real life.
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All right, that's all for today. Thanks for listening and I will see you next time. Bye.
