09- How Asking For Feedback Can Lead to Promotions
Summary
In this episode, we explain how asking for feedback can be used as a tool to help you achieve your next promotion.
Episode Transcribed
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine started venting to me over a coffee about how she wanted to be promoted from an Associate to a Vice President. We will call her Caroline for the sake of the example. To help you understand the hierarchy at my company, the VP level means you will now begin being a manager. Caroline had been working hard in her position for over 5 years and had a good reputation, but she had just been passed over again for a promotion and was frustrated. She decided to put a meeting on the calendar to ask for feedback to better understand why she did not receive a promotion.
Feedback, in the formal definition, is information on your performance at work which is used as a basis for future improvement. As I have mentioned in the previous episode on the topic, asking others to assess your performance is a fantastic way to constantly improve and advance in your career. 1) It allows you to learn your strengths and weaknesses in order to use the strengths to your advantage and prevent the weaknesses from disadvantaging your performance. 2) It allows you to understand where you should focus your efforts on improving and understand your progress on those improvement efforts. And 3), it can give you a clear view of what your manager (someone with immense control over your career) thinks of you. But the smartcut most people don’t know, is to use feedback as a way to drive the conversation about your promotion.
My friend took the first step and scheduled a meeting with her boss. The email said the objective of the meeting was to receive feedback on her performance. She scheduled it two weeks from that date and provided some questions to help her manager prepare for the discussion.
Providing your manager with ample time to prepare for the meeting is important because the process can even be difficult for good managers, not to mention the not-so-good managers who are consumed with their own tasks. You need to make the conversation easy for them — and open-ended questions can help. For example: 1) Which parts of my communication style would you like to see more of. 2) In my day-to-day work, what should I do more and what should I do less? 3) What do you think I could have done better in that meeting with the legal team last week that would have increased the chances of getting their approval? Some questions should be high level, but some need to be more detailed.
On the day of the meeting, Caroline reviewed some bullet points she had written of things she wanted to discuss, like how she did in a presentation earlier that week and what she could improve on; how well had she done on the last project she had worked on; what could she do to learn more. She then practiced how she would start the conversation, how she would ask for feedback, and how she would transition to discussing a promotion. When the time came to sit down with her manager, Caroline started the conversation as she had planned, with positives about how much she enjoyed working there before asking for feedback.
When you ask for feedback, it is important to be an active listener. And I know it can be difficult, but if your manager says something you disagree with, you need to compose yourself with a smile and wait until they have finished. Then, rather than get defensive, you should ask them to clarify with some examples. A great article from The Muse, which I have linked on my website when you click on this episode, explains the steps to receiving constructive criticism as the following: 1. Stop your first reaction. 2. Remember the benefit of getting feedback. 3. Listen for understanding. 4. Say thank you. 5. Ask questions to deconstruct the feedback. 6. Request time to follow up.
Caroline listened to the advice, took notes, and as her manager was wrapping up, she was able to use the conversation as a natural transition into the promotion topic she was also concerned about. Caroline asked, “If I improve on all the topics you discussed, what else can I do to improve my chances of being considered for a promotion?”
Asking for feedback not only helps you learn and grow, but it also serves as a natural transition to the conversation about a promotion, where you can learn the process and better understand what you need to do to advance. Asking for a promotion is usually a long process that varies from company to company, depends on a multitude of other factors, and often takes years. You can’t just ask once. For example, as soon as you walk out of that meeting, you should be scheduling the follow-up meeting on that feedback so your manager can let you know how you’ve progressed since you last spoke.
In that meeting, Caroline’s manager, unfortunately, said that it was probably too soon for a promotion because the senior management was starting to review the files of the employees nominated for promotions in a couple of months and Caroline still had some things to work on. However, they assured her that if she worked on those things and showed an improvement, then the following year, they would nominate her for a promotion to VP.
She ended up getting that promotion the following year — but keep in mind that nothing is ever certain. Sometimes a promotion will take longer than you wanted; you may find out that your chances of a promotion are extremely slim, but there are other things they can provide you with. Maybe a pay increase, or increased responsibility. Or you may be disappointed to learn what your manager thinks of you. But, by discussing your career ambitions with your manager, you learn how you can improve and grow as an employee, which allows you to increase the chances of you reaching your goals in the future.
Conclusion
To summarize this smartcut, you should always ask for feedback so that you can improve, and if you use that feedback conversation as a way to discuss your career goals, you will better understand the path forward towards advancing in your career. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of career smartcuts. You should all apply this smartcut as soon as possible by scheduling a feedback meeting right now. It is never a bad time to ask for feedback and it is never too early to learn about what you need to do to get your next promotion. Follow or subscribe to this podcast now, because it’s time to accelerate your career towards success, however you define it.
https://www.themuse.com/advice/taking-constructive-criticism-like-a-champ