Recognizing the Right Candidates to Promote

Since we now have a solid understanding of how a poor promotion can kill profitability, let’s dig into what we need to look for when considering existing team members for any leadership role we need to fill in our organizations. I’ve seen firsthand just how valuable an internal promotion process can be for a company. In fact, having the opportunity to apply for, interview for, and even accept different positions played a significant role in me staying with the same organization for nearly two decades. According to an article from Censia.com called The Many Benefits of Internal Promotion, applying this practice can help capture profit in several ways. The author suggests the candidate will stick with the role longer because they know what to expect, that it saves time and money versus hiring externally, and it can increase engagement, retention, and overall performance.

As I read through everything listed for each, I had to agree… Promoting the right team member can pay dividends for years and years to come, both in that individual’s performance as well as with many of the team members who are able to observe the process taking place. To that end, I always emphasized career growth opportunities in the hiring process - especially when the position paid a little less to start but had a much higher pay range long term. As a quick side, that only works more than a few times when it’s true but I’ve seen far too many recruiters attempt it when they have no intention whatsoever of helping the individual actually take advantage of the opportunities they’re selling…

With that in mind, I’m going to stress that promoting the wrong internal candidate can have just as much - if not more - of a negative impact on the profitability in each of the areas that article detailed! I’ve certainly seen this happen and I’m sure you have too!

A year or two before I accepted responsibility for the internal job posting process at the manufacturing facility I was with, I saw a great example of how much impact this can really have. In one particular department, a fellow applied for a lead role a couple of times in a row. In each case, someone with more seniority and more experience troubleshooting each specific machine in that department was awarded the position. The challenge in each of those cases though was that the individuals with more experience had far worse relationships with the majority of the other folks they would soon have some authority over, where the candidate with slightly less technical experience had developed great relationships with his coworkers.

Here’s where I’ll remind you of that Harvard Business Review statistic suggesting that “Increased commitment can lead to a 57% improvement in discretionary effort—that is, employees’ willingness to exceed duty’s call. That greater effort produces, on average, a 20% individual performance improvement…” I doubt I have to spell out the level of commitment the ones who were promoted actually got from the coworkers who didn’t really like them when they were peers… Not only were many of them constantly frustrated with the individuals selected for the role, they were also very critical of the process that awarded them the position rather than their coworker who had earned their respect.

Don’t get the wrong idea here, I absolutely believe that technical skills, experience, and tenure are critical things to consider for any position. But when that position carries leadership responsibility, regardless of how formal or informal the authority is that comes with it, those factors cannot be all such a decision is based on!

After bidding on that open position a few times and being offered the backup role each time, which was about once each year, the fellow stopped applying for the lead role altogether. He even stopped applying for other roles internally, but he didn’t stop looking for opportunities to grow. It didn’t take long for him to find one either! Soon after finding a good opportunity with a locally owned business, he bought the business and has grown it each year since. And this same guy who didn’t have enough experience to be a lead in a small department was recently named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by his local Chamber of Commerce.

When all things are equal, an individual’s capacity to lead a team can make a far bigger impact on their success when promoted than their current technical ability. Even when all things aren’t equal, how they lead will still make a bigger impact. And while promoting someone with only strong technical skills or the most experience may produce slightly better results right away, other issues can arise soon after…

Joe Knows…

If you ever had the pleasure of watching Bo Jackson play football or baseball, or you remember anything TV ads from the late 80s or early 90s, I’m guessing my “Joe Knows” phrase immediately reminded you of Nike’s Bo Jackson campaign. And just in case it’s not ringing a bell, let’s take a short walk down memory lane…

Bo Jackson was an amazing two-sport athlete at Auburn University and made an immediate impact with both professional teams he played for, The Kansas City Royals and the (then) Los Angeles Raiders. As a kid watching Bo play either sport, it was the closest thing I had ever seen to a real life superhero. He wasn’t just good at both sports, he was one of the best in the NFL and MLB at the time, and I’m convinced that he would have gone down as one of the best baseball players in history had a football injury not cut his career far too short. I’ve always believed that Nike nailed it with their commercials suggesting that Bo could do anything!

With that in mind, let’s think back to the example I just shared about the fellow who was promoted and the one who wasn’t… And let’s pretend that one of those folks who ended up in that lead role was named Joe - because he was! Joe had worked in that facility since God was a boy. Well, maybe not quite that long but he would have been fine with us believing that. He knew just about all there was to know about every piece of equipment in the department and what to do anytime something went wrong. When it came to technical expertise, there were few in the nearly twenty years I was around him that had anything close to the understanding of those machines that he had. Unlike Bo Jackson though, there were a few things that Joe didn’t know; one of which was how not to piss off nearly anyone he interacted with on a routine basis - and that was without being in a position that increased the ego accompanying his skill set.

Before you start throwing stones at me, I need to add that I really did like Joe (most of the time). And I did truly respect him for how much pride he took in the parts he produced. That said, his skill with the machines didn’t necessarily translate to how he worked with everyone in his department, before or after he was promoted to that lead role. I worked side-by-side with him in my early twenties and knew he could be a solid resource whenever I ran into an issue but I usually saved that as my absolute last resort just so I wouldn’t have to deal with his nonsense. And I wasn’t alone. Fast forward 10 to 15 years with him now being the boots-on-the-ground authority in the department and very little had changed. If we were to consider The Many Benefits of Internal Promotion, the only one that article listed that would have been even close to being captured would have been saving a little bit of time in getting an external candidate up to speed. It certainly didn’t increase engagement with the rest of the folks in the department, several bid on other jobs to get out of the department, and I’ll let you guess as how just those two things impacted overall performance; think back to how increased engagement can yield that extra 57% discretionary effort and remember it works both ways…

I’ll stress again here that Joe wasn’t a bad guy, he just hadn’t been provided with the tools he needed to effectively lead a team. I only use that example because it’s one I lived through. I have no doubt that you’ve seen similar scenarios unfold in front of you. The point I want you to consider here is that the team members weren’t the only miserable ones in this equation; Joe was usually every bit as frustrated being in that role. I’ve rarely met anyone who doesn’t want to do the very best they can and he was no different. He had excelled in other areas but this required a different kind of skill, one that he hadn’t been trained for. Joe didn’t stay in that role long term, causing the position to be filled yet again. While it wasn’t the case for him, many folks leave an organization altogether when this happens - and they take all their technical experience with them!

Transitioning from being one of the best do’ers to leading an entire team of do’ers is always tough. The skills necessary are very different and I’ve rarely seen companies effectively prepare someone for this kind of change. But even when the tools are in place, there’s often an internal battle we face when moving from one of the guys to being the boss so that’s worth taking a look at before laying out some specific steps we can take to build a strong succession plan that utilizes of best team members, wherever they’re best suited…

But I Thought We Were Friends?

While Joe was outstanding at pretty much every technical aspect in the department, there was one thing he didn’t have to worry about when he accepted the lead role; he never seemed all that bothered about alienating long term friendships. I think that was largely a result of him being able to frustrate nearly anyone on any given day regardless of his job title! However, I saw more than a few other folks who made similar transitions run into some significant roadblocks as they attempted to navigate leading a team that they had previously been part of - and that killed just as much profitability as the organization ever saved through the internal promotion process…

I want you to consider these two wildly different scenarios, as I’m sure you’ll be able to relate to both…

One fellow had worked in his department since graduating high school. After twenty years or so with the company, he decided to start taking a few classes at the local community college. Since he was doing this in the evenings and working full time, it took a while but he was awarded a supervisory role shortly after completing an associate’s degree in business administration. He was an extremely approachable guy and had solid friendships with just about everyone on the shift he had been a part of as well as with the folks on the off shift where he became the supervisor. Having spent so much of his adult life with that group of people, many of his closest personal friends were in that department. Couple those close relationships with his kindness and approachability, then add in a few old-timers on the off shift who were more than willing to manipulate the situation, and you’ve got a scenario where a new supervisor was having a really difficult time keeping the few hoodlums in line or maintaining respect from the folks who just wanted to do their jobs…

Before moving on, I need to stress that I’m not condemning him. I still consider him a friend to this day. He just struggled to lead a team, largely because he didn’t have all the tools he needed to do so effectively - and that’s the final profitability killer we’ll work through soon.

Another fellow had worked in his role for several years, eight to ten if memory serves, and was fairly effective in leading a small, core group of folks on the assembly line he was responsible for. Each member of that small team was strong in their assigned role and he had earned a significant amount of trust and influence with them. That line routinely had some of the best productivity numbers in the department. This fellow also worked his way through night classes to earn an associate’s degree and was promoted to a supervisory role just after. Unlike the other example, he wasn’t about to let anyone bully him - old, new, friend or foe… In fact, he differed so much from the other fellow (and they shared an office at times) that their team members would frequently go to the other to complain about them! 

The first of the two leaned far more on carrots for luring his team in whatever direction he hoped they might go if he was nice enough. The second took much more of a stick approach (not physically) and often lived by the idea that the beatings will continue until morale improves. In both cases, the internal promotions never captured the profitability that was possible - largely because each of them struggled in one way or another with drawing a line between working with their friends and supervising their employees. In each of these scenarios, and in so many where internal promotions don’t go nearly as well as planned, it’s not a question of whether the carrot or stick approach is better. It’s really a matter of making sure the promotion is a match for the individual, that they’re moving that direction for the right reasons, and we provide them with the support they need to be successful. That last piece applies to every role any given team member is in so we’ll look at it separately soon. What we need to do first though is work through some simple steps we can take to make sure we’re not making bad promotions and unnecessarily killing profitability! Stay tuned…