Say you're a manager, and the most productive member of your staff asks you to support her as she seeks a promotion.
* What is best for your company?
* What is best for this employee?
* What is best for you as team leader?
Let me simplify that last one for you: What is best for you as team leader right now, this quarter and next, trying to hit your numbers and run a successful team?
I think we all know the answer to these questions. You don't want to lose her. Doing so will make your job harder. You'll have an opening where before you had a star. You'll have to go through the arduous process of recruiting, hiring, and training - even if you replace this star with an even more talented performer in the long run, right now and for the next 6-18 months, you'll be operating at a talent deficit as that person ramps up.
So here's what you can do:
* Say yes, and take your lumps in order to support your company and your staffer. Long term this will reflect very well upon you and help you in your own career, I'm certain. Short term, you're in for some pain.
* Say no, and sit on this person as long as you can. In the short term, your numbers and your own job performance will continue to thrive.
Those are the options most managers will see. Yes or no. We live in a binary world. Next topic.
...Only here's the thing. Your employee has options as well. Here are her choices when you say no to her request for support.
* Take her lumps and bide her time until a future date, when you do support her move.
* Seek a lateral move within your company, so that she can get out from under a boss who's holding her back against her best interests.
* Update her resume and start looking for a new employer where she can exercise the skills she has sharpened since joining your team. And remember, it isn't 2009 anymore. The job market is warming up - in some sectors, it has already heated up considerably.
One more consideration, and this is the most important to me anyway: Manager, what will your boss think of all this? Or her boss? Or the CEO?
Remember my earlier question, What is best for your company? That is where the CEO is coming from. And let me tell you something. If your CEO is half as savvy as he needs to be to keep his job, he isn't going to look with favor upon one of his managers keeping his top talent from rising to serve the company more effectively.
Just sayin.
As always, your comments are vital to me as I continue to develop my own thoughts on this topic.
I would say to support her with the understanding that she has to stick around look enough to train the next one hired so that the down side isn't quite so bad.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely she should be supported in promotion as has earned it, she is a star, and as example to others within team.
ReplyDeleteI have in my career as Manager Customer Service & Support teams, encountered this issue many times. I always had support from my manager, VP and CEO to encourage promotion within.
In one instance I recall that my entire team was ready and desired to move from Customer Support to Development teams - "Woah! Now hold on here!" How was I to manage a completely new team (this was in a start-up company where I had 8 TSRs and was expected to grow to 20). Solution was found by a stepped approach - discussed how long each person felt they were willing to hang in and how we could replace and grow as a result. It became a team solution. In the end one member was promoted immediately, as his expertise we could best backup and hire new as well, with a buddy system in place for training. The others were given a time-frame of when could move onward, such as 1 month, 3 months or in one case was 6 months. With the understanding that we would require collaboration and training from the expert moving on, for a defined time. This was all documented, agreed on by team and the future managers of area of promotion. It worked, and possibly was easier to do within smaller company of 100 employees, than a huge conglomerate enterprise. I have seen it work within the enterprise as well, by an agreement made between departments/managers of open communication and availability being agreed on for the new hire. Often it is a simple email, IM message etc that needs to be answered. The other requirement was 'documentation' - as if how to do the role did not exist, then that had to be created first. In this example with the entire team wanting 'out of Support' - most did have documentation, or were able to complete in time-frame allotted. Additionally for the one role that we had difficulty releasing for 6 months due to the specific expertise was held by him alone, we did accommodate by allowing partial time to be spent within Dev team, to encourage and motivate. Also it made visible an issue that we resolved by replacing that expertise with 2 people, rather than having a single point of failure in our knowledge pool.
End result in my example - we created an extremely cohesive team and developed improved collaboration between Support & Dev.
Ultimately my answer is:
1) YES promote
2) Plan approach with team
3) Ensure documentation in place and current for role
4) Have buyin from new manager
5) Celebrate within company to encourage promoting within
6) CEO and other top mgmt should be involved in congratulating employee and manager.
There is an underlying problem in this scenario that the "leader" has missed. In fact, the problem is larger than the question of support or not support your best and brightest.
ReplyDeleteWhy does your team member need the promotion? Is it monetary? Is it job satisfaction?
The hint is that she needs your backing for the promotion.
The hint is that she isn't naturally seen by the "leadership" for the star she is.
If she is that great, others should know, unless communication and visibility to the outside world are being controlled by the leader.
Of course you should back her, because you haven't till now.
You should not and cannot control teams this way.
What is best for your company is what is best for the team. If you keep her back, you loose productivity, moral, and most importantly trust.
Besides, having a former member of a great team in a higher place might mean good things for the team as a whole.
So stop being so selfish thinking it is all about you. Take one for the team. Help the promotion and start building your team right.
Having experienced a similar situation from the employee's side, after my manager blocked three attempts to transfer within the company, I left. Without even having a job lined up, only interviews. If you keep holding people back, they will head for the door and all that company/product knowledge will leave with them.
ReplyDeleteI like the way the other comments have tried to come up with win-win situations.
There's also the idea of reciprocity: when the manager supports the employee's goals, the employee will support the manager's goals. How? By encouraging a top-notch connection to the upcoming opening.
ReplyDeleteSince the opening is going to happen regardless of whether or not the manager helps the employee, it's better to act in a way that will have a greater chance of benefiting the team.