Get Promoted Without Promoting Yourself

Higher. Bigger. More.

Not so long ago, that's what getting promoted was all about. The aim was the top. The way to get there was by climbing the ladder, accumulating the badges of power: a bigger title, a bigger office, more people reporting to you. Everybody knew how to win at this game. You got ahead by climbing over the backs of your coworkers. And by kissing the...hand of whoever was in charge.

The game has changed.

Try: down, sideways, and sometimes up. Try: smaller, less.

The career ladder's been hacked to just a few rungs. The new path is full of switchbacks. You've got to meander -- taking different jobs so you can learn more skills. The size of your office? Who cares? You're never there anyway!

The rewards are different, too. New assignments mean resources, freedom, choices. They mean access to better teams, better projects.

It used to be that a career was a career. You knew what you wanted and how to get it. Now the path is unclear. Sandy J. Wayne, a management professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently asked 570 employees and 289 managers at a large U.S. company to rank the most important factors influencing promotions. For the employees, having an MBA from a top school came first. Their bosses gave leadership skills first place. Employees also gave a high rank to having a mentor. Executives hardly mentioned this at all -- they looked for a strong work ethic.

How do you get past the discrepancies and catch up with the new thinking on getting promotions? Read this edition of Tool Box. It profiles people who've been there and identifies lessons to learn and actions to take.

Don't forget the one truth about promotions that hasn't changed: those who get results, get ahead. To move forward, create a new product or fix a problem.

And take satisfaction from this: no more puckering up.

There's a super job and you've got your eye on it. You're even sure you've got it locked: You've earned it. Your skills match the job. You've aced your performance appraisal. You've sized up the competition. You know what they're looking for. You're the best person for the job. So the job's yours, right?

Wrong.

In fact, according to Marian N. Ruderman, a research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, most of what we know about promotions is wrong. Ruderman's findings, published in her report, "The Realities of Management Promotion," come from in-depth interviews with managers in large U.S. companies.

What follows are six myths about what it takes to get that super job -- and advice from Ruderman on what actually works.

Myth: A promotion is a reward for past performance.

Ruderman asked 66 managers in three large companies why they believed they had been promoted, and all 66 gave the same answer: they earned it. A much different picture emerged when Ruderman spoke with their bosses. Sure, the promoted managers were talented, dedicated people who had performed. But "circumstances other than accomplishments played a key role in choosing a particular person for a particular job at a particular time," she says.

A promotion's context, it turns out, is just as important as the job's content. Some people are promoted because they're available -- an operation is phased out, a job ends prematurely and the company creates another position. Others (perhaps with more talent) also have the skills but can't make an immediate move.

The Lesson: Opportunity plays a critical role in deciding who gets ahead.

Action to Take: Create opportunities. Volunteer to be on a cross-functional task force.

Myth: A promotion is all about matching your skills with a clearly defined position.

Conventional wisdom holds that the best candidate is the one who fits a set list of requirements for the job. In practice, however, often it's the job that's tailored to fit the candidate.

Promotions are extremely dynamic: new positions are created, existing positions are reinvented. Sometimes the position is so new that the hiring manager can't fully define it -- so he hires someone who seems to qualify and then lets the candidate define the job.

"When we started interviewing people, a lot of them would say something like, 'My situation isn't all that standard. They created a job for me,'" says Ruderman. "There's a tremendous amount of customization going on at the upper managerial level."

The Lesson: Jobs are flexible -- they're often adapted to match the candidate's skills.

Action to Take: Propose your own job. Study your company's needs and strategies. If you have a skill in that particular area, make the case for a job to be created that capitalizes on your talents.