How to Get Promoted (Part 1)

right and it reminds me of the book swallow the frog eat the Frog yes you do need to swallow it so maybe that's the sequel gross yuck hey there friends and welcome to becoming a boss where we take some time each week to talk about a specific situation at work I'm your host Megan and today I'm back with my wonderful husband Justin would just like to say hello husband I'm the husband so our question for the people today is simple do you want to get promoted yes do you want to get promoted because if you do this is going to be very helpful here's why Justin and I have both been promoted a bunch of times and I even turned down a couple of promotions many many yeah for the same job they just kept asking you to get promoted and you didn't want to do it sometimes that's the case that's true I didn't know that that was the case for people in the world I thought just everyone wanted to get promoted until I didn't want to get promoted yeah maybe we should leave that for the end story story story okay well either way we're going to give you some practical handles if you want to be promoted and just to give you an idea I've already Googled it so I've done your research and I got to tell you nothing good is in there okay it said um be creative that was legit it's a creative answer dude no how do you be creative like it's so yeah nope what was something else I found oh the goog said don't be a squeaky wheel could you be a little more unclear possibly if you tried MH all right sounds like it's don't complain but still that doesn't that's not helpful that's not something that you can do it's just right and there's times where you should speak up in fact we'll get to that but it's on the list okay because speaking up is a gift yeah all right well anyway so there are a total of 12 Pro itical things that I want to give you which is kind of a lot so we're going to break it up into two episodes 1 through 6 7 through 12 you get the idea we want to be able to give you the context for each of these steps so that we don't sound like the Google and say something like be creative and not allow any color so MH before we go into the first six though I just want to say we're all in different walks of life and in different stages of our careers but just generally speaking when you get hired you should probably give it a few months to learn your job well yeah and maybe even teach other people how to also be good at their job just you know disseminate the knowledge right at least figure out the bare minimum what are you being asked what are your expectations then do well there because you got to get you got to get your bearings right before you start leading people all right so that being said oh wait you brought up a good point you said before you start leading people but promotions don't always mean that you get to lead people yeah okay well I mean the whole whole premise of becoming a boss is that you're always leading okay with or without the title so maybe I should have corrected myself okay just saying people are watching you that's true do you ever have a boss tell you you're being interviewed for your next job every single day that you come into the office never you've never heard that no I thought that was common yeah because they they're always trying to tell you to wear a suit to work I'm kind of showing my age maybe a little they told you to wear a suit to work yes that's what we were told if you want to get promoted dress for the job that you want not the job that you have I've heard that okay so I'm not alone no well I mean I heard that phrase but I never heard wear a suit to work except I worked at a bank so I had to wear a suit to work regardless it was just dress code to get hired yes common knowledge but not every place you need a suit to wear oh boy you need to wear a suit to work well yeah that's how I took it okay wear a suit every day okay I took that advice like I take most advice threw it away just kidding no I mean I want to I'm going to think it through but I also I'm going to make my own decision true because I have my own experiences MH right yeah so I take my own experiences listen to what somebody's saying determine if it's viable advice yes if it sounds reasonable try it yeah I'm saying try it yourself so what are the six that we're going to be going through this time well I mean I kind of want to get your idea okay I've already got 12 in front of me and I was just going to ask you what do you think are your most important points if you were trying to tell somebody how to get promoted if I were to tell somebody how to get promoted I would say start by figuring out your boss's biggest problem ooh that's on the list ooh cool nice fist bump fist bump all right so yes now why don't you expand upon what you just said before I just jump in yeah sure bosses are trying to solve problems that we don't even know about and so if we know about them we can actually support them and be extra helpful again we want to be able to show that we have capacity we can take care of our current job figure out what their problem is and then give creative oh we can be creative oh my word we can be creative with the solutions that we suggest so now we know what Googs meant yes all right we're crossing over into actually two of them because one of the things that I had is to eliminate problems I found it all right so it's it's pretty far down on my list I thought it was a little higher up but to solve problems and what solving problems has done for me personally because I'm always speaking from my own experience is that it helps you to get noticed when you're going around eliminating people's problems uh people see that problems are being removed they see that you're the one doing it and it's a good look yeah the other thing it does is I actually learned this recently it helps to build your resume when you're going around solving problems my resume was pretty basic I don't usually use it I usually stick with the same company for a long time yeah but it just so happens that I was updating my resume and I took someone's advice which was to take away the basic responsibilities CU if you're a manager you don't need to say that you lead people we get it you're a manager manage lead people blah blah blah so not to say that okay you get what I'm saying yeah the advice was to take away the basic responsibilities and focus only on listing what you've done that was above and be Beyond when you're solving problems this is above and beyond and you can list it if you let a project or if you created a training you deliver a training you can put this on your resume true it's a Resume Builder yes and it gets you noticed right not that you're doing it to be noticed but if you want to get promoted you're going to have to get noticed before you get promoted yeah okay what else you got figure out what you're good at no I didn't have that well tell me what you mean maybe I do have it it just sounds different well I would say with the last one that figuring out what you're good at is also going to be important because if your boss has a lot of problems that you don't want to solve that just overwhelming you're going to need to be able to get creative with using what you are good at to be able to help them in a different way so if one of their problems is that they need to be checking on a lot of co-workers maybe there's something that you figured out at your job that will help the other people that are working alongside you making your boss or superiors load lighter that they can focus on the task that they have at hand they will feel like they don't need to check in as much because you are helping stepping up in leader capacity even if you don't have the title of leader I'm going to put that under problem solving still yeah but in life generally you it's a good idea to know what you're good at and also what gives you Joy do not make me jump into working genius I feel like every conversation is a secret ploy to make me talk about WG it is I just love it yeah me too you should know what gives you Joy yes because your whole life you're at work 8 9 10 hours a day every single day please Jesus yeah you should find out what gives you Joy give us joy in our jobs yeah all right so I'm going to give you a trick it's on my list answer your boss's emails right away it's a good trick it's a good trick now whether or not all bosses need their emails answered right away is aside the point however I accidentally learned that my boss wanted his emails answered right away mhm and since I learned that lesson I just treated all my bosses that way it's funny and you do get a lot of email well maybe not everybody but I get a lot of emails typically in my roles that I've had in the past and I put a little chime on there I know when it's coming in and I answer immediately and how did you learn that your boss wanted you to respond quickly because he would come and hover at me over my desk after he sent the email yes right after oh my word yeah he would just come out and hover yep mhm I learned that okay but since then I have just always made it a habit and I think that it's made an impression yeah people appreciate it people appreciate it they could see it's a priority it is and when you think about how many emails we get in in a day and that you are prioritizing your boss's emails I think it means a lot yeah age and from my own perspective of being in the boss's seat I do appreciate it when my emails are answered right away not expected but it's appreciated and especially sometimes it's urgent yeah so yeah anyway I have another one okay I don't know if it's on your list let's see being the first to arrive okay so it is and it isn't I'll tell you what I have be in the top 10% of character okay this is probably the hardest thing on my list if you're already not practicing but to have good character I know is a generalization but for example being on time is one of them yes another one is to be kind to other people M another one is to do what you said you're going to do yeah these are this is the speed of trust commitments I think I heard in this feed of trust where he talks about do what you say you're going to do being on time to work is also part of keeping commitments because you said you were going to be there yeah so be there 5 minutes late means you broke your commitment mhm yeah and although being late one time out of a year is not that big of a deal being consistent with keeping your commitments is a big deal and people do notice and I will tell you what else they're going to I'll tell you what they're going to notice first when you're late yep they'll notice when you're late yeah to meetings to the office they're always the person that's 5 minutes late and then sends a text message that says sorry I'm late I'll be there soon I mean I've done it but also building the consistent habit of being on time just gets attributed to your character and people remember that when they're considering who's going to get promoted I definitely consider it because I lump it in as part of your character if you can't be on time which is kind of a basic expectation right then are you going to submit the report in time right it adds into can I trust them exactly and I got to tell you I don't trust people okay I've got trust issues you trust your husband I trust you because you do the Speed Of Trust yeah you have great character it's a short list but you're on it at the top there I know thank goodness I'm glad we made it okay another one and probably all of these are going to be on the Speed Of Trust don't talk badly about people yep in fact oppositely to speak positively about people in front of their face and behind their back yeah do both yeah because you want to be the type of person that has more positive things coming out of her mouth than negative that's the type of person you want to emulate yes okay and the last thing I had for character okay volunteer for things ouch so like for my dog shelter no I mean at work okay because a lot of times at the office stuff comes up mhm I think we can say pretty confidently no matter what your job is 98% chance you work in an environment where stuff comes up it's not planned we didn't know it was coming it's urgent surprise yeah so because we know that stuff is going to come up and because most people fear change they will avert I don't know if that's the right word avoid they will avoid yeah and so one of the things that can help you to stand out is when you volunteer for things and embrace the change embrace the change M it's one of the things one of the few things yeah that is inevitable in life it is going to happen it will so you might as well hug it you don't have to love it you have to hug it though yeah make sure it gets taken care of which leads me to okay this has to be on your list number three practice accountability let me see how about extreme ownership these are all book titles yes it's actually it's not exactly on my list here's what is on my list being the top 10% of all performers okay you can't I don't think be in the top 10% of performers with without being accountable maybe you can holding yourself accountable I mean keep commitments between keep commitments and be in the top 10% of performance but I like it we can add it to the list number 13 the same number of Speed Of Trust so what would you say like how would you articulate the importance of that if you want to get promoted I think we need to be able to First hold ourselves accountable yeah so not just doing the job but doing the job well doing it on time figuring out what the expectations are things are unclear understanding completely and not just expecting everybody else to tell us what we need to do all the time taking initiative so you said so many things but all of it I think is under ownership but could you just put it under commitments though keep your commitments no because I didn't commit to hold myself accountable I had a mom and a dad who held my accountable to be mature and become a leader you need to be able to hold yourself accountable before you're going to expect yourself to hold other people accountable okay all right number three what is number three well it's whatever you say I mean I have a list I'm expecting you to just know what's on the list I'm not looking at your list I know you're not looking at that's the fun okay okay eat lots of ice cream no all right I'm going to go next okay prioritize your boss's requests SL goals makes sense this kind of goes along with answering the boss's emails right away but the boss is going to also probably give you goals and requests and my tip is to address those re requests and those goals quickly to prioritize them above the other things makes sense okay don't mess around yeah and get it done quickly deliver results quickly yes because then cuz what you're doing is You're Building trust M You're Building trust that you can deliver results that you can keep your commitments that you can be accountable blah blah blah blah blah all things that you need in order to really lead people effectively yeah and so we're going for get promoted we're probably expecting that at some point you're going to be leading people if you keep getting promoted right and it reminds me of the book swallow the yes you do need to swallow it so that's the sequel gross yuck that means do the hard thing first yeah do the hard thing first it's very easy to just do our day-to-day job and just be like I got to get I got to take care of the things that I need to do but also if there's an urgent request from the boss and they give you an opportunity to be a part of it even if they don't give you an opportunity to be a part of it offering to help knowing that you can take care of solving that problem and taking care of your own things prioritizing their thing first is most of the time probably the way to go yeah yeah cuz it's easy to check things off of the list it's easy to check my own things off of the list that I'm familiar with that I'm good at but to be able to prioritize my boss's problem and figure out something that I don't know can show initiative well I was going to say so you also mentioned ask what your boss ask what you could do to help and so I had that on there as number three oh okay ask your boss what can you do to help and to check in often I had uh one particular boss was really good at keeping his one-on-one meetings and during the one-on-one meetings were're going through all the things and all the time at the end of it I would ask how can I help what else can I do and side note if you listen to your boss carefully listen for intent listen for expectations that they may not say out loud maybe they're hinting at it just pay attention pay attention to their expectations either spoken clearly or they may not even know that they have these expectations they're just back there in their subconscious so listen carefully for what they need for what they want for what their expectations are how you can help them and look for a place so this is kind of what you said earlier whatever that area is that gives you Joy that is a strength for you look for ways to utilize that scale to solve problems yeah that may come up from your boss or otherwise right because it gives you Joy and it solves problems yeah it's reminding me of when I was working in the banking World mhm how it was helpful to also listen to the problems that other people were having but then also what the boss would say about the problems they're facing with the whole department or third parties so it's easy to just talk about how things aren't going well and that would come out first so if you ask questions about what's not going well you'll get breadcrumbs to what their biggest problem is maybe you notice a pattern of your boss seems to be feeling very agitated by something yep asking questions to dig a little bit can give you like you can decipher oh maybe I should fix this mhm so it can be self-reflective or it could be anticipatory where you can make sure that if you notice something is happening that your boss wouldn't like whether it in yourself or in a cooworker you can work to make it better with that and take initiative to help fix that problem yeah blah I know that was a lot but you said it right okay look out for ways that you could be better better or avoid certain things fix problems identify intent okay all right so here's what we got so far we've got they're out of order for me so just hang in here so we've got solve problems being the top 10% of performers being the top 10% of character MH we went over a bunch of those answer your boss's emails right away and also to prioritize your boss's requests slash goals and the last thing was oh we actually went over the next two which was ask your boss what you can do to help ask frequently yeah and also to listen closely to your boss you're not you're looking for their intent their motivation their expectations because they may not come right out and say it right all right so that's it we did great awesome one thing I might mention if you're feeling overwhelmed right now so this is you you want to get promoted but you're feeling overwhelmed and we only went through half of the list nail down two or three that you can do easily get some quick wins under your belt it'll give you that momentum to be able to move forward and get on to the next two okay remember the best place to start is where you are yeah and if that's as easy as asking your boss what can you do to help it is because if you don't know where to start just ask them right so hopefully we got you a good Runway to get started we're going to do one more episode to talk about the back half of this list and we'll dig in more maybe you'll come back maybe it'll be waita you don't know maybe we don't know who's going to be it'll be a surprise well hang in there just like one day you're going to get surprise promoted surprise well won't be a surprise they've done the prep work that's true okay well anyway thanks for listening today and hey do you want to be a part of the show call or text us 864 6191 1683 to share your story and we will get into it about all the things that went wrong also would you share the episode with a friend or tell us a story of your own one more thing do you have any ideas type in the YouTube comments and tell us what you want to talk about and listen friend we know it's not easy but remember that whatever it is you're walking through you're not alone and together we can make the world a better place to work thanks for listening team take care and see you next week I'm the going provide for me that's why stand on the book