Pride and Promotion
I work in an organization where the promotion, as most of us know it, does not exist. A promotion is elevation of position, often out of the blue, in acknowledgement of fine work. That's not to say there isn't opportunity for moving up within the organization, but vacancies have to be duly posted and interested parties apply. The trouble with this system is that employees have to put their pride on the line to apply for a position, wondering if management has someone in mind and if they are simply wasting their time by filling out the tedious paperwork. It's almost like holding up a sign in junior high PE class that reads, "Pick me!" If you aren't picked, it's all the more humiliating because everyone knows you cared...you wanted to be picked.
Some employees, in an effort to spare their pride, assume that management will wink and nod in their direction, offering clues that they should apply, if it would be in their best interest. More matter-of-fact employees are bold enough to ask, "Should I apply for this position?"
As one might guess, asking a supervisor or some form of management if you should apply for a position is rather pointless because they simply cannot prejudice the process. They’re going to say, "If you're interested, I encourage you to apply." But here's the thing: It's not simply management covering themselves for legal reasons. Very often the outcome cannot be predicted and to attempt to do so can really hurt an applicant. I've seen times when an employee wouldn't apply for a position because they felt another was sure to get it…and then that person didn’t apply either. So apply. It's your lottery ticket.
Having said that, the business of selecting an applicant among coworkers is sensitive business and it isn't easy for anyone. No one likes to stand in a line-up and be told they aren't the best. Often employees assume that favoritism is the driving force and that the entire process is like a chess game manipulating lives.
This subject is foremost in my mind today because I'm in the midst of it now. I probably slept two hours last night, and that was only accomplished by sheer force of will. Yesterday one employee resigned unexpectedly, after just four months work. It wasn't dissatisfaction, but a lifestyle change and move that drove the resignation. Yet, it was tough to take because the programmer analyst was very talented...that much was clear in even a short period of time.
At the same time, we were hiring our first DBA ever. Up until now the responsibilities were shared among those with greatest interest in databases. This was a position we had been trying to get approved for years and we finally did it. (There was a time when I would have given up my premium interior office in the former morgue and any other perk I had, such as my white board with indelible marks that no amount of erasing will whiten, for that job.)
The position was posted externally, but we had more qualified applicants internally. Coworkers were put in the position of competing with one another. Could any one of them have done the job? Probably so, especially given time and adequate training. Those that interviewed and were not selected were quite gracious to the one that was selected and expressed their desire to support that person. Yet, I can say with confidence that the process could not have been more painful for them than it was for me. Sending rejections to strangers you've only known for the span of a one-hour interview is not fun, but tolerable. But to people you work alongside every day? Sigh. But the saga isn't over. The dominoes start cascading. A Systems Analyst gets the DBA spot, so a Systems Analyst spot is open. If that happens to be filled by a Programmer Analyst II, then a Programmer Analyst I spot is opened. Each one has to be posted and the formal process followed. Ah, but if anywhere in that line of events there happens to be a strong external candidate, well, expectations are built and are dashed again.
The thing is, employees on a team feel like they have a pretty good grasp of the pecking order: who is strongest, weakest, and in-between. I do think that if I asked 10 staff to rank each other on their team, the list would not be identical, but there would be some definite patterns. The biggest deviation would come from the individual him/herself. I'm not sure, but perhaps it's a protective psychological mechanism, refusing to allow the brain to process a reality that cannot be accepted. In real life, supervisory terms, no one is generally the worst or best at every dimension of the job. This one's the best programmer, that one the best communicator, that one the best at troubleshooting, that one the most reliable and patient, etc. When a position opens, the supervisor has to look at what dimensions are most important to the team at the time. Yes, it can change based on the dynamics of the existing team members.
Maybe the organization I work for is not typical, but I don't know. When I worked for a large pharmaceutical company, it was not unusual (and it was allowed) for a supervisor to refuse to release an employee for a promotion/opportunity in another department because the employee was considered vital to the organization. Just like that. Valuable, but essentially punished for being indispensable.
In the traditional, good-ole-boy organization, job promotions were typically doled out based on longevity. At least that was less subjective, though not always deserved. Personally, I believe that the employees who deserve an opportunity/promotion are the ones who have been extending themselves already in daily leaps of faith to keep their skills current and do what needs to be done, whether or not it was technically in their job description. Sort of like dressing for the position you want, not the one you have, except it has little to do with fashion.
There are times, though, that the decision about who gets what position will be very close calls and disappointment is bound to ensue. How one responds to that disappointment (bitterness versus grace) may have a lot of bearing on how the next promotion/posting plays out.
The only thing tougher than feeling like a pawn in the game is being in a position of knowing there is rarely a hiring decision that will leave everyone involved feeling satisfied and treated fairly.
Hidden benefits...
As you said, people who work in the same team know very well the «positions» of other team members. This means that information is available to the company management and they only have to find the way to «gracefully extract it». What I would like to know is: do managers deliberately decide to have this kind of promotion politics in the company? Is that some kind of strategy? It seams like they are not thinking at all but probably there must be some hidden benefits in this process…
I love your post because it shows how complicated relations between people can become. Such issues are definitely something that management should invest effort in.
And a lot of material for discussion in this post.
Deliberate decisions and good intentions
Interesting question: "Do managers deliberately decide to have this kind of promotion politics in the company?"
I expect at some level they did: the very highest level probably made this policy, but all the managers having to live within the system did not.
Having said that, you can imagine what might have precipitated it. The thought may have been that it would be more fair. If a manager gets to wave a magic wand over someone's head and promote them, just like that, the other employees may say, "Hey...I was qualified for that position too and wanted it. I didn't even get a chance to discuss it."
With this system, every interested party can apply and potentially make known why they are the best candidate.
With just about every system (politics, or whatever) there are inherent flaws but a seed of good intention.
Promotion
...absent here are alternative models.
Suppose that in parallel to the actual needs of the company for specific managers, a parallel system, like military "promotion" rewarded both seniority and accomplishments with "rank", and that there would be real pay differentials and benefits for "rank".
Thus, if you don't get the promotion to site manager, you still can look forward to accomplishing weekly goals and getting certified, and, in a process more under your control, rising to "chief programmer" with or without line authority.
In fact, Gerald Weinberg saw the need for this because it gives people a better sense of control over their lives, independent of the whims, fears, sexism, and racism of management.
But, since the time when Weinberg saw that a career path independent of management was needed, the corporation has steadily pushed out the idea, coding the very idea of a recognized programmer status independent of the so-called "needs" of the company (today's crisis, usually) as something completely unnecessary.
In the 1960s, there was some sort of hope, on the part of mere computer programmers (many of whom were women, minorities, and gay, who'd broken into a paying career because managers couldn't, not in this lifetime, program their own goddamn computers although this was in fact the original value proposition) that they could step outside the culture of ageism, sexism and racism that governed promotion or even entry into the white collar world.
A savage counterattack, a savage *Kulturkampf*, ensued.
After Reagan's election the entire issue of data processing became remystified by incantatory formula about elitist programmers versus innocent, starry-eyed, visionary owners and managers.
Today, from Donna's posting alone, it appears that this battle has been won by management.
The result is that simple, "bread and butter" systems don't work. Norton Internet Protection seems unable to provide a meaningful "splash" screen while it is loading or to detect other instances of itself, because, it appears to me, the GUI team was separated from the kernel team. Web-based code repeats ALL the horrors of client server because its programmers, ten years ago, were not consulted as to whether HTML even works for the purposes to which it was set.
And, the result is geopolitical. In reading Bob Woodward's new book STATE OF DENIAL, about the miserable cock-up in Iraq, I am continually struck by the absolute reliance placed on end-products of this broken system.
I got made a Project Manager a couple of years ago. I discovered that the system was seriously broken and made recommendations for a re-engineer, but the client was on the verge of suing the firm for previously broken promises. I was demoted immediately, with a cut in pay, to Technical Writer. I organized all the documentation including the online documentation (for which, of course, I needed far more than a tech writer's skills), I managed and trained a new guy, I implemented a daily build policy, and left the firm. My boss thanked me, with apparent sincerity, for making the first genuine progress on this system in months, but the client, a former Navy officer, was hopping mad at me for my unmilitary habit of falling asleep while giving presentations (having just worked 24 hours straight) and telling this swabbie the simple truth...he was a damned fool for trusting his son in law's father to deliver.
Thus ended, again, my brilliant career in management.
Technical and Managerial Tracks
Where I worked previously, at a large pharmaceutical company, we had distinct technical and managerial tracks. At one point my manager pretty much said to us, "Be thinking about where you belong...which track you aspire to." Those at the highest end of the technical track, with no direct reports, earned just as much as those who were traditional supervisors/managers.
I'm afraid my post may have been judged harshly in respect to the degree of opportunity for non-managers. As I type this, I have someone reporting to me who makes more than I do, and he has no reports. It is a senior level technical person who has both demonstrated his ability and been here a good number of years.
I can tell you that no one who reports to me, despite their considerable talent, has expressed a willingness to advance into management if it means having direct reports and doing performance reviews and such. However, we do have the concept of "technical leads" and the pay potential is in the same ballpark.
My only gripe with this system is the inability to "reward" someone with a promotion. The end result may be the same...the person deserving of a reward may get the job...but they have to jump through some hoops and others may get their hopes up in the process.
An alternative...
...is to act as if everything made sense in any position you find yourself in.
Just tell the company how you can do the job better than anyone else and put EVERYTHING on the line.
It is a paradox that with my Bad Attitude I say this.
I say it because last year, I wanted a job in Hong Kong as a teacher in a prestige firm, being heartily fed up after thirty years of the software business, and the sort of self-reflexive self-questioning head games you have to inflict upon yourself.
I expressed this committment to the hiring manager, and "one day at a time" walked through heat, daily trips on the ferry, no money, and Chinese bureaucracy to get the work permit.
Whereas if one is embed in a system, such as the data processing system, one has something to lose by asking for a promotion. I had two little kids at home when at the Chicago-bezerko consulting firm I worked at in 1980, I made, as per the announcement, a written application for Washington DC manager.
I was humiliated because a "friend" who was my manager took me to a meeting with the owner, a uniquely selfish person with an exagerrated reputation for brilliance, and I was told at that meeting that every one of the views I expressed in the application essay was not wanted at the firm.
Yet I hung on, with two little kids at home.
We all have it in us to survive when we have nothing. It's when we have a life outside of the job and when we don't confront the raw power of an abstract society head on that we disempower ourselves by trying to solve an equation with so many variables.
I think it's quite wrong that we find ourselves only by putting ourselves in extreme situations, such as being in Asia and close to homelessness. Because instead of building upon our labour and the labour of preceding generations, our self-interest is in "disruptive technology" and fighting and winning destructive, Oedipal struggles.
The corporation gives us a Hobson's choice. We can elect to be in the rear with the gear, and exhaust ourselves in two different jobs, our job, and proving ourselves worthy of the job. Or, we can elect to Fight the Power, but only on an individual basis.
Remember the rule in chess. A pawn becomes a Queen if she makes it to the other side. Therefore advance as if everything made sense.