Building a Promotion Case

"I am promoting you to do the job, not to learn the job. You're going to work with me over the next couple of months to do those things because I am promoting you to do the job, not to learn the job."

"the people that I've had work for me or I've worked alongside that seem to always be the outperformers, are always the people that are just solely focused on having the most impact on the company. I think the thing I learned... is when you focus too much at a company about like, 'Ooh, I want the promotion' you get caught up in this world where you're like, 'If I want the promotion, I need to do what my boss wants.'"

"know what you want out of your career, be clear and ask for it, and then make it easy for your boss or whoever can support or champion you to get you from here to there."

"I think the second thing is really the conversation needs to be about what you being in a different position does for the company and why the company needs it. Often the conversation is, 'I want to be promoted because I want to be a director of PM, because I want to become a manager, because I need direct reports.' Instead of saying, 'Look, your span of control, you have nine direct reports, you need leverage here.'"

"The basic idea of The Magic Loop is five steps and they're very easy. The first one is you have to be doing your current job well... Then step two is ask your boss how you can help... Step three is whatever they say, do it... the fourth step is where the magic comes in. You go back to your manager and say, 'Hey, I'm really enjoying working with you. I'm wondering is there some way I could help you that would also help me reach my goal?'"

"The difference between a senior manager and a director is how you lead and the work you're doing. And you can get as far as senior manager by being really strong in your function and being really good at getting things done. As a director, and as a VP beyond that, it becomes much more about influence, coordination with others, and letting go of being in all the details yourself."

"If you simply wake up every day trying to have the biggest impact you can... that's a really good guiding light. And I remember in my first 10 years at Amazon... I never talked to my manager about it and I wasn't bringing it up. I was just focused on taking my book of business and making it bigger. And then the net result was I was promoted several times."

"Have a conversation with your manager and say, 'I would really like at some point in the future to grow into whatever this goal is... What do you suggest that I work on now so that I'll be ready when the opportunity comes up?'... I'm framing it in the future so that it's not threatening. It's not like going to put my manager on the defensive... And then it brings them onto your side."

"The reason why you should pay attention to this is because it leads to a lot of good things, salary, getting promoted, being happy in your career, being less stressed."

"There are many ways to get promoted, but I will guarantee you one thing, no one is going to promote Lenny if they don't know who the hell you are. So it is not sufficient for them to know who you are. They have to know that you're smart and personable and have whatever skills you've got, but they have to know you."

"I think it's really important to become really good at and also known for something. You could be known for shepherding like the most complex launches because you're just so good at quarterbacking. Working with go-to--market teams and cross-functional stakeholders that could be like your thing. You could be known for working on the most technically complex problems, find something that you can be really, really good at. And the reason I give that advice is because when you do that, you can crush the projects that you get because you're making a name for yourself, reputation, and then you are giving more responsibility. People tend to flock and give responsibility to the people that are known for being excellent at something."

"A lot of these things you don't need to have the official title to do. You can do a lot of it in that capacity as an IC... If you're a part of a company that's growing and has a summer internship program, awesome. Can you go in and sign up and mentor and intern and manage an intern."

"The problem with it is that you're limited to what your manager's ability is to advocate for you, to promote you. And you're also limited by the explicit trajectory of your role at that company and where the there's room for that or not at the company... The method that I use tries to take that power back a little bit."

"I'm a big fan of looking at both the what and the how. So what did they accomplish and how did they accomplish... On the what... it's really about real demonstrated impact. An ideal example is someone who had a strong product hypothesis, they rallied a bunch of people around them... On the how, I just love people who are able to create both energy and create clarity... Then the last thing I would say is followership. Really important for PMs. Do people want to work with them?"

"I have a friend who does resume coaching, and I showed her my resume a couple of years ago. And she said, 'I love your resume except for one thing. Why do you write like a little girl? Say what you did, say what your contributions were. Don't say 'I helped. I may have maybe helped people do this'. Say the impact. Put the number on it.'"

"I think that the biggest one in workplace is focusing career and promotion together. I think that there's perhaps a light connection between promotion and career addition, but I feel like too many people are, the moment we talk about career, they're like, 'Well, let me talk to you. I want to have a career talk with you.' And I said, 'Sure, why don't you find some time?' We sit down together and they're like, 'Well, what do you think I need to do to get to promotion?'"

"I think that the answer of what you do is correlated with what's the real reason. And I think that there may be, I'll suggest four kind of common things I've seen that really hold people back... One is that you just don't have advocacy... The second that's very common now... is the next role doesn't exist... The third is when you are being impatient... And then the fourth one... is really, there is a development area but it isn't quite connected to the individual."

"Getting promoted is way harder if you're not good in telling stories and rallying the team behind the shared goal and all these kind of things, and you usually achieve this through good storytelling techniques. And in some teams, I've seen the product person not being really, really good at it, but then the whole team helped creating these stories and stuff like this. So you definitely could compensate to some extent, but I would consider it a bit of a career staller if you don't get to a decent level of storytelling and to a decent level of public speaking."

"I'm going to say something that might sound a little cheeky, but I think the way to get promoted is to not want it too badly. It is about you have to focus on the impact. It's about having an impact and then doing what is right for the business. So not sort of optimizing things for your promotion... focus on the impact."

"If you're present in your job, and you actually have fun with it and solve the problems, people will come out of the woodwork, say, 'You're great, and tell your boss you should be promoted.' You don't need to ask for a promotion. Your outcomes should speak for themselves."

"One of the things that I think is overlooked is do a really good job at whatever your job is at that point. People have a tendency ... Especially product managers are very ambitious and they want to get to the next level and they're always eyeing the next job, but you're not going to get the next job unless you do really well at the job that you're in. Knock it out of the park."

"Are you helping the business move forward? So it's not about I achieve what I was asked to do, but did you build something that people actually used? It's not about just launching something and did you do the right thing for the company? And that is different. It's a different mindset."