May 2, 2007
‘Can I prevent the promotion of this talented employee?’
I work for a big media group as head of a department that is something of a backwater. Consequently, I struggle to get my share of the organisation’s talent. A year ago, I recruited a number two who is outstanding. He is full of energy and ideas, is charming to work with, and seems to like the job.
Unfortunately, my boss’s boss is now trying to poach him and has asked me if I think he has the maturity and people skills for a high-profile new role. I know he has both, and that he would dearly love the opportunity to prove himself. But I can’t afford to lose him. Can I talk his skills down in order to keep him for a bit longer and still look him in the eye?
The success of any business lies in the management and development of its human resources. It is your obligation to ensure your staff develop and prosper for their own good and the good of the organisation. Suggest you have an open dialogue with both your employee and your boss. Find out the best development and succession plan for your staff and demand from your boss the same in return. You should have access to the best people for your division as well and if you are seen as the right sort of leader, you will attract them.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm | Report this commentAge (29), Private Equity, Male
On a practical level, organizations talk, and if the word gets out to him that you talked him down to keep him, he will never trust you again. The open route is the way to go (agree with the first comment), but at the end of the day I think the key is to make sure you do right by the Number 2.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 2nd, 2007 at 4:45 pm | Report this commentYou hired the guy and now your department has at least one example of bringing top-notch people on board. Are there others? Can you repeat the trick? Remember that you are getting paid to advance the goals of the organization and not just your personal agenda.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm | Report this commentIt speaks well of you that you would be uncomfortable with disparaging your recent recruit just to take advantage of his apparently stellar capabilities. People being the ultimate resource in any business and particularly in communications, this success suggests your department may not be so “backwater” after all. Support the fellow and take credit for finding him. Do it again and the boss’s boss may see a critical skill in a supposedly out of the way place and advance your career.
One unkind little question - Are you sure your reluctance to advance this guy has nothing to do with the fact that he will move to a slot on the same reporting level as your boss?
Your initial plan to spike his promotion perhaps suggests why your department is a backwater. Give him a glowing review and let him go. Other talented employees in the organisation will see that your department offers career progression and will be keen to join you.
Banker, Male, 44
Posted by: Anonymous | May 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm | Report this commentWhat you say and do probably won’t have much impact on whether your number two gets promoted. Your boss’s boss will rely on his own judgment and has probably made up his mind already. The only thing it will affect is how your boss’s boss and your number two think of you. The question for you is how best to get credit for it all - from both of them - and how to exploit that for the good of your backwater!
Female Lawyer, 34
Posted by: Anonymous | May 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm | Report this commentFirst, You have an ethical obligation not to talk down your employee just to suit yourself. Second, and more importantly, it surely will get around that you are a disloyal boss, and you will soon have disloyal employees. Third, the employee might not get the position anyway. Fourth, if you bad mouth your employee to your bosses, you might end up being forced to get rid of the employee or be seen to supporting an employee who cannot cut it. Anyway, you look at it, it is a bad idea.
I would try to be as supportive of the employee as you can and use your employee to help identify a similar person to fill the role.
Male Lawyer, 44
Posted by: Scott Wright | May 2nd, 2007 at 7:28 pm | Report this commentWell, one way for both of you to be happy is for you to poach the job which was offered to him, and recommend him for promotion to the position you’re vacating. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out about his plans as most folks being recruited like to brag about it, most likely including to other people in your department who will be happy to curry your favour by telling you about it.
Posted by: Giorgio Lauri | May 2nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm | Report this commentYou’ve got a great opportunity to help develop your business and your number two so, after confirming that he really would like the opportunity and is prepared to pay the price of promotion - longer hours perhaps being one - then act as honest broker and help smooth his progression. At the same time you should get agreement for another internal job move to fill your vacancy with another high-talent individual or for another external hire now you’ve shown yourself capable of selecting top talent.
Consulting Actuary, Male, 42
Posted by: Anonymous | May 3rd, 2007 at 5:56 am | Report this commentThis may be a test; try to sell him down the river and the next time you look him in the eye he may be firing you ! and serve you right.
I used to take a pride in recruiting, training up and seeing my choices of people zoom up the ladder. Praise him to the heavens and take all the credit going for finding/developing him. Praise spread around multiplies, you could be seen as the greybeard Ghuru, blocking him will make you the sour old f@rt due for the grass.
Posted by: grapevine | May 3rd, 2007 at 4:15 pm | Report this commentYou should not hold back this employee’s career progression and development. Your problem is not a staffing one, it is an organizational one: your department is a backwater. If this is because your department’s work is non-critical to the organization, then the skills of your sought-after number two are best employed elsewhere. If you’re a backwater due to lack of recognition of your department’s critical function, then you need to do a better job of self-promotion and advocacy. Either way, the problem lies with you. Retaining human capital you don’t really need (greed) or failure to punch at your organizational weight (poor leadership) are both bad reasons to stifle a promising talent.
Civil Servant
Posted by: Anonymous | May 4th, 2007 at 1:56 pm | Report this commentAge 30
Male
Let’s forget any notions of integrity, morality, treating others as you would like to be treated etc. because you appear to be way in front of most of us in forgetting them. Let’s just concentrate on the practicalities.
How long do you think it’s going to be before suspicion turns into certainty revealing your dishonesty to your employers and to your number two? The fact that your boss’s boss has apparently noted your report’s abilities, indicates that you are going to be fighting a losing battle trying to convince anyone that he lacks maturity and people skills. If you behave honestly you and your department may gain a good reputation for selecting and developing talent that should help you to recruit good people.
If you behave dishonestly you will gain either a reputation for failing to recognise talent and achievement or for dishonesty. Furthermore there may well be someone leaping up the organisation who is “full of ideas and energy” and who views you with loathing and contempt.
Posted by: Ironybrew, 57, Retired, Male | May 4th, 2007 at 7:51 pm | Report this commentWhile I admire the ethical fiber that has brought you to this forum, I wonder if there isn’t a more deeply seated intellectual honesty that must now come to play: your best status-quo pitch must be made to your number two directly, convincing him of everything that should keep you together (and dare I say, bring you together!)
Entrepreneur
Posted by: David Crosby | May 7th, 2007 at 1:23 am | Report this commentage 45
male
Are you mad?
Praise him to the skies and make sure your boss(and anyone else who will listen) knows exactly how much hard work and effort you’ve put into developing new talent for the business.
If he works out at his new job the glory will entirely reflected upon you if he doesn’t you can blame the differing management style of yourself and your boss. “He was great when he worked for me!”
When he’s a high flyer he’ll remember who gave him his start.
Posted by: FD | May 7th, 2007 at 11:47 am | Report this commentSeize the opportunity to stop ‘struggling to get your share’ of the talent pool. You might have a chance to hand pick an internal replacement. Keep developing talent and sharing the results. We live in a small world; so a word of caution, he won’t be the only person you can’t look square in the eye. People will know; they will most definitely know.
Posted by: David Scarbeary | May 7th, 2007 at 8:55 pm | Report this commentThe ruthless prosper most. You have two choices:
1) Subtle: exaggerate his qualities to high heaven until your boss’s boss either smells a rat or sees your chaps as a threat…
2) Not-so-subtle: tell your boss’s boss that you want something in return.
Posted by: Banker, male, 34 | May 8th, 2007 at 1:44 pm | Report this commentNo you shouldn’t. You are (in theory) a big boy and these things happen, live with it. They’ll leave in any case and you gain a valuable ally elsewhere.
Posted by: PR, male, 32 | May 8th, 2007 at 5:33 pm | Report this commentI would suggest you let him go and ask him to find you a good replacement. He might know of someone with euqal or even better talent and skills.
Posted by: Omar | May 9th, 2007 at 7:03 am | Report this commentWhat a crawler you are. You want to keep back talent so that your life is easier. THIS is the reason you are in a backwater department - it’s because YOU have no talent. Are you sure it’s not jealousy in operation here? And why the hell are you not moving on and up? Oh I’m sorry, I answered that in my first line…
Posted by: Fund Accountant, Male, 29 | May 10th, 2007 at 4:53 pm | Report this commentI can see why this media magnate (maggot?) is managing a backwater department for this company. I can think nothing worse that a manager could do than to hide — especially by attempting to diminish a strong performer’s skills — a potentially winning, developing manager. The boss should be replacing the writer.
63, retired corporate vice president
PS: this is also proves the rule that there is definitely such a thing as the “stupid question” per my note to you some months back. This incompetent manager just asked you an incredibly stupid question.
Posted by: Richard Vandervoort | May 14th, 2007 at 5:54 am | Report this commentAs a supervisor of soldiers and civilians it is important to always recognize talent and promote talent. It would be selfish and inconsiderate to keep that employee from getting promoted by moving on to bigger and better things. Not to say that what you have to offer as a professional/leader is any lesser than what that employee would receive in the future. It is human nature to surround yourself with successful people, but as a leader it is our job to mentor and drive people to the next level; regardless, of an alterior motive one may have. The bottom line up front is to treat people the way you would like to be treated. We all need to be philanthropic towards each other. Remember that race, ethnicity, gender and back ground should not play a role or factor when promoting someone.
Posted by: Jose Nuques | January 5th, 2008 at 2:11 pm | Report this commentPart II: Once you feel your boss doesn’t like or appreciate you, you must find some other place to work that will, for the productivity of the team, for the ability to be included in learning new skills and opportunities on projects which your boss handles, and ultimately for your own sanity. This society can be so vicious, so all you can hope for is that the big multinational bureaucracies out there quickly move into modern times. With 2008 fast approaching make your number one New Year’s resolution be getting a new job. Sorry to say it, but that is the ONLY way out of this sordid mess.
Posted by: coe | January 8th, 2008 at 4:33 pm | Report this commentUntil then, dream about the day you can give your boss and your boss boss your letter of resignation. And don’t ever forget the look on their faces when you hand it to them, telling them what it is. That look on their faces will be priceless and you will not be able to sufficiently describe it in the best-seller novel you must surely write once you are free of this mess. In the game of life, checkmate: this job is over.
Of course you must ensure that at least one or two senior people in this current department will be able to write general letters of recommendations for you, and make sure you have those in your hands as you walk out of that office on your last day.
Remember that you are in your mid-thirties, which is still quite young in the work force. No doubt your boss and your boss boss are old dinosaurs who will retire into fossils some day soon. Hopefully they will keep their miserable selves tucked away and out of all of our sights so that fresh ideas and young, strong leaders with modern skills and sharp advanced educations can emerge.
Lastly, you need a mentor who gives advice and opens doors for you. I wish everyone were fortunate enough to have a mentor like mine- writing me recommendations, gives me personal advice, listens to me whine (on occasion), tells me when I am about to make a mistake, hails cabs for me after dinners, and advises me that I am too young and busy to have a very serious boyfriend (at least until I am finished with my advanced degrees). Over the years, he has actually become more like an older brother to me, but he was first a mentor.
Indeed, times are changing. Good luck job-hunting and happy new year.