Interesting to hear about the coaching stuff. It’s not something I’ve ever personally considered, but people that are very much ‘ladder climbers’ do seem to be people that read books and take training on this stuff. This seems to be especially the case with management roles… they need to be business smart and often career smart, so I suppose that’s where the training helps. Managing people upwards and downwards is a skill and it’s probably not something I’d be good at without coaching.
Some more general thoughts on this topic…
From my own extremely limited experience, a lot of pay rise and promotion stuff is out of your control. Budgets are set, there are pecking orders, your own work has dependencies that can fall through… the ‘machine’ of the workplace can keep you down, or just the type of work. In my previous job I was doing something that was very fiddly and hard but in hindsight it was honestly very difficult to show ‘outstanding value’ amongst everyone else, even though I was somewhat well-regarded as someone that was rock-solid with my output.
I’m now in a new role and there is so much more runway to show off. It’s equally hard but in much better ways. So I’ve gained an even better reputation than before as being ‘the guy that pulls through’. Much more interesting role and better suited to me in almost every way.
… and even then, getting a promotion has been like pulling teeth, to the point where I made it very clear that the situation was so absurd then I’d rather not work at all than put up with this undervalued BS. Things that got in the way included team re-shuffles, managers leaving, wider company performance, new rules implemented mid-review cycle and other things that seemed purposefully designed to make me rage. Ffffff!
I suppose what I’m getting at with my ramble is… there is going to be some level of BS in most places, even when jobs are generally very good and pay very well.
So don’t beat yourself up too much
