HARD-EARNED OR HARD LUCK?

Fed up with your current spot in the office pecking order? Is getting that coveted promotion more of a fight than you previously thought? Laura Coates discovers that to get ahead or even just out of a rut, if you're not schmoozing, you're losing.

So you're good at your job - brilliant in fact. You've got good qualifications, have performed well and, say, boosted sales in your sector or pulled off a major project once again. There is a Management job coming up and with your stellar performance, you think you're a shoo-in for promotion. Think again.

How far up the ladder you climb in an organisation has less to do with your abilities and achievements in your job and more to do with your politicking ability, propensity to schmooze and appearing better than your fellow workers on the way up. Talent will get your foot in the door and up the early rungs on the ladder, but if you want to make serious progress, you will have to show a lot more deviousness and cunning than you might imagine. This applies across all sectors, from the cut-throat world of the stock market to creative industries and into the professions such as medicine and teaching. As people are promoted, no matter what job they are in, they are typically expected to show leadership and staff management skills, but their ability to negotiate the minefields of office politics will put them ahead of the pack.

"Nice guys get to a certain point and then they frequently top out," says Rowan Manahan, who runs the career management firm Fortify Services. "Very few people have nice-guyed their way into the CEO job in the corner office. I see a lot of frustrated clients in their mid-30s and beyond who have made progress throughout their careers so far but who now find themselves stuck."

These people rely too much on simple luck and merit to advance their careers. They can become known in their industry for being good at their job, especially in a small society like Ireland; with the result that if they decide to leave their current firm because they are stuck in a rut, other organisations will be looking at their CV and wondering their current employer wouldn't take a chance on them with a promotion to top management.

A survey recently conducted among Canadian executives discovered that the most likely reason for good workers to quit their jobs was a lack of advancement opportunities, followed by a lack of recognition. These reasons for departing ranked way above salary gripes or boredom.

BY ANY MEANS

Another poll of office workers in the UK run by recruitment agency Planetrecruit three years ago revealed that workers were willing to plumb the depths of devious behaviour to get ahead. some 72% of men questioned said that they would have sex with their boss (the survey didn't specify which gender) if it would get them a better job, while less than a third of women said that they would do the same. 62% of men said they would use character assassination to get ahead, but only 38% of women said the same. Women, however, said that they would be more likely to play the sympathy vote, by moaning about home or work, in order to get out of trouble or change working environment.

The ambitious employee will need to be conscious of the concept of succession planning. "If your boss walks under a truck tomorrow, is it you or your colleague who has been earmarked to get the promotion?" asks Manahan. "The most fundamental skill of career management is that you stop thinking solely about your selfish needs and concerns and start thinking like management - what are your manager's worries and headaches? What about his boss - what wakes him or her up in the middle of the night?"

This skill, which will put you on management's radar should a promotion become available, takes time (both to master and to bear fruit) but it is a sure-fire way of getting noticed by your boss. Most staff only approach management with problems. Try turning up saying that you have noticed (or better yet, anticipated) a problem, but have three possible solutions and a recommendation for putting it straight.

Those engaged in career advancement activities should be aware that they are walking a very fine line. Stay too quiet and you won't get noticed; overdo it and you will be put down if your manager is in any way insecure about his/her own position. According to Manahan, you should also try to ensure that you don't become so indispensable in your immediate department or to your line manager that they don't want to let you go. "It's a very fine balance," he explains. "If you are incredibly useful where you are, your boss might be thinking 'I can't promote Bloggs, because if I do, I'm sunk.'" The solution for middle-ranking workers is to train up their own subordinates to make sure that if a promotional opportunity arises, they have somebody 90% ready to fill their boots. That way, there is no excuse for them being not released to take up a promotion themselves.

MARKET YOURSELF EARLY AND OFTEN

Politicking your way to the top can take up a lot of time and you have to lay the groundwork with your bosses early. If you start your schmoozing only when a better job becomes vacant, you haven't got a hope - the behaviour will be seen as uncharacteristic and the motive glaringly obvious. Those who excel at this skill set aside time for marketing themselves at work as they do performing the various functions they are paid for. They don't wait to see a promotion notice circulated; they will have been anticipating the opportunity, will be on speaking terms with the likely interview panel, will know what the key issues and responsibilities for the role are and will have a CV prepared that is so beautiful their competitors would weep at the sight of it. When called for the interview, they don't trot out a dreary list of their qualifications and on-the-job responsibilities - anyone who gets to the interview will have broadly similar things to say on those subjects. Instead, they talk about big and little wins, contributions, ideas, the budget they slashed or the CEO of key potential customer with whom they networked last week.

"Promotion is a viciously competitive business and a razor's edge upon which you walk," says Manahan. "Doing enough to get mentioned in dispatches while not making your boss feel threatened is a fine balancing act. There are lots of books in the marketplace which provide tips and formulae for getting ahead, but they can only take you so far. Applying those concepts to the real world is a very different matter." Dealing with a mealy-mouthed, ungenerous boss will require a poles-apart line of attack from dealing with someone who is anxious to get promoted themselves, or someone so scatty you can't figure out how they ended up doing anything other than filing paperclips.

Undertaking further training as a path to promotion is useful, particularly if the job for which you are aiming has a minimum-expected educational standard. For example, if you notice that the majority of the managers two levels above you are MBA-qualified, you need to think about enrolling on a good programme - the sooner the better. But don't neglect self-directed efforts. "Training can include reading about the latest thinking and practices, and reading more than your boss who may not have time to study Edward de Bono's latest offering," Manahan says.

HAVE A PLAN AND VISION

The single most important factor for getting ahead is getting a plan. Manahan recommends closing your eyes, setting aside your professional life, and imagining where you want to be in your personal life in 10 years' time. What standard of living do you want to be enjoying? Does it include kids and marriage, a Mercedes, multiple foreign holidays? Where will you be living - in Ireland or abroad? Build as detailed a picture of your personal life as you can, then start thinking about the business role that will enable you to do those things.

"Ask yourself 'Do I want (or need) to be the CEO or will I be happier three rungs down from there? Will I have staff under me - do I need minions? How much responsibility do I want, how hard do I want to be working?'" Flesh the picture out as far as you can. Then work that plan back to where you are now and look at the baby steps that you need to make right away, the bigger ones that you must take 2-3 years from now and so forth. The experts believe that those with a plan get places ahead of those who drift with the tide of working life.

"You have to create awareness, a profile. Brand yourself. Then the next time someone steps under a truck, a player in management will be thinking 'That young Bloggs, a fine young fellow. He'd be perfect to step into those shoes' and promote you. Don't wait for happenstance - you have to take control to make that happen," Manahan advises.

Rowan Manahan is author of the forthcoming career management book Where's My Oasis? and managing director of Fortify Services.