Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

Why I Didn't Get Promoted
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[00:00:00] Today, I'm going to share why I agree with being passed up for a management position years ago. Welcome to Construction Trailblazers Paving the Way to Excellence, where we dive into innovation, success, and streamlined excellence in the building industry. I'm Samantha C. Prestidge, your host and ally in simplifying operations and empowering dynamic teams.

I know the transformative effects of adopting people focused, tech forward, lean practices. And these changes not only boost company revenue, but also restore peace of mind for everyone involved and overwhelmed by daily chaos. So if you're ready to leave behind the daily firefighting and move toward a streamlined operation with a team that consistently delivers success, then you're in the right place.

Discover more about us and catch up on past episodes at ConstructionTrailBlazers. com. Alright, so this story took [00:01:00] place at the beginning of my career, in the early days, the early years. Um, and I was in a position. I was kind of a catch all person. I was really good at my position. It was filled with a lot of leadership support, project management, kind of like supporting all the departments around an office in a multitude of ways, including strategic support and execution of things.

And I, it was again, a catch all position. So if someone just did not know where to start with something, there was kind of a, okay, well, Sam can probably figure it out. Go see if Sam can do this. Right. And I, Absolutely loved it. It was very much a figured out type of position, especially because I had a manager who was busy as hell.

So I didn't always have time or they didn't always have time to answer my questions. So it was really just, Hey, go get this done, go get this shit done and like get onto the next thing. Cause there's so much to do. However, when my manager left, I was passed up to be promoted into that role and instead the [00:02:00] director of our department decided to interview and bring a totally new person in that I would then report to.

And at the time, I was extremely frustrated with that decision. it was kind of like a, hey, like that should have been mine. I think also a lot of people around the office thought I'd be promoted into that role. So it was kind of like I was pumped up and thought I was a shoe in for it. And then I didn't get it.

Looking back on it though, now understanding everything I know now about teams and operational excellence, uh, looking back on that decision, I completely understand and agree with it. So I'm going to break down three reasons why I did not get promoted into that role. And also, if you are someone who maybe any of these points resonate with, I'm going to share with you what you should be doing instead.

Or if you're a manager who sees some of these things in a current member of your team, then I'm going to share with you how you can help them avoid my mistakes. Okay, so reason number one is I had no sense of prioritization. So I was assigned [00:03:00] a whole bunch of projects and I was always like, oh my gosh, I'm so busy, but everything had the same level of urgency.

Everything was a big priority. So if I needed something from someone to complete a project or a task, I was like, I need this right now. So everything was kind of a fire and I didn't understand how my projects fit into the big picture. Because everything was a high priority, then sometimes I'd spend way too much time focused on tasks or projects that were really not that important.

And then things that were important got delayed and pushed off to whenever it could fit onto my calendar to get done, which meant that I was not contributing high value to my team or high value to the company. And I just was not connecting the dots on the big picture. And this happens a whole lot, especially with employees that are overwhelmed.

It can also happen with Managers or employees that do understand what goals they're working toward, but are just so overwhelmed that they don't have time to [00:04:00] evaluate things. So if you are an employee who you feel like you have no sense of prioritization right now, then I am going to encourage you to clarify things with your manager.

First off, if you keep getting assigned things, then you can say, Hey, I understand X, Y, Z to be a priority. Is this new project a higher priority than this? Should I get this done first? Work with your manager to set some deadlines around projects so that you really understand what matters. And Let's say you're not getting any new projects, but you still already have a lot on your plate.

Then you can just ask, Hey, I have these things going on. I want to understand which of these will have the biggest impacts on our goals. Or can you clarify what our department goals are? So seek direction from your team and your manager so that you can improve how you're spending your time and be really strategic about what you're focusing on.

If you're a manager who sees this with an employee and you don't understand how they're not connecting the dots, you don't understand why they're [00:05:00] spending so much time on something that seems like a low priority, then just be direct with them and help them connect the dots. You can tell them, Hey, I see that you're working on this.

I actually need you to pause this because this other project is a bigger priority according to these goals. And here's why. This project is a priority. Here's how these elements of this project impact these goals. And here's why this other thing you're working on is low impact. And just help explain things to them, break things down so that then in the next series of projects or the next task that they get, they can apply that thought process and that framework and start to prioritize things themselves.

All right, the next reason why I was passed up for this promotion was I was a little too eager to be involved in all of the things going on in the office. So I was, I've always kind of had this kind of therapist vibe, even in high school, [00:06:00] people come to me with their problems. And in this particular role, especially, I was everyone's go to for decompressing.

People just felt really comfortable sharing things with me, which eventually meant that they were going to share some gossip with me. And. For the most part, I was not always gossiping back, but it did feel good to be involved and to just kind of know everything that was going on in the office and be like, Oh my gosh, like what happened there?

And just be in the know. That felt really good. And so even though I wasn't gossiping back, I also wasn't shutting down the conversations. That kind of unfolded it in a few different ways. One, it meant There was usually somebody at my desk that was usually talking about something. So even if I was working while they were talking, it just kind of created low productivity around me.

It also meant that even though I wasn't seeking out gossip, even though I wasn't going to anyone to talk shit about somebody, because I was always in those [00:07:00] types of conversations, I did eventually gossip back and I was part of the problem with negativity around the office and the toxic culture. And so if you are this person, again, even if you are not engaging back and talking shit about somebody, but you are listening, then I would encourage you to set boundaries.

So instead of just absorbing the gossip and just being part of the conversation, shift your focus on how you can build trust, but still be professional with people. We all need an office or a field bestie and someone that we can just go vent to, but make sure that that's what the conversation is. That if someone just needs to vent, Cool, they vent and then we move on in the conversation.

If it feels like the conversation's gonna, going to keep going, this person wants you to engage with them as far as gossiping goes, don't engage in that, but give them an avenue to kind of continue decompressing. So, You can instead ask questions that will help change the [00:08:00] narrative, like, Oh man, that sucks that that happened.

Did you talk to this person about it? Do they know that that was frustrating for you? Or you can say, Man, I'd be frustrated with that too. Does it seem like there's anything that you can change about what happens next? Because sometimes someone's not coming to you for a solution. They do just want to vent.

Other times, they want you to just be like, Oh my god, this is a big problem. Like, realize how big of a problem that is with me. Gossip with me. And we can't engage in that because that's not gonna help anybody. So if they don't just want to vent, they want you to engage with them, then make sure that how you engage is about shifting the narrative.

It's constructive and somewhat positive. If you are a manager who sees this, don't come down too harshly because then people are just going to be like, Oh, you don't want me to have friends on this team. So you don't want to shut down every conversation. Again, we all need that work bestie, whether it's in the office or the field, right?

Someone that we can trust on and rely on, just come to with our problems to just chat. So don't completely shut it down. But be [00:09:00] direct about not tolerating gossip. So if you do hear people talking back and forth poorly about another team member, then we need to get all of those people in a room and be like, hey, what is the problem?

Let's solve this. What happened? How can we be on the same page again? We don't need to be buddy buddy, but we do need to be cordial with each other. So really be direct in shutting down gossip and don't allow it to Be fueled. Don't allow the problem to be bigger than it is. It's a small problem. We're going to shut it down.

We're going to have boundaries here and then we're going to move on with our lives. So, bottom line here is, just don't gossip, guys. Man, point number three of why I did not get promoted is because I was focused a lot on problems and not solutions. Whenever I saw an inefficiency in a process, I didn't always connect the dots.

This is gonna go back to that bigger picture thinking. I didn't always connect the dots on how to solve that inefficiency. I would more so just come up with, like, the problems or complaints about something instead of a better way to do things. Even though I [00:10:00] loved problem solving in my job. I love to be a figured out person that was more problem solving with the tasks and projects that I was assigned.

It wasn't problem solving the set processes that were right in front of me. And I wasn't coming up with solutions on how things could be better. So then it just sounded like I was a negative Nancy rather than someone that Wanted things to be better for everybody involved so everyone can have an easier work day.

Looking back on it, knowing that I focus so much on processes now, I think it's kind of funny and ironic that I wasn't that kind of person, that I limited my problem solving to tasks and not also to processes. I also somewhat didn't feel empowered to change processes, so it just felt easier to complain.

So that was part of it. However, I still should have been coming up with solutions along the way. So if you are an employee who you're catching yourself, noticing a lot of problems, you probably don't notice that you might be at the complainer in the office. So this is more so if you catch yourself [00:11:00] just seeing a lot of inefficiencies, being frustrated, and maybe you're vocalizing those frustrations, but you are frustrated a lot with what's going on, then you need to go back to that big picture thinking you've got to get some clarity on.

What are the types of solutions that would align with the department goals when you are frustrated with the process? What exactly is the inefficiency? Is it because of a silo and miscommunication? Is it because of crappy software? Is it because of some other step in the process, right? We've got to look at that root cause of the inefficiency so that we can then come up with effective solutions.

If you are a manager and you, you have an employee who seems to be the complainer, they are somewhat a goldmine because they see all the inefficiencies. And we want people on our team that can point out what's not working and help us solve it. And so now we need to help them do that, second step, right?

Solving it and connecting those dots. So encourage them to problem solve. If they come with a complaint, don't just say, Oh, [00:12:00] thanks. We'll look into that. Respond with, how would you fix this? If you could do this differently, how would you fix it? If you don't have an answer right now, that's fine. But maybe at the next meeting or the next time you bring this up, I'd like to hear a solution from you and start encouraging them to think beyond the problems and towards solutions.

This is not always easy because most managers will just say, come to me with solutions, not problems, and not do anything else after that. I'm going to have another episode in a few weeks on how to really help your employees come up with solutions. But the baseline here is it's really about that big picture thinking.

They need to understand how does this inefficiency affect everything else? Why does it deserve to be changed? And the solutions that we come up with, how would those solutions then impact everything else so that they can start thinking through that? All right, so looking back on why I was passed up for this promotion, I wasn't prioritizing effectively, I was not shutting down gossip, I was happy to be in the know, and I was not coming up [00:13:00] with solutions.

I was focused on a problem. Overall, I was pretty effective at my job, but I wasn't the best person to promote into a managerial position because ultimately I was doing my job in a pretty immature way. I, I fully admit and recognize that now, and those lessons have helped me to grow to where I'm at now and how I help teams now.

But years ago, I totally get why I wasn't promoted. So if you are in any of those positions, I hope that you are able to maybe find some simple next action steps to be a little bit better. And if you're a manager who recognizes this, thank you. And anyone on your team, then start helping them to connect those dots and to be a little bit better so that when there is a management position that they might be qualified for based off their performance in their current job, that they could be considered to be promoted instead of having to interview and hire an outside person.

Awesome. So I hope sharing my failures today was a little bit helpful for you [00:14:00] guys. If you have a similar story, then I would love to hear it. You can either reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me at hello at construction trailblazers. com and I'll see you next time.