{"id":3000030063,"date":"2021-03-05T13:28:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T18:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/?p=3000030063"},"modified":"2021-07-13T13:29:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T17:29:07","slug":"for-meaningful-promotions-focus-on-areas-of-company-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/management-leadership\/for-meaningful-promotions-focus-on-areas-of-company-growth","title":{"rendered":"For meaningful promotions, focus on areas of company growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In <\/em>Ladies Get Paid, you\u2019ll meet Shelmina and follow her journey as she goes from being a young girl in Tanzania to a high-ranking executive at IBM. Susan Whitney ran marketing and sales across the entire Midwest region at IBM.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years after joining IBM, Shelmina had become one of the company\u2019s best salespeople, making her way up to lead a team of 120 people, with an $880 million target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a critical time in Shelmina\u2019s career<\/a>. She\u2019d proven her worth enough to make a compelling case to be promoted within her department. When Susan Whitney came to town, Shelmina couldn\u2019t wait to catch up and tell her how well she was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan didn\u2019t quite have the reaction Shelmina was expecting. She was impressed by how Shelmina had grown but warned Shelmina that she was potentially reaching a cap for how much further she could go. Rather than setting her sights on the next promotion within her department, Susan argued that having exposure to other areas of the business and learning additional skills would make Shelmina even more valuable. Susan urged her to think strategically about where the business and the industry were going and find a way to go with it. In this case, it was away from hardware sales and into the business and technology services department. \u201cIf you want to get a more meaningful promotion, you need to position yourself in an organization where IBM is investing because if they\u2019re investing, it\u2019s an area of growth, and in turn, that\u2019s where the executive positions will open up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan was pointing out an important consideration for Shelmina\u2019s next move and possible promotion. The question was, where did she want to be promoted to? It could be a linear move: There were senior sales positions she could take. But Susan saw her potential to go even further. By venturing into a new area and learning new proficiencies<\/a>, Shelmina would become like a Swiss Army knife, making her a unique asset to the company.<\/p>\n\n\n