Many people ask me how to give feedback. It’s something I do on a daily basis, so let me tell you what I’ve learned about it.
How to sabotage your own promotion
Chris, a highly successful and well-loved Director with solid business results, was a great guy with a lot of bottled up frustration. He rightly felt he was due for a promotion to VP, but it wasn’t happening. He saw other Directors around him getting promoted which added to his dismay.
During a one-on-one with his boss, Chris let him know he would like to be promoted to VP. He said: “I think I’ve been doing a really good job for a long time as Director and I’m ready for the next step which would be a VP role.”
The boss agreed Chris had been doing stellar work and could at some point be promoted to VP. But the timing wasn’t right, the organization was going through another re-org, they should let the dust settle before initiating anything, etc., etc., etc.
That particular re-org led to another, and to another and it was eight months later that Chris asked his boss again when the timing would be right. The boss said he, “hoped it would be soon but not right now.”
Chris was now looking outside the organization because he didn’t feel there were opportunities internally. He was pretty unhappy being stuck in a role he had mastered with a boss he felt didn’t support his career development.
But Chris’s boss wasn’t the one stopping the promotion, Chris was.
The funny thing is that no one actually TOLD Chris to stop communicating. He had been told to stop so many times in the past, that now he stopped himself. He didn’t need to be told.
Chris was suffering from too much obedience.
Obeying this self-imposed injunction severely restricted his boss’s ability to understand what was really happening with Chris. If your viewpoint is not understood, the chances of the other person doing what you want are severely limited.
Unfortunately, Chris is not alone. People in large corporations obey unwritten laws about what they can say, how much to say and to whom.
They shut down too fast.
This communication obedience training starts way back in school. I never did well with it. We were threatened with trouble if we talked to other students or voiced our opinions to teachers. I always talked to other students and let teachers know what I was thinking. Teachers tried to make me stop, but they didn’t get anywhere with me.
The problem with obedience is it takes away your freedom. And when you give away your freedom, you give away your choices.
I taught Chris how to speak up to his boss about his promotion to VP. Not in a disobedient fashion, but politely, in a way that would be interesting and valuable to his boss. Initially Chris had a million reasons why he shouldn’t bring up the subject again, but once he learned how, he did it with confidence.
In the next one-on-one with his boss, Chris spoke up and filled the vacuum of missing information the boss had about why and how much Chris deserved the promotion, what it meant to him and how it would benefit the organization. The boss was leaning forward in his chair the whole time. His reaction was, “Wow! We should really get on this! I don’t think we should wait any longer. We need to get that promotion now.”
Chris spoke up to several more key individuals and suddenly he had team of champions doing the work of getting him promoted.
And now he’s enjoying his VP role.
Your career is never up to “them”. It is always and only up to you.
Never allow someone else to stop you from communicating. You need to speak up to be understood. The question is never whether or not to speak up, the question is how to do it so you are truly heard.
Where have you stopped your own forward progress? Are you ready to do something about it?
Be the cause!
Melting Jack Frost: the difficult senior exec
Sophia had been a shining star as a Director. When she was promoted to VP and given a much larger zone of visibility and responsibility, she also took on real risk of failure.
In her new role, Sophia now attended weekly senior leadership meetings, which is where she ran into Jack every Wednesday.
Jack had the ear of the CEO. Sophia didn’t. Jack dominated every meeting he was in. In this Silicon Valley corporation, he was the most technically proficient person in the room. He presented his ideas forcefully. Jack liked winning and believed in intimidation. There was nothing warm about him, kind of like “Jack Frost” himself. He shut you down if you expressed a dissenting opinion. Most people never dared. Even the CEO deferred to Jack.
Sophia had been successful as a “backrooms influencer.” She preferred to hash out diverging views away from an audience or public scrutiny, and then bring a consensus, neatly and politely resolved, back to the larger group. She found conflict unpleasant and shied away from it.
Suddenly Jack was taking her on center stage, and despite her vision and passion, she became subdued and ineffective.
Sophia’s goal when she arrived to learn Causative Communication was to navigate these difficult situations while successfully getting her ideas implemented. Her goal was to get Jack to listen. Her goal was to transform Jack so they could collaborate effectively.
Sophia values being warm and graceful under pressure. But she found herself agitated and frenzied at these meetings. She wanted to preserve a calm elegance and genuine friendliness while under intense fire.
This takes a lot of skill.
I taught Sophia the formula for communication that works in every situation. We spent a lot of time applying it to the difficult conversations and meetings which were now routine in her VP life. With practice and coaching, real transformation emerged.
The first transformation was in herself. Sophia gained the ability to comfortably face severely uncomfortable conversations. She also gained the ability to be very direct, yet very warm and friendly and still be powerful, deliberate and intentional, even under fire.
The next transformation was in Jack. Jack didn’t come to our workshop, of course. Sophia did. But her new skills now allowed her to transform OTHER people…even people as difficult as Jack.
The next meeting she attended, she put forth an innovative idea and Jack instantly dismissed it. Usually that would be the end of it.
This time, Sophia held Jack’s gaze and let him know she fully understood his point of view. When he looked at her, all Jack saw was real understanding, powerful intention, and genuine friendliness. Sophia let her acknowledgment sink in. She wasn’t in a rush. Jack was quiet, waiting to see what Sophia was going to say next.
Not forcefully, but powerfully with very strong intention, and still with great warmth, Sophia said, “Let me explain why I think this is a good idea.”
She directed her comments to Jack, but also included the other leaders. Jack was listening and so was everyone else. She had their full attention.
Sophia was clear. She was concise. She said a lot in a few words. She was deliberate. She was purposeful. She was elegant. She wasn’t rushed. She wasn’t pressured or pressuring. She was compelling.
The look in Jack’s eyes changed. To respect.
With a new, very pleasant tone of voice, Jack asked her a couple questions, then paused, and agreed her proposal was worth trying.
The next transformation was in the senior leadership team. With her new skills, Sophia had completely changed the dynamics of the group.
Once that happens, there is no putting that toothpaste back into that tube. Suddenly the dynamic wasn’t, “We have to do what Jack says.” The new dynamic was to have polite, in-depth conversations, allow input from everyone and make the best decision.
The final transformation was in the organization. When a senior leadership team starts working together this effectively, the organization can’t help but transform as well.
Sophia is an example of the power of a single individual.
Yes, you could say she was in a VP role and so was in a position to generate the transformation. But I have worked with individuals at every level, down to low level individual contributors with no one reporting to them.
It doesn’t matter where you are in the organization. When you make that first transformation - with your own self - when you become a world-class communicator, there is no limit to the impact you can have in this world. No limit at all.
The most difficult part of this entire journey is making the decision to begin.
You might think that the obstacles keeping you from getting where you want to go have little to do with your communication skills.
But that’s only because people have been taught to believe they AREN’T as powerful as they actually are. Don’t fall for it.
You have the power to transform your entire world just like Sophia did.
If she can do it with Mr. Jack “Frost,” you can do it too.
This is the purpose of our Causative Communication Live! Workshop. This is where you learn the formula for communication that ALWAYS works. Then you seriously upgrade your ability to communicate effectively, enabling you to rapidly achieve your vision.
Be the cause!
Mirror, mirror on the wall, will I get promoted today, at all?
Marcus had been talking to his boss about a promotion to VP for quite a while without getting any closer. Marcus found the discussions stressful and the endless waiting frustrating, which is why he came to my workshop on Causative Communication.
The mistake Marcus was making is the same one I’ve seen MANY people make: He thought the decision (if and when to promote him) was not in his hands. He thought it was up to the people doing the promoting.
Most people in Marcus’ situation believe they can present their case, but that after that, they’re powerless. They have to sit back and wait while the “powers that be” decide.
What they don’t realize is that those making the decision are just reflecting you back to yourself.
It’s very much like an ice-skating competition. If you skate perfectly, the judges HAVE to give you a 10. If you stumble at the beginning or if you are less than flawless, they’re forced to give you a lesser score.
All the judges are doing is reflecting back the skater.
It’s actually entirely up to you what happens. Can you believe that?
Most people experience stress when talking about why they should get promoted. They’re uncomfortable. Their minds are full of doubt. Their communication is full of strain.
The decision that comes back is simply a reflection of this.
This is true in all your communication, not just situations where you want a promotion. The reaction you see from the other person is a reflection of how well you’re dealing with the situation.
When your communication is flawless, there’s a transformation that happens in the other person, even if they’re a “judge” of you. They can’t help but give you a “10” and decide accordingly.
It’s the same thing when communicating about a promotion.
If you feel powerless about the outcome, that will be reflected back to you. The reflection will show powerlessness.
If you feel the outcome is in “their” hands, you will come across as someone who does not deserve a promotion. Especially if you’re trying to get promoted to the higher levels like VP and above.
The decision you receive will be a reflection of your own powerlessness.
You don’t have to work hard to get the outcome you want. You simply have to communicate with clarity, certainty and intention.
Many people confuse these three things with conviction. Conviction is how much you believe in something.
Your promotion does not at all depend on how much you believe you deserve it. If it did, there would be no issue, you’d have it.
Many people go into these conversations with the idea they need to convince the other person to achieve the outcome they want. But the harder you try to convince someone that you deserve something, the more powerless you seem. In terms of getting a promotion, this “convincing” approach is the kiss of death.
It’s the difference between communicating for the purpose of getting them to agree with you (which will always make you seem UNcausative), and communicating for the purpose of real understanding (which will always make you powerful.)
One of the biggest mistakes people make when wanting a promotion is talking about why they deserve the promotion. This makes you come across as imploring, anxious, in need.
It’s not a question of what you deserve. It’s a question of where you belong.
When you communicate that you belong at the VP level with complete clarity, complete intention to be understood, and complete certainty that you will be fully understood, you come across like the promotion is the only right course of action, no question about it.
The decision that comes back will reflect that.
Marcus ended months of circular conversations by doing just what I described to you. And wouldn’t you know it, “they” made the decision to promote him to VP within hours, not weeks or months.
Be the cause!
Gently, with powerful Intention
In my last article I talked about the power of unwavering, yet effortless, intention. This week I want to talk about how to take even this superior level of intention to an even higher level.
Back when Noah Webster published the first American dictionary in 1828, he stated a great definition for the word intention. He said intention is: when the mind with great earnestness fixes its view on any idea, purpose or goal, and will not be called off.
To be in earnest is to be very determined and deliberate in stretching towards an objective. To fix is to establish immovably, without wandering.
Will not be called off means that nothing – nothing – can divert you.
Communicating with intention means that you will not be called off, nothing can divert you from your goal of being perfectly understood.
How you do it is very, very important. It requires the foundation of your being very simple, very direct, very clear and saying what you have to say with the complete certainty you will be perfectly understood.
If you add any force or effort to this equation, it blows up. The other person reacts to your force or effort and doesn’t hear what you’re saying. They then just want to defend themselves. You are diverted from your goal.
The key to success is to be and sound effortless.
And that’s also where the word gentle comes in.
Most people think gentle equals weak. They have good reason to think this. Most people who are thought of as “gentle” don’t have powerful intention and they ARE weak.
Gentle does not mean weak.
It means not harsh, not rough, having a light touch, considerate.
A gentle tone of voice combined with unshakable intention is powerful. It’s a thousand times more powerful than being forceful.
The word gentle has a most interesting derivation. The word originally meant of noble birth, high social standing, aristocratic. In other words, high class.
You can see how this is true. Someone who is harsh, severe, arrogant, forceful, rough or brash doesn’t come across as having class.
You have an unmistakable dignity when your communication combines a gentle tone with unwavering intention.
I always make “before” and “after” videos of my coaching clients. In his “before” video, confronted with a difficult situation, a VP I just coached quickly started to sound irritated because I wasn’t doing what he wanted. He became a little forceful, then more forceful, and the conversation ended up going around in circles, without any satisfaction, frustrating to both.
It takes a lot of practice and coaching to develop perfectly executed intention. We practiced for hours, until he could deliver all his communications (regardless of topic or difficulty) gently AND with perfectly executed intention.
In his final video, he was confronted with two extremely difficult scenarios. In both cases he delivered his communication precisely, he was very simple, direct, clear, with a warm, gentle tone of voice and unwavering intention. He came across as high class. He was immediately compelling. He only had to say it once.
There are other skills that are vital for complex discussions and difficult situations.
But without intention, there is no hope. It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, how carefully you choose your words or how right you are.
With a gentle tone and powerful intention, you only have to say it once.
When you communicate with that level of quality, with that power of intention, magic happens and you are perfectly understood. And funny enough, when people perfectly understand you, they can’t help it, they start to go into agreement. It supersedes logic. You have entered the realm of magical and causative communication.
You had me before hello
We've all heard the expression, “You had me at hello.” I firmly believe, when it comes to presentations, that's way too late. The really great presenters have you even before they say hello.
You see them standing there, before they even say anything you can see there's something quite different about them. Even before they start, you're intrigued, captivated, leaning forward a little to hear what they’ll say.
It’s their poise, dignity, their self-assuredness, their calm, their focus, it’s the intensity of their presence.
There are two VPs in a presentation skills workshop that’s running here right now. Our Lead Trainer, Janet, is leading the session. I just sat in at the beginning to watch everyone’s first videos.
If you hadn’t told me that either of these two was a VP, I never would have known. Reason is neither one had executive presence, neither of them communicated with the poise, dignity and elegance you’d expect from a VP level.
One is a new VP, so you could say that's understandable in their case. The other has been a VP for a couple years.
In both cases, the material they were presenting, the content, was very interesting. But the way they presented it wouldn’t have captured you. You’d be tuning out and only semi-listening pretty quickly. The audience, trying to pay attention, was fighting a losing battle.
Both of them sounded very “Corporate” and correct. They were articulate, but their words weren’t landing or making a difference.
And that's really the point, isn't it? When we listen to a presentation, we want what we hear to make a difference, to matter.
I left after their first videos, had meetings all day and went back in at the very end of the afternoon to see their second videos. Wow!
It’s not what they’re doing. It’s how they’re being, their presence. There’s an invisible chemistry. There’s an aura. It creates an atmosphere. It creates a mood. It creates an expectation, an anticipation. A promise of something great to come.
That's how these two VP’s were at the end of the 1st day. Very changed.
They had developed presence. Presence strong enough to notice even before they spoke. Just the way they walked, stood, looked over the audience.
They each had that unmistakable aura of an executive, the poise, the dignity of a powerful individual who knows what they have to say is important, a comfortable leader, in absolutely no rush, taking their sweet time, self-assured, creating with their presence a promise of a great outcome.
Then, even before they started to speak, the way they looked out into the audience, they made a powerful connection with everyone in the room. Connection made before they ever said a word.
As they spoke, the connection intensified. I could swear the audience stopped breathing at a couple of points.
I could feel the audience’s disappointment when their talks were over. They wanted to hear more, but it was gone. You can only imagine the reception they’ll get when they come back to speak again.
It was the same content they’d presented in their first video. Almost the same words. Completely different presence. Completely different connection with the audience. Completely different result.
Important point – this doesn’t just apply to VP’s. It’s even more powerful at lower levels. People really notice.
This really is how to make what you want happen. Have the powerful presence of someone others are eager to know, make a powerful connection with the audience, make them keen to hear your next words, create a never-ending fascination with your message. Know that it’s not what you say. It’s how you say it.
Well, that was the end of the first day of training. I'm looking forward to seeing them at the end of the second.
Wishing you great success with all your communications!
How to Get Promoted from Director to VP - Executive Insight
If you're looking to get promoted from Director to VP, this powerful checklist will help you prepare to achieve that goal. Inside the checklist, you'll find a strategic yet practical "roadmap" for making sure the way you communicate with others demonstrates your capacity to step into a VP role. If you're looking to develop that "executive presence" aura that successful leaders have, this free checklist will help you do it.
I’ve been helping people get promoted for 30 years. Not to mention land big raises too. It's one of the things I most like about my work - helping people achieve their aspirations and dreams.
Recently I’ve had a wave of Directors and Senior Directors I’ve helped become VPs and I thought I'd share 7 key ingredients with you as, for some reason, getting the VP offer seems to be particularly tricky. These ingredients are necessary for ALL leadership roles, yet it seems it’s too easy to get stuck at Director level.
What do you do when you find yourself hitting an invisible wall you can't seem to get through as you're seeking that next step in your career? You come with your innate strategic abilities, you're able to span your attention and efforts across the organization, and you know you can impact key metrics in a meaningful way. Yet, there's that illusive something that seems to be missing.
But the thing I've seen hold people back more than anything is not these items. It's their ability to communicate.
Let's look at why.
As you progress up the organization, your communication skills increasingly go under a microscope.
By the time you’re CEO, you're not only living with this fact of life, you get used to having the magnification turned up to 400X.
What this means is every flaw you have is magnified. So flaws that you get away with as Manager, or as Director, are the kiss of death once you start looking at VP and above.
The reason for this is obvious. Your communication is now going to impact a lot of people. They’re going to read into everything you say and how you say it. There are consequences to even the slightest attitudes you have. Every communication from you matters. It's your main tool for making things happen.
And, most importantly, at these higher levels, it's your communication, and ability to communicate extremely well even under adverse circumstances, that's going to make or break the success of the organization.
What I've seen with my clients is, one for one, when they dramatically improved some very specific leadership type communication skills needed at the higher levels, the promotions not only happened, they happened ahead of schedule.
This is actually true at all levels of the organization, but especially dramatic for the leap between Director and VP.
So what specific skills cause you to rise above and be chosen? The sooner you start manifesting these skills, the sooner your organization organically selects you to be its next leader. It's inevitable. I've seen too much success with these specific skills to think otherwise.
Let me start with a broad statement about the feedback that many of my clients were given prior to coming to me.
I found it interesting that most of my clients were told they needed to develop “executive presence”.
It's true they did need to develop it, but what was fascinating was they had no clue what it was. To them it was some magical aura that’s invisible but somehow communicates to everyone that you're a leader. It was a total enigma how to do it. They helplessly thought “Some people have it naturally and some (like me) don’t.” They had no idea of the anatomy of this utterly mysterious but vital necessity, which of course put them in a position where there's no hope they’ll ever develop it.
It’s sad that the people giving this feedback don’t themselves know what “executive presence” is. This term is so wildly open to interpretation, it means radically different things to different people. Fortunately, I’ve been helping people develop it for years and can explain, simplify and teach it.
By the way, I love seeing "executive presence" manifest. I feel lucky I get to see it manifest in a very rapid and dramatic fashion in a matter of 3 days because I do “before” and “after” videos of my clients. I just saw it yesterday with my most recent Senior Director. In his first video he looked like a Director. In his final video he looked like an Executive VP and he even had what most people would call an “aura”.
So, let's look at the anatomy of this aura.
And how you can start manifesting these skills now yourself to accelerate your next promotion.
#1. Don't be frazzled.
Frazzled means you come across as overly stressed and somewhat overwhelmed. Being frazzled is an "executive presence" killer. Directors and below are frequently frazzled, with good reason of course. However, while you shouldn’t even do it at the lower levels, you really can’t afford to do it at the upper levels.
When you're a Vice President, if you get frazzled it freaks people out. A Vice President needs to communicate with poise, calm, be in the moment, not have his/her attention ping-ponging all over the place. The best Executives stop all their mental noise and are calm and in the moment. People walk in to meetings with this kind of Executive full of mental noise themselves and find their own noise calms down and vaporizes in the presence of real self-command. It gets calm.
#2. Senior executives have a strong sense of dignity.
This is a big component of “executive presence”. The last 100+ clients that I asked what the word “dignity” means gave me woefully inadequate or incorrect definitions for it. This is a very important word to know. “Dignity” is the sense of being worthy of esteem and honor. Many of my clients try hard to please others, look to others for approval, let others determine their value, they lose their own sense of worth. Some of them have been hammered by bad feedback and coaching and don’t have a strong sense of their own value. They will say, "I do good work", but that is a far cry from a robust sense of dignity. Dignity radiates from within. It’s not the same as confidence. It’s definitely not arrogance which rubs everyone the wrong way. Dignity is your own sense of being worthy. It's a skill to be able to communicate with dignity. It can be developed. It gives you an aura. It’s vital in the skill set of a senior executive.
#3. Every successful senior executive I’ve seen or worked with communicates with a superior level of intention.
Intention is not effort, it’s not putting energy into it, it's not trying hard. Intention is senior to effort. It commands attention and understanding. Many people communicate with intent. Executives do it at a superior level. It's the difference between watching someone play tennis on weekends or a champion professional. The amateur doesn’t have the skills to win at the same level, no matter how hard they try or how positive their attitude. This level of communication penetrates, inspires, makes things happen. It is true leadership level communication.
#4. Give your undivided attention to the person who's talking to you.
Look into their eyes, both when you're speaking as well as listening. When you’re on the phone, make the world go away, tune in and feel the presence of the other person fully.
Directors and below have so much going on, they’re frequently trying to multitask. With those executives who I would say are very noteworthy, I hear the people around them say, “Wow, when you talk with him/her you feel like you're the only person in the world.” Why is this important? Because people want to be led by someone who makes them feel that way. How you make people feel has everything to do with whether not they want you to lead them.
I recently had someone email me this about his new VP: “I love him! I get 100% of his focus. I feel fantastic talking to him. He’s not rushed. I feel like an eternity has gone by, I hang up the phone and realize it was a 12 minute conversation. That kind of impact in 12 minutes! WOW!”
#5. You need the ability to make deep human connections, to build a warm rapport with anyone.
Your ability to make a deep and real human connection determines how much trust you will enjoy. There's a world of difference between "talking" and making a deep connection, and the difference will have a big impact on your career: Getting others to open up and your ability to listen play a big part in this. I have worked with many people who are trustworthy, but they didn’t know how to make deep connections and people didn't trust them. Once they learned how to make that deep connection, trust grew rapidly. Trust is the basis of the real, solid cooperation you’ll need.
#6. You need to communicate so well that you have the ability to make resistance and conflict evaporate.
The reason for this is because unhandled conflict in the organization will escalate to your level. By the time it gets to you, no one below you has been able to handle it - it will be up to you to make conflict go away.
Of course, the best thing you can do is prevent conflict in the first place. Conflict can almost always be prevented with outstanding communication. Disagreement is a natural part of life when you’re dealing with many viewpoints, but there’s absolutely no reason it needs to turn into conflict. I have seen over and over with clients that conflict is never a result of the issues, it is always a result of communication and understanding breaking down.
While we experience a lot of successful communication, there is nothing in this world that breaks down faster, or with more frequency, than communication …. nothing. As advanced as we are as a civilization, as much communication technology as we have at our fingertips, as breathtaking are our opportunities to communicate to each other and to the world, we still experience communication breakdowns daily, both at work and at home, on a personal, organizational and even international level. You need to be able to rapidly repair it when it breaks.
And when you’re high up in the organization, you’re dealing with so many people, so many multiple viewpoints, so many realities, it becomes important that you can manage all of them simultaneously. It kills your organization if you don't.
Start to demonstrate that conflict and resistance do not happen around you, and that when they do, you confront it head on and make them evaporate and get everything rapidly moving forward, and the people in power will naturally put you in a leadership role very quickly because managing communication, other people's perceptions, realities, expectations, frustrations is an enormous part of a leader's job.
#7. An unspoken question they’ll ask about you before they decide to promote you is, “Will the organization be happy under him/her?” This is another way of asking, “How good are your communication skills? Are they at a leadership and executive level?”
It takes outrageously great communication skill to not only communicate well with the person in front of you, but to do it so well that it carries through the rest of the organization.
If you start demonstrating these skills now, I see a promotion in your future regardless of where you are in the organization.
These skills are rare. They will accelerate and raise the trajectory of your career and your income. You’ll feel like this client who recently emailed me:
“I am convinced that the skills I learned have been the biggest factors in changing the trajectory of my career. There is no doubt about it. It makes me smile to compare conversations I had before, where they labeled me as a “strong practitioner” to the daily interactions I have now with senior executives who promoted me 3X in 2 years and treat me like a “high level leader”. I was the only person out of the 500+ of us to receive this many promotions and this particular level of promotion. It is heady stuff and very exciting.”
Get the "Becoming a VP" Checklist
If you're looking to get promoted from Director to VP, this powerful checklist will help you prepare to achieve that goal. Inside the checklist, you'll find a strategic yet practical "roadmap" for making sure the way you communicate with others demonstrates your capacity to step into a VP role. If you're looking to develop that "executive presence" aura that successful leaders have, this free checklist will help you do it.