How To Get Promoted Without Being A Jerk with Gary Gamp, The Company Doctor #6

Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor, the podcast that brings you practical takeaway business advice and light-hearted good times in equal measure. This episode, Gary and I are going to be exploring the art of getting promoted without being a jerk, which sounds a bit aggressive and confrontational, but is in fact a hugely helpful set of guidelines to help you achieve your professional goals in a subtle and structured way. Here to do almost all of the heavy lifting is Gary Gamp, The company doctor himself, Gary.

Hello to you. Hey, George. We've got new interface, new mics.

Yeah, we were just saying this is a slightly different setup. We can all, we can see each other again. I've got the light shining in my eyes, so it's, uh, it's new ground for us, but exciting ground.

I've been looking forward to this one. So many people have asked me, Gary, you're so smart, help me get promoted. Uh, I'm not so smart, but I do want to help people get promoted.

Yeah, well, I have been looking forward to this one because it's called How to Get Promoted Without Being a Jerk, and I'd like to get promoted, and I am a jerk.

So you definitely don't want to be.

So I definitely, I definitely need the help.

Let's try and do that. You know, we're here to doctor— doctor sounds bad when you say that about getting promoted— but doctor your promotion. Maybe we should change the name of it.

Yeah, no, that's what we need. And I was going to start off by asking if this is, is this directed at anyone in particular? So do we need to Are we angling this at entry-level people, new starters, or is this going to be sort of across the board useful?

Oh, you mean apart from yourself?

Apart from myself, yeah. This isn't just my own one-to-one session with the company doctor. It's not just for you.

It's not a coaching session. That's a good question, actually. It's probably, again, we're on the business-to-business audience, so it's probably for anyone within that business-to-business community. I did want to say, actually, because a lot of people have probably come to this episode because it talks about how to get promoted, but they're thinking pay rise. I am actually going to talk a bit later about pimping your pay rise. But if you're listening to this and you just want to know how to get a raise for stuff you're already doing, I'm probably not the right person to help you, although I will help you, of course. But this is about adding value and earning the right to get a pay rise. So when I say pimp your pay rise, it's not like putting the boss's arm behind his back or anything.

Okay, great. Well, where do we begin then? How do we begin with this?

Well, the beginning is the beginning. And actually, there's, as always, there's 3 parts to our little discussion today. And I wanted to start with the first part, which I call, what do you want? Here's an example, right? Remember the days where we used to go on travel? I know you're in travel related, but we used to go on holiday, which we will do again. And the days before the, even before the internet, where we even went to a travel agent. Imagine this, right? You go into a travel agent and their first question to you is going to be, 'Where do you want to go?' And if you said, 'Well, I don't really know,' which is possible, and then they said, 'When do you want to go?' And you said, 'I don't really know.' And, 'What sort of things do you like doing?' 'I'm not really sure.' Although they will ask you lots of questions and try and help you, it's quite hard for them to help you. Do you agree?

I agree, yeah. That's probably their worst nightmare, isn't it?

And I think a lot of people are kind of working their careers in the same way. They're expecting someone to knock on their door. Actually, I remember talking to my son about his career and I said, look, no one's going to knock on your door and go, you know what, I've got this amazing job and I want you to come and work for me or to get promoted. And then there was an episode on Friends, if you remember it, where someone did knock on the door and said, I've got a job for you. It doesn't happen in real life, of course.

Sure.

The first thing I want to talk about is, and we've touched on this in other episodes, but I want to talk about, with that in mind, creating your own path.

Yeah.

Because the truth is, it's very hard to create your own path if you don't know where you're going. And you might not know what's available, of course, but you've got to start with some idea. And I'm talking about, yeah, so if you want to get promoted either in the job you're doing now to a more senior level or to another role within the same company, or use where you're working as a step up to another job somewhere else, it's all the same. You've got to know what you want.

Would you agree? I would agree. And does that involve a bit of soul searching, or is that— should you know that already? I mean, someone asked me the other day what I wanted to be when I grow up. Which I found a bit odd, but, you know, an interesting question.

But it's late, right?

Yeah, a bit late for that. But it sort of struck me dumb because I'm not one of these people that does have a sort of 5 or 10-year plan. And, you know, you do, you can run into the danger of just sort of bobbing along. So yeah, I completely agree. I think knowing what you want is definitely a great start. And how do you get to, I mean, how do you figure that out? How do you get there? Yeah. How do you?

Good question. Well, I think now this is an interesting one because it's quite controversial because I'm not necessarily saying, look, if you're not ambitious, you won't get on. But the truth is, it's okay to stay where you are. But if you want to get promoted, we're going to talk about it later, you've got to offer personal value. So therefore, you need to be ambitious enough, certainly in the eyes of your employee, because otherwise, why would they? They're in business to develop or to grow or whatever. And so the question has got to be for yourself, are you ambitious enough? Because if you're not, then you know what, carry on doing what you're doing. There's nothing wrong with that. People need steady eddies and that's fine. But yeah, therefore, if you're ambitious enough, you do need to take the time to think about what you want. And I don't think people spend enough time doing that until they've either got a problem at work or it's a bit more of a drama.

Right. And it's on you as well, right? It's like it's on the individual. You can't wait around for the company you work for to take an interest.

Yeah, they're not— that's what I mean by creating your own path. You can, and it will happen sometimes, But why would you? And in fact, back in our episode of Out of Work, What Next, we had a very interesting discussion about you kind of come out of school or university, you roll into a job which isn't really— you want to be an astronaut, but now you're doing something else. And before you know it, you're kind of stuck in a rut. And so there's nothing wrong with maybe on the weekend giving yourself an hour's thought or one evening really thinking about what you like and what you don't like at the very minimum. That's how I want to start, because I think that it's very hard to get promoted if you don't have something to aim at. Like my travel agent example, which is a bad example.

That's a good example.

I like that. And a way of explaining it is, if you look at— I'm not a football fan, as you know, but if I was, if you look at the manager, people are warming up on the bench and the football manager is looking for different options. You need to be your own manager of your career and be thinking about, have I got other options? Because if my only game in town is where I'm at and I'm not sort of playing, looking around and playing the field a bit, then it would dampen my confidence and maybe my motivation, and I might miss out on opportunities because I wasn't looking. And so, you know, I recommend you— this is one of our t-shirts, you know, warm up the bench.

Yeah, keep your options open, I guess.

Well, yeah, keep your options open, but also work your options because you can't keep your options open unless you've got options. So what I'm really thinking about is creating those options and having a bit of a plan B, because even if you don't use it, it will make you much more useful to the company you're at. You'll be more motivated, you'll be more driven because you know you've got an alternative potentially.

A case of sort of just keeping your ear to the ground, making sure you're aware of the different opportunities within the company and externally. Or is it as far as also like, you know, making sure that you keep your warm contacts warm and, you know, you're in with recruiters and all that sort of thing? Do you need to be constantly at that sort of stage?

Yeah, and in the second part, which we're going to go to in a minute, I'm going to cover how to do that because I think there's a bit of a game plan, I think. But the first bit is you've got to know what you want, and you might not know what jobs are available, but certainly know what you like doing, what you don't like doing., and maybe companies you'd like to work in or a different department you'd like to be in or something you'd like to aspire to. And then, yeah, I'm going to explain to you how to warm up the bench a bit, but certainly have a plan B because I think it gives you confidence. It makes you a better employee. I'm not saying you should keep looking to leave the company.

Yeah. Oh, do you mean the plan B as in, as in sort of if things don't go my way in this company, this is something else I could explore in a different company.

Yeah. And internally, a plan B internally as well, because you might be stuck in a rut with the person you're working for and you know, it's kind of wearing you down a bit, but there might be, you might like the company, there might be other departments that you could, you know, really shine in. Okay. So that's my first bit. So you're with me so far?

I'm with you so far. This is all making sense.

Yeah. The second part is, and I want to spend a bit more time on this, is about leveraging your personal value. I think the most important thing is, and You know, like some people will say, I've worked really hard, and they talk to their boss about their value and about how much money they should be earning. It's all very interesting, but you're just doing your job. If it was your business, you know, you want to get your money's worth out of the people that are working for you. So if you look through that then, so the most important thing is you've got to leverage your personal value. And what I mean by that is, you know, we've spoken about personal brand in one of the other episodes. I want to teach you to be a social climber inside the company. You like that?

Okay, I do like that.

Yeah, I want to help you position yourself and lobby. Now it's interesting, isn't it? Because in the, in the news the last couple of days, there's some discussions about government ministers that shouldn't be lobbying. But I want you to lobby. I, I'm okay with it. We're not going to do it for dodgy gain. This is a good lobby, not a bad lobby.

Okay, great.

It's a legal lobby.

Important to know the difference, isn't it?

It's like a legal high. It's a legal lobby.

Is that right?

And I want to talk to you about— last time we talked about being vulnerable and confident and the balance between the two. Today's t-shirt is— I want to talk to you about you being an owner, thinking like an owner, and being an apprentice. They're the two ends of the scale for me. Because if you act like an owner, you'll be a bit more grown up about the things you do and why you do them, and you'll think slightly differently and be more driven about them. And maybe make more sense of the things that you do and why you do them and where you spend your time and prioritise. And if you think like an apprentice, you're open-minded to learn and you don't think you know everything. I mean, you do obviously know everything, but you don't think you know everything. And again, the balance between those two things, I think, makes you— it increases your personal value.

It's a tricky balance to get, isn't it, that having the confidence to sort of, you know, well, having the confidence to have confidence, I guess, in these sorts of situations, but also not getting to a stage where you think, listen, I've done this all before, I know it, I know it inside out, you know, there's nothing else you can teach me about whatever it may be.

Well, yeah, it's very interesting and I'll give you an example of what you've just said really. So if you think about in business, most people think in order to get promoted, you need to get results.

Would you agree?

Yeah. So if I asked 10 people, 20 people and I say, how important is getting results? I think most people will say it's kind of up there. But then think on the other hand, have you ever seen someone that got promoted that didn't get results and maybe wasn't even that great, was a bit of an idiot? Oh, sorry, I shouldn't say that, should I? So people do get promoted who don't deserve it, would you agree?

Yeah, absolutely. All the time.

So, and they're not even getting results. Not suggesting you don't get results. So do a really rubbish job. You're terrible. And you'll get promoted. Be a jerk. There you go.

Yeah. Without being a jerk, be a jerk.

'Get promoted, fantastic.' No, I want to delve into it. So by getting results isn't always the ticket, but it is important to get results, I think. In addition to getting results, companies like people that, that want to develop themselves and want to get better, and that's the apprentice part. So companies get off on the fact that someone cares about their development and they want to be better and they want to learn. That's the second thing, and they're probably about equal, but the biggest thing that leverages someone's personal brand is internal networking. We've got a whole episode on networking, haven't we? But I've got a model today I want to talk to you about— stakeholder snakes and ladders. Okay, can you visualize that?

Um, I reckon so. I'm not very good at drawing, but I reckon I could give it a go.

Yeah, draw, draw snakes and ladders. But, but the point is, if you're— if you buy into the fact that you should create your own path in order to develop your career, as in it's not— if it's going to be, it's up to me. Then instead of leaving it to chance, like the, the episode of Friends where someone's not really going to knock on my door, I'm going to create those interventions so that I've got the best chance. There's no guarantees, obviously, but I'm going to create the best chance. And I'll give you an example. I would say in my career, the best chances I had were during times of change to get promoted, but I'm going to come back to that bit later. So let's talk about the snakes and ladders. Here's a model I want to share with you. The snakes and ladders model is this. Think about your work environment. I know you're newish into your role right now, but this is for anyone who's listening. Grab a piece of paper. I know it's a bit 1980s. Grab an iPad and a pencil or a piece of paper and draw a circle in the middle and put yourself in the middle. Put your name because— don't use my name, it wouldn't work. And draw 5 people that influence your world at work. It doesn't matter what level, it could be the CEO, it could be your manager, it could be a partner. It doesn't matter to me, but the 5 people that are the most influential in your job, in your current role. So put 5 circles around your circle, join the dots, and just put the initials of those 5 people. So then you've got the 5 people that influence your world. Stakeholders are about people that influence you and you influence them. They're important parts of your of your career at work. Okay, so it doesn't matter who they are, they're just important to you. And then what I want you to do is I want you to rate the relationship between 0 and 10 for each of those 5 people. So 10 is that the relationship's so good you go on holiday together, and 0 is either you don't know each other or you don't like each other, and 5 is a good steady business relationship. So I'd like you to rate those 5 people between 0 and 10 just very quickly. It's a self-assessment. Which means we're not going to check, but just put a number against it. Okay, you with me so far? Yeah, you're good at this, George. So this is our game plan. So now we've got the 5 most influential people, we've got a rating between 0 and 10. Here's the question: have you got anyone above a 5? Yeah, you need to verbalize it because—

sorry, I'm nodding, you can see me.

Yeah, you're nodding at me. And have you got anyone below a 5? Yes. Yes. Good. And you don't need to say their names because obviously that would be embarrassing. I won't do that. What is the difference? And it's difficult for you because you're in a newer role, but what's the difference between someone that's below a 5 and someone's above a 5? Why are they different?

Part of it is sort of personal connection. So a sort of a— how you're getting on on a personal level. Yeah. And the other would be— and I suppose what else factors in?

I suppose— I think back to your old job where you knew someone better. Why would you have a higher relationship with them?

Well, just because, you know, if I work closely with them, if I work more closely.

Yeah, so when you work closely together with someone, then you improve that relationship and therefore the score. So it could be that you know them better or you work together or you like them. And then on the other side, someone that's lower down might be because you don't like them. Yeah. You don't know, everyone gets on with everyone, right?

No, we don't.

You don't have to go on holiday together. Sometimes, you know, people aren't very nice and we don't like them and we kind of need to get on with them because they might help us in our careers, right? So there's a bit of that. I'm not saying we should love everyone. And sometimes it's because we haven't had the chance to work together or I've got an opinion about them or they've got an opinion about me, but we don't really know each other.

That's my— that's the reason for my below fives, by the way.

Okay. And sometimes it's because we just not had the time yet or we've not even thought about building a relationship with them because we're busy or whatever. So here's the idea. So with mistakes and ladders, because snakes and ladders can go up or down, that's the point. Relationships just don't stay still. They either go backwards or forwards. So when people say, you know, yeah, I'm not working my relationship, well then it's normally going backwards. Then it's a bit like spinning plates. If you don't go forward, you're going backwards. So why don't we intentionally work a bit of a game plan with these 5 people? But let's pick 3 of these people. So if I— if you were to prioritize the top 3 that would make the biggest difference to your career over the next few months. Don't say who they are, put a little asterisk by them. And this is for everyone on this episode. What could you do to move the dial just a little bit? Not to move someone from a 3 to a 10, but from a 3 to a 4 or a 4 to a 5, just a little bit. What could you do that would increase the relationship just a little bit? Because now you're intentionally networking upward, snakes and ladders. So it's a ladder rather than the snake, because snakes happen on their own. If you don't do something, it's going backwards. People forget about you, they're busy, you're not relevant, to be honest, if you leave it long enough.

And the sort of proactive things that you can do to improve those relationships, I suppose a lot of it is just spending time, making the time to spend time with those people, setting up meetings, Zoom meetings, I suppose, as they will be for for a while.

There's a bit of that. I mean, unfortunately, yeah, we're not face-to-face as such, although, you know, maybe you can meet outside and get frozen outside or something. But one of the things I would recommend, if it's someone senior, what's to stop you saying, look, I'm trying to develop, have you got any kind of nasty sticky projects I could work on and you can mentor me through them? Because I want to learn and develop. That ticks the box of apprentice, but also gets you connected to someone senior And to be honest, if someone asked me that, I'd be delighted that someone cared enough about taking something on. So that could be one thing. Another thing could be, you know, you might just set yourself a goal to have a coffee with that person, a virtual coffee. Why couldn't you have a virtual coffee and just make some time and say, look, I just wanted to get to know you better. Yeah. As an investment in the relationship. What would be wrong with that? It's just part of the game plan to move the dial a little bit.

That shows the more of the owner. So you've got the sort of 'Can I help you with any sort of difficult projects?' And then do a cracking job. That's the sort of the apprentice side of things. And then, 'Let's just meet for a coffee.' That's more of like, I have the confidence to ask you this, even though you might be sort of very senior or whatever it may be.

Definitely. And that's, yeah, you're showing initiative. And actually, I've been in situations where I've fallen out with people. I know it's hard to believe. And we didn't speak to each other for a long time. And I actually caught one of my little notches was, I called that person and said, I've been a bit of an idiot. How about us getting together for a coffee and having a chat? It was a stage in my life where I wasn't as smart as I thought I was and built some bridges. That relationship was important enough that I needed to do that and be the bigger person. It's just getting on the radar. It's making a difference. It's being relevant and it's standing up and being counted. But you've created that path. And then you're more open to opportunities and opportunities are more open to you. Okay.

What do you think? Yeah, no, I think that's great. That's really, really useful. And I think, you know, I was going to ask, you're talking about trying to demonstrate your value and prove your own value. And that's such great advice for doing that. I think sort of, as you said, you know, the idea of offering yourself up as someone who can help out with difficult projects, I just think, as you say, people will be delighted to hear that, even if there is nothing to to work on, they'll still sort of remember you as someone who's willing to help out. And if you do get to take that job on and you do a great job, then that's a great way of doing just that, proving your worth.

Absolutely. And if I look back in my career when I was leading lots of people, the people that stood out for me were either people that were ambitious and they wanted to help, or people I could rely on. And the people I could rely on without the drama were the people that I always promoted because I thought they deserved it. And I'd give those people a chance even if they weren't at the right level. But the reason for doing it as a stakeholder map is I don't want you to just think in your own department. I'm just thinking across the company because then you're raising your profile across the business and then people get to know about you. So where I've worked before, people know me because I've gone out of my way. And by the way, I don't want to be annoying. So I'm not one of these kind of, I talked about social climbing. I don't want to be an annoying person that's always like, a little puppy dog trying to— hello, don't forget about me. It's not like that. It's a bit more normal, being a normal person and adding value. It's all about leveraging your personal value. So that's the second thing I wanted to talk about. So the balance between apprentice and owner and to create your own path by social climbing intentionally. So you could say over the next 30 days, pick 2 people out of your 5 and do something specific that you've decided to do. And then the next 30 days, 20 days, 30 days, do the next 2. And then the next 20 days, 30 days, do the next 2. Then you've got 6 people and you're now starting to surround the wagons a bit and your reputation's starting to grow, but you're intentionally doing it.

And I think people will— yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I do think people would— people that aren't used to this way of thinking or haven't sort of followed this sort of path before might be worried about the idea that it is annoying to message someone out of the blue and say, you know what, we haven't had a chance to connect or But it's not, as you say, this is something which on the whole is welcomed.

You can find an authentic excuse. It needs to be authentic. So you can find an authentic excuse. You might find a, come across a book that, you know, there was a topic they were interested in, a hobby or something like any excuse for having the conversation. You don't send random emails to people, but make it natural. But just if you're working it, then it will work because people do this externally. People in customer-facing roles do this with customers. All we're suggesting is you do this internally. Your internal network is just as important, if not more, than your external network. And then if you need to leverage that network anyway with customers or someone else in the business, then you can do it because you know who they are. Ready for number 3? The third and final. This is, this is an interesting one. Yeah, this is my contradiction because I said at the beginning, if you want to learn how to make make a pay rise, this isn't for you. But, but it is if you're adding value. The third session I want to talk to you about is pimping a pay rise. I want to talk about pimping a pay rise but on the back of adding personal value. Okay, so we're not just asking for more money.

So you've demonstrated why you deserve this potential pay rise.

Yes, I want to talk more about it though, George, because Again, some people feel they have the right because they work so hard. I mean, I work so hard, Gary, you don't understand how hard I've worked. I need a pay rise. Really? I mean, that doesn't persuade me as an owner to give you more money. I'm pleased you worked hard and I appreciate it, but you're just doing your job, aren't you?

Yeah, it's something which, just quickly, we used to have above and beyond awards at a place I used to work, and people would win these awards just for doing their job. And there was one individual especially, who said, I can't understand why these awards are being given to people who— they're working very hard, but they're just doing their job. They're not doing anything extracurricular, which is what I think we've just been talking about, is doing those extra things above and beyond.

Definitely, above and beyond is a good way to put it. And again, we're not just doing it to get noticed. I mean, you could say I'm manipulating, but I'm, you know, genuinely part of my DNA is I want to make a difference in what I do. I want to add value and I want to enjoy what I do. I want to be fulfilled. So I'm not just turning up and going home. I mean, some people do and that's okay and I'm not berating it. But if you want to get promoted, you've got to make a difference in anything. If you want to get a job after university, you need to differentiate. You've got to differentiate. And that's the world that we're in. And I want to talk about commercial value. Have you heard of commercial value? I have heard of commercial value. In terms of work? No, I know you have, but in terms of work, you come across that as a job?

No, I don't think I have.

What it is, is that if you think about it, in, in jobs, some roles pay more money than other roles. So sales roles tend to pay more money because that person is potentially, you could argue, sometimes offering commercial value. Or someone who's a consultant who's billable to a customer is offering commercial value, or someone that can help make a contract bigger. There's certain things, but also someone who's a specialist is offering commercial value because they're differentiating and they're Customers are buying that specialism. If you want to pimp up your salary, if you get beyond the, I should earn more money because I'm working so hard, think about offering commercial value. And I'll give you an example for a consultant because it's an easy one to give, but it's the same in any role. You don't have to be a billable consultant, but if you're selling out your time, the most important thing to the company is something called utilisation. It's how How much of your day can I bill out? Hopefully 100% of your day. If I can sell you for £500 a day, the company's making money, making a profit. So billable consultants focus on what they call utilisation. But more important than utilisation is something called realisation. You're nodding, George.

I'm nodding, but I don't know.

You're not quite sure. You're that look on your face, just for people that can't see you. So realisation is the value of your time. So for example, If you were billing all day, but you're only billing £100 when you could be doing £500, the realisation is the £500. And so if someone wants to pimp up their pay rise, they need to think about their commercial value in terms of how much value they're bringing back to the company, you know, obviously to customers and the whole customer experience, but potentially the commercial value they're giving to the company. The closer you are to commercial value for that company, The more valuable you are and the more you've earned the right to ask for more money.

Okay, I'm with you. Yeah, how do you prove that? How do you sort of— what's the way of demonstrating?

Well, that's a good question because I think there's some roles that are easier than others. So if you're in sales or if you're a consultant, it's a fairly easy one. But I think if you think in terms of your value to the company's customers, so for example, if you're a specialist, Or if you're able to leverage a customer experience or something that makes the customer buy more, like you more, that's kind of the place to go. And it takes a bit of thinking for some of the roles. You might be in the back office somewhere, but your role is pivotal to that actually happening. It's like I gave an example in the past of a pit stop. There's 11 people changing tires on the driver. The driver gets all the glory in motorsport, but the people changing the tires in 2.3 seconds are really the heroes., or they're part of that. I think it's important to think of it in that way. And then the other area is just think in terms of timing. So the best time to get a pay rise is if you start a job, if you think about it, because you normally will only— you're negotiating joining a company and you're willing to come only on based on the pain of change. So you'll come if you get the money you're expecting and you can say no and go somewhere else, right?

Yeah. And you're in a position of power because you sort of say, well, I still—

You're in a position of power, but it's in your head. You're in a position of power because you're mentally, I'm adding value, you need me. That's what you're saying in your head. Hopefully you don't say that in the interview. You need me, put me on, I'm worth it. So mentally you're offering commercial value because you think you're adding value as a role and you're good at what you do. So that's the way to think about it.

And is it a case of being sort of, I don't know if this is a crude thing to do, but to actually bring this up, you know, when you're having these meetings or when you're taking this to your to your boss or whoever it is that's responsible for your pay rise, you know, is it worth sort of saying, look, I've done the maths and I figured out that I've been increasing value by this much, or, you know, I've brought X amount of commercial value to the company since I started?

I think yes, I think you need to think of it that way, but you don't want to say it that way because you don't want to— you don't want it to be, look, I sold £500,000 worth of stuff here, therefore you need to pay me more money. So you want to kind of disassociate that. But you want to demonstrate you've added value and you're interested in helping the company grow. And it's not just about my transaction, it's about my commitment to the business and where the company is going and the whole shebang needs to come together. And that's why, timing-wise, during a time of change is a great time to get promoted. Because if you put your hand up when things are difficult and offer to help out, that's where I've got promoted the most, during times of change. And they weren't always nice things. But you do need to join the dots, as you've said, George, on that. Yeah. On showing your value without showing off, really. Right. I think my strapline for this, and again, I feel a t-shirt coming off, maybe a hat for this one. Okay. Be long-term greedy. Nice. Be long-term greedy. It's okay to be greedy, but be greedy long-term, and that will give you the right perspective on— it's not all now, now, now. Yeah. Um, but you have to earn the right to, to get there. And then the final thing for me is the best timing to get a pay rise is not during the pay review. Please don't ask for an increase during the pay review. You've got less chance by a massive percentage during the pay review than outside the pay review.

Does that surprise you?

Why is that?

It does surprise me.

Yeah, because you're competing with everyone else. So basically a company's got a budget, if at all. Yeah, in these current times they might not have a budget, but in better times they'll have a budget.. And basically as managers, we'll sit down and work out who are the high performers, who can we afford to give money to. But there's so much focus on it that there's not much of a pot. Whereas if I was dealing with someone outside of that cycle, I'm just championing one person or two people, then I'm much more successful in getting money for someone at a higher rate because as a manager, I'm just trying to champion that person. That's interesting. It's outside the process. Yeah, I know, it's just the way it is. Yeah.

Does that surprise you? It does surprise me. Yeah, it's good to know that because you would assume that is the most logical time to sort of—

to— yeah, it's the worst time. It's actually the opposite. It's the opposite. There's lots of stats being done on it, but under the radar is a much better way to give someone a pay rise because as a manager internally, it's bloody difficult anyway to get people money and to agree with your manager, your manager's managers about the pot, or if we've got enough money to give anyone a pay rise anyway. And when you pick off someone, you say, look, they're adding massive value. I want to make sure they stay. They're not threatening to leave, but I want to look after them because they're an investment in the future. Then it's an easier business case to make.

Yeah, for sure. And as the person who's doing the requesting or the asking, you said that times have changed, are a really good time to bring that sort of thing up. But what's the best way of initiating that conversation? Because a lot of people find it very difficult to talk about money and to talk about themselves even. How do you initiate that conversation? Is it just a knock on the door or an email?

That's a very good question. And I think a lot of people get this wrong because having been on the receiving end of this, it's a very tough balance because it can ruffle your feathers. But if you don't ask, you don't get. So it's a kind of combination. But if you remember back to the legal lobbying we were talking about, the idea is not to surprise people and corner people, because if you do that, or threatened that I'll leave if— even if someone's really good and someone threatens me like that, I'm just like, kind of, no one's indispensable. Someone once told me, put your finger in a glass of water, take your finger out, look at the hole. Where is it? That's how indispensable you are. So anyone can be replaced, is the truth. It might be painful, but they can be replaced. So the lobbying bit is important, which is when people get kids for the first time, if you ever want to— they're at friends and you want to take them and get them to go home. If you say to them, Right, we're going home now. There's a big stink. Oh, come on, can I stay a bit longer? What parents learn to do is they say, we're going in 5 minutes, get ready. So they're lobbying, they're giving people, the kids warning. You want to do the same thing. So part of your networking that we've spoken about is having those discussions. And some of those stakeholders are your managers. You want to be lobbying them that I'm really progressing well, I'm loving working here. But it's going to come to the point soon when I'm not quite at the value I want to be. And you just keep dropping those seeds in. And sometimes managers are good and sometimes they're not, or they can or can't afford to do anything. And as long as you've got an open relationship and you can understand that, then you know how to deal with it. If the company generally can't afford it and they're just worried about paying the bills, then they're not going to pay you even if they love you. But if they can afford it and there's a path, but sometimes your manager is not very good at asking his manager or her manager for money. You learn to work it, but you're lobbying. Don't just surprise people like the kids were going home straight away. Drop them in as part of your DNA so they know that you love what you're doing. But there's going to come a point when I need to get to the next level. Or you might even say, can you help me? I want to be a senior manager or a senior consultant. What do I need to do to get there? Because I'm really ambitious and I want to help more. You know, I appreciate I'm not ready yet, but what do I need to do to get there?

And as you say, hopefully you've built up the relationship enough so that they can say, truthfully, we haven't got enough to pay you at the moment, but if you stick around, there's a huge investment coming in and we're going to make sure that the valued people are valued. And, you know, at least they'll give you an honest answer. Or they'll say, you know what, it's the end of the line for you at this company. This is as far as you go. And you should, you know, if you're looking for something else, I would recommend you start looking elsewhere.

Well, I had that recently, uh, someone who I really respected and was, you know, very successful at doing what they're doing, asked for a pay rise that was so big that they didn't warrant the value, they didn't warrant the commercial value. And then there's a difficult decision to make, and so it's too big a step. There's a limit. And that's why I mentioned that when you start a job, it's wrong, but you're much better at leveraging your salary when you join somewhere than when you're at somewhere, because there's normally a a limit, a mental limit that people will be able to pay.

Which might be why people currently change jobs so often.

And our job as managers is to make sure we attract and retain people. Yeah. And not everyone's good at doing that, but that's the goal at the end of the day. But the main thing is to create your own path. So that's all I've got to share with you. Well, that's great.

Young George. I think that's incredibly useful. I always find these useful, but we want the 3 takeaways.

I was hoping you were going to ask me. Here's my 3 takeaways. The first one is, and I feel very strongly about this and passionately about this, create your own path. Don't wait for someone else. I know your boss should help you with your career, but get over yourself. You create your own path. It's up to you. If it's going to be, if it's meant to be, it's up to me. The second one is be a social climber, be a legal lobbyist if you like. Don't just wait around and expect someone to do something for you. You've got to work it. And don't just work it in your own function, work it cross-function. Across the business so that you're raising your profile and just being on the radar, really. And then the third one is be long-term greedy. It's okay to be greedy and ambitious. Just be long-term greedy. Don't rush into it, lobby it. If you've scared someone with it, it's your fault. So, you know, build it in over time. And then, you know, like with networking, if you just do it in a panic because you're worried about your job, people smell the desperation. Yeah, don't be desperate. You know, build it as part of your, you know, if you believe in yourself and your abilities, then be long-term greedy.

I like it. I shouldn't probably say that this has been my favorite, but I think it has been my favorite so far. You're sure you're not supposed to have favorites among your kids?

You shouldn't have favorite children, but yeah, this is what happened.

This has been brilliant. So thanks very much, Gary. It's really, really useful. I think we've come up with more t-shirts this episode as well than we ever have before.

And hats. Multiple t-shirts.

So yeah, thank you very much. And thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.

The Company Doctor Podcast with Gary Gamp and George Collode. Why not subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts? Leave a review on iTunes if you have enjoyed this episode and find out more at thecompanydoctor.com.