Can you really help your employees get promoted?

Why is it most employees don’t want to get promoted?  I could never figure that out. Sure they want and even need more money but they always have an excuse on why they are not able to grow. You may even over extend at times and give them free seminar tickets or golden opportunities, only to hear them come up with great excuses why they can’t make it. I recently asked leadership legend John Maxwell what things he was thinking on currently and he said something amazing. He said, “ The bottom line is , you can’t take people where they don’t want to go.”  Now if you know John, he is a simple down to earth guy and you may find this quote a little rudimentary. However, how many of us are guilty of it?   

I’ll admit it, when I was running divisions of corporations in my early 30’s I thought I could turn anyone around.  Who cares is they were fired from their last 30 jobs, they didn’t have me to train them. Another trap I see business owners fall into is thinking a training system will simply turn everyone into a super star. How is it that two people with the same low salary and same challenges in life go to a seminar and one says: ” This is amazing, I’m going to turn my life around , and he does.” While the other says: “ This a bunch of hype, what a waste of time” and off he goes to be a permanent resident in the land of mediocrity.” So rather than fighting human nature let’s embrace it and put people where they can thrive. If you have an honest employee with a Post Office mentality, don’t send her to a motivational seminar. Send her to a Post Office seminar, I’m kidding but you get my point, send the people to the seminar that want to go.

Another example of mistakes in getting promoted is turning top sales guys into managers. Just because they are good at selling doesn’t mean they will be a good manager and many are not. Peter Drucker has proved it over and over through his behind the scenes success at G.E. It’s all about matching the persons strengths to the Job. Just because a guy has an accounting degree doesn’t mean he should be an accountant. He may have an amazing personality and love to perform, get this guy doing sales presentations ASAP! Plus he can shine even more when an accounting question comes up. In fact you may want to consider creating positions around your employees strengths. The old business models are crumbling around us, it’s a new world in business and the time to adapt is now.