Your Organization Is Not Using the Best Promotion Strategy

 

There have been a couple of posts I made recently that drew comments on opposite sides of the debate  on whether bad managers persist or whether they are more typically eliminated as soon as their inadequate competence is made manifest.

Recently we have received more clarification in this area. But first, which of the following do you think is the most effective strategy organizations can take to ensure business efficiency?

a.  Promote based on merit (as defined by best competence in the previous position)

b.  Promote individuals chosen randomly from the workforce

c.  Promote alternately the best and the worst individuals in terms of competence

I would not have been able to ask such a ridiculous question if Italian researchers had not tested for these  very alternatives in a sophisticated workplace simulation. Their simulation promoted individuals based on the three strategies listed above, but in each case competency in the new level was not dependent on the competency in the previous level. (You can debate how much like real organizations this last criteria is.)

Without this study, I would also not have been able to describe the startling results. Ponder the following:

• Promotion based on merit reduced global organizational efficiency in the simulation.
• To avoid the reduction of global efficiency, the simulated organization had to promote based on the rules  in (b) and (c) - the random rules.

The results were at once surprising, then seemed to explain so much. Often, individuals are promoted into positions for which they are not ready (and may never be ready), predominantly based on performance in their previous position, even though the skills needed in the new position are much different. 

For the time being, you will simply have to be prepared for functional managers who are dysfunctional and leaders who cannot lead. Project management skills can help you survive in such an environment.  Maybe someday, though, we will hear in our workplaces the announcement that will tell us things may get better:

You over there! You win the workplace lottery! You're manager now. Move your stuff into that office.