Donald Asher has spent his career helping people get ahead. The author of 10 books, including "Who Gets Promoted, Who Doesn't, and Why," Asher, 52, travels the globe talking to colleges, universities, and MBA programs about career development. He also works as a career coach for executives who make at least $200,000 a year. Asher's specialty: employees who want to put themselves on the fast track, which means a promotion every 18 months.
After 30 years counseling clients on how to get promoted, Asher has formed a few contrarian ideas. "Most people think that a promotion is a reward," he observes. Not so, he maintains. "People get promoted because their bosses believe they will succeed in the next assignment." The tricks to moving up fast, says Asher: skill set and timing.
Prepare your replacement
It also helps to nurture skilled lieutenants who can take over your job when you move up the ladder. Companies have an institutional bias toward hiring from the outside, because promoting from within produces two staffing changes, he points out. If you've trained the perfect candidate to step into your position, then your bosses will be more likely to pick you for a promotion.
This may seem counterintuitive, but Asher counsels workers not to make themselves indispensable in their current jobs. If your bosses can't do without you, how will they move you into another job?
Keep your ears open
Good timing is also essential. For instance, if you know that your company is getting ready to open an office in Las Vegas, you might wrap up the project you're working on in time to put yourself forward as the prime candidate to head that new outpost.
Asher tells the story of a woman who worked in the human resources department of a major company. She thought her career was looking up when she received a critical assignment to help the company move its headquarters. But in the middle of the headquarters relocation, she learned that her employer was opening its first-ever office in Asia. That would have been the ideal chance for her to shift into a high-profile overseas assignment. But she was too burdened by the headquarters move to throw her hat into the ring for the Asian job.
Company intelligence is worth its weight in gold, says Asher. If the HR professional had known about the Asian plans, she might have been able to delegate or even pass the headquarters assignment off to a colleague. Asher advises going even further. He suggests the HR manager could have scheduled a vacation to the region and started language courses.
Use "Trojan horse" compliments
Asher counsels clients they should never go over their direct supervisors' heads, unless they do it by paying their boss a compliment. "Praise is a Trojan horse for information," he says. As an underling, you can send a message about yourself to senior bosses, in the form of kudos for your supervisor. Example: You and your boss return from a trade show in Chicago and you write a quick, enthusiastic note to the top brass saying how much you learned at the show, mentioning that your boss did great and you accomplished your goals and more.
Accept all promotions
If you're offered a promotion within your company, always take it, advises Asher. If you don't, you will run afoul of the unwritten rule that if you turn down a promotion offer, you will not get another.
And be willing to relocate. "You have to move to get promoted," Asher insists. People working in nice places like San Francisco, New York, or Seattle don't want to leave, he notes. "But if someone says, 'we want you to go to Lower Dusty Nowhere,' and you say, 'I'll pass,' you're really passing up on everything forever." Later in your career, you can be picky about location. "There's a difference between age 28 and 38," says Asher. "If you don't move in the early years, you're losing the opportunity to break out of the pack."
Find a mentor
Another tip from Asher: Attach yourself to a superstar who can give you plum assignments and help you surge ahead. The quintessential example of this is a president in his first term. Obama's cabinet can count on thriving careers in the private sector. George Stephanopoulos rose from obscure congressional staffer to Clinton press secretary to chief political correspondent for ABC News.
Learn new things
It also pays to learn new skills, says Asher, particularly at a time when your economy is in transition. Asher describes an HR professional who saw the recession coming and trained herself in downsizing. As her company laid off workers, she was promoted to help run its downsizing effort.
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