GODSWILL O. ERONDU  Godswill O. Erondu, the pioneer of Africa Workplace Leadership Summit, is a leadership consultant who works with organisations - public and private - to transform their leadership and culture for superior performance and increased profit. He can be reached at godswillerondu@gmail.com   Usually, upon entrance into any organisation, people envision “climbing the ladder.” In other words, they imagine the day they become team leaders, supervisors, managers, etc. This apparently gives a lot of people a sense of progress on their job.   Interestingly and true to their assumption, as they do their work well, demonstrate competence and distinguish themselves they are promoted to the next rung on their career ladder, which could be a position where they're no longer responsible for getting the work done. They now lead others who get the work done. This creates a pyramid structure of an organisational chart, which focuses on seniority, power and position.    However, what is the effect of this on the productivity level of the individuals who experience this kind of promotion? Could they be more productive if their promotions were strength based and not necessarily climbing up the next rung? This article seeks to explore this as well as offer another approach that could increase productivity in the workplace.   Effects of next rung promotion

• Unhealthy competition

Most times in an environment where people expect to be promoted to the next rung on their career ladder and it happens to be a position of authority, say, supervisor or manager, they tend to compete with one another. The quest to outperform one's colleagues in a bid to be promoted to a higher position with all the goodies that come with it, makes people uncooperative as they hide information from one another, everyone protecting him/herself from the other so they can stand out as the top performer. This creates conflict and disappointment among the workers. Yet, they could have achieved more with greater impact on the bottomline had they worked in collaboration with one another.

• Increased stress

Have you noticed that a lot of top performing individual contributors experience decline in their performance once they are promoted to a position where they are no longer responsible for the work but responsible for the people that are responsible for getting the work done? Even when the next-rung-promotion is a different role rather than supervisor, manager and the likes, sometimes top performers could find themselves struggling to perform in those roles that everyone wonders what is wrong with them.   Usually, it is because the very talent that singled them out as top performers are no longer and/or are different from the ones required to have them perform at that top level in their new role or position.   Of course, every role performed excellently requires talent and lacking that talent will lead to struggle and therefore stress. If for example, an individual contributor is promoted to a manager and s/he lacks the talent and the right combination of skills and knowledge to motivate and lead his/her team to reach higher heights of excellence with respect to achieving goals, they'll struggle and become stressed which will affect their mental health and decrease their productivity as their enthusiasm wanes.

• Untapped productivity potential

When people are promoted to roles that they do not have the traits or natural ability to function, they falter. Research shows that people improve faster and contribute their greatest value in the area of their talent. When people's tasks and roles consistently align with their strength - talent, skills and knowledge - they consistently outperform themselves without stress.   Therefore, when a promotion pattern in the workplace focuses people on climbing the next rung on the ladder without consideration of their strength, they make the least contribution, experience stunted growth and suffer more stress and all these impact negatively on the bottomline.

• Decreased morale

Struggling to perform in a role often saps energy and ebbs enthusiasm. This obviously would have an effect on the subordinates and this could lead to decrease in morale among a team who may not understand what their leader is going through. Furthermore, even when the role is not positional, struggling to function on a role  could affect an individual or team that depends on the result of the struggling individual to carry out their own function.   The decrease in morale will eventually culminate in decreased productivity as less innovation will be experienced and enthusiasm to commit to excellent performance is lost all because the person leading the group is unable to find his/her feet and to navigate the group through the turbulence that they may be experiencing.   A different approach to promotion Years ago, a young banker said to me, “If I can do something, I will never believe anybody can do it better than me.” Obviously, people with this way of thinking would be very good at what they do. However, their problem begins when they are promoted to a managerial role; a rung where they have to manage the work done rather than doing the work. They falter since they will micromanage people in their charge and may end up creating conflict since they know the work better than any other person or they roll their sleeves and get to doing the work themselves, increasing their workload which could lead to burnout and stress. They have been promoted to their level of incompetence and so the work will suffer setbacks and unproductivity.    Here's what organisations can do to ensure productivity upswing even when people are promoted.   Weigh the talent-role fit Before you promote anyone, scrutinise the talent required to succeed in the role and the talent of the person being promoted to that role to ascertain if there's a fit. You do this bearing in mind that there is a distinct talent required to succeed in every role and so, that one is successful on a rung of the ladder does not mean one will be successful in the next rung up.    While it may be hard to find a perfect fit, yet if you examine closely you might be able to substantially reduce the tendency of the person struggling in the role as you ensure that people are promoted to roles that match their natural ability - talent. Otherwise, you will be promoting people to their level of incompetence.    Create alternative path to career growth The reason people are itching to climb up the next rung is because companies have tied prestige, higher pay, perks, spacious offices etc to going up the rung. Of course, it's natural for people to want these things and for them to have them they have to climb up the next rung.   However, if organisations will, for example, richly incentivise – which might mean individual contributors earning more than their managers – and make prestigious – recognise excellence and/or outstanding performance on every role – people remaining on their current role and achieving world class or topnotch performance, it will surprise them to see that most people would find it uninteresting to climb the next rung. Needless to say that those with the natural talent would still go for the next rung and that would be fine since they will be productive there.   Although, for this to be effective an organisation will have to define its graded levels of achievement on each role. I mean, how they will measure expertise on each role no matter how menial, so that people can track their progress on the roles towards top notch or world class performance.   Encourage people to discover themselves New entrants from the low level of an organisation rarely have full grip of their talents. Therefore, organisations could create a culture where their managers encourage people in their charge to embark on a journey of self discovery as they work.   This could mean encouraging workers to take different roles, not for the purpose of acquiring various skills that will make them attractive for employment both internal and external, but for the purpose of discovering different roles that play to their talents. So, managers encourage workers to assess how they feel about roles and the tasks they perform. For example, do they look forward to the coming week on Sunday night? If yes, why? What areas or tasks on the role makes them feel that way? And if they don't, why? What is missing in the role they play that makes them feel that way?    Bearing in mind that people experience faster growth as well as their greatest contributions in the areas of their talent, the answers to these questions could serve as a guide in a worker choosing the next role that is more consistent with their strength – talent, skills and knowledge – so that they don't get promoted to roles where there productivity suffers.   Conclusion  While it is alright to promote workers, it's important to make clear that this promotion does not necessarily have to be climbing to the next rung. A worker could be promoted while s/he maintains his/her role/task but continually outperforms him/herself if such lacks the strength to function on a next rung in their career ladder. This will help to maintain their level of performance and actually increase it rather than foster productivity decline.   Every role requires a certain strength – a combination of talent, skills and knowledge – to perform optimally. And if a worker lacks such, they will struggle to perform in that role. The traditional approach to promotion could focus people on seniority, power or position. However, an organisation could increase productivity and outperform their competition 2-to-1 as McKinsey research shows, by matching strength where strength is needed.   

• business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com