Strategic Direction Blog

I encourage all of my clients to develop and promote from within whenever possible. By promoting from within you get a known entity with a proven track record. In addition, you also indirectly help minimize turn over.

How you ask? By promoting from within you show the team they can realize their career growth by remaining with the company. No need to look elsewhere if you have management ambitions, they can be achieved right where they are at. If however you don’t take the time to develop your team or offer growth opportunities, you run the risk members of your team will leave for another opportunity or worse yet, a competitor.

A word of caution however - do not always assume your top sales representative(s) will make the best manager(s). In many cases top sales people find it difficult to get away from the “me, me, me” mentality and can’t always make decisions that are best for others or the organization.

The good news is this issue can typically be flushed out through cautious interviewing - Yes, you should make even your internal candidates interview. This is a good practice for any organization regardless of size or industry.

The first time I told one of my Executive clients to sharpen up his CV he thought I knew something about his employment that he didn’t. I went on to explain taking the time to review and update your CV routinely does two things:

1. Should a new opportunity arise your CV will contain the most up to date information.

2. It serves as a great way to reflect back on your accomplishments and achievements to date.

Too often we get caught up in what we haven’t done well or haven’t done at all. Setting some time aside to update your accomplishments and appreciate how far you have come can be good for the psyche and career.