Would You Refuse a Promotion to Stay in a Job You Love?
So much career advice involves how to get ahead, get promoted, move up the ladder. But what if you love the job you have? Sue Shellenbarger and University of Colorado Health president Dr. Rulon Stacey look at finding your professional "sweet spot." Photo: University of Colorado Health.
Most career advice is about getting ahead and climbing the ladder toward bigger titles and higher status.
But what if you love the job you're in?
Some people have found their sweet spot—the job that suits both their talents and their goals. To stay and thrive in it, though, requires proactive steps to both maintain personal satisfaction and avoid seeming to coast.
More than 3 in 4 employees say they have no desire to move up in their organizations, according to a 2011 survey of 431 workers by OfficeTeam, a Menlo Park, Calif., staffing service. Some have found equilibrium between career challenges and family stability. Others don't like managing people or taking on tasks that don't excite them.
Many are wary of office politics at senior levels. "My boss is 2,000 miles away. I like that," says a regional senior executive for a large financial-services firm who has turned down two promotions in the past decade.
Such attitudes are "much more common than people are willing to admit," says Ken Siegel, a psychologist and president of a Los Angeles consulting firm, the Impact Group.
Many employees keep their desire to stay put quiet, because they don't want to be seen as uncommitted or lacking ambition, Dr. Siegel says. Some employers consider employees who don't want to move up a source of problems and a roadblock to others' advancement. At some companies, they are actually referred to as "blockers."
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It's imperative for people who don't want to leave a dream job to let the boss know what they have in mind. Otherwise, "people are going to be making assumptions about where you want to go," says Helene Lollis, president of Pathbuilders, an Atlanta consulting firm. One manager at a financial-services company didn't tell her boss that she didn't want to advance.
"Unbeknownst to her, a senior leader had stuck out his neck to get her promoted," Ms. Lollis says. She turned down the offer and created so much ill will that she decided to resign, Ms. Lollis says.
Most important is to be sure of your reasons for staying put. You should be truly satisfied with your job, not dodging promotions because of self-doubt or fear of failure.
People can thrive after declining a promotion. Typically, they have made it clear to their managers that they want to continue growing while staying in the same job. They update their skills, solve problems for the boss, help colleagues advance and come up with new ways to be seen as invaluable.
They might describe their current job as "an ideal fit for my passion and skill set" or "the role where I can have the biggest impact."
Brenda Thickett makes no secret of the fact that she wants to keep the job she has at Boston Consulting Group. The former consultant stepped off the partner track in 2006 to help manage the firm's social-impact practice, which provides consultants and management help to nonprofits such as the United Nations' World Food Programme and Save the Children.
Ms. Thickett says she has wanted to work on solving social problems ever since studying in Niger for five months during college.
"To have real poverty on your doorstep, to see really hungry kids and children with polio, made me want to understand what we in the U.S. could do to make a difference," she says. The firm also gives her flexibility to work from home, which helps the mother of two children, ages 10 and 7, manage home life.
She says she has turned aside offers to be considered for roles elsewhere within the firm, and rejected numerous headhunter calls. She admits it can be hard to watch peers rise. "I see the class I started with and they're partners, and some are making senior partner," she says.
She finds other ways to satisfy her ambitions. Some have made her invaluable, says Wendy Woods, a senior partner, global leader of the social-impact practice and Ms. Thickett's boss. She started and runs three programs that let the firm's consultants to step away from regular assignments and work with nonprofits for up to a year.
"We talk a fair bit about what she needs to keep it challenging for her," Ms. Woods says.
Often, people who take a promotion discover that they hate the new job. Regrets may spring from the challenges of the transition itself, including longer work hours, more travel or family members' problems adjusting to the change.
Dr. Siegel advises waiting six to nine months to adjust. If you still feel that the new job is a mistake, "you can say, 'It's just not working for me,' " Dr. Siegel says. "It's better to have that conversation than to fake it, because faking it usually leads to firing."
Hospital executive Rulon Stacey moved from Chicago to Fort Collins, Colo., in 1996 to run a medium-size hospital because he wanted to make a difference. "And I don't think we have to be at Mayo Clinic or Cedars Sinai to make a difference," he told employees at the Poudre Valley Health System at the time. He was intent on improving medical care, and he also wanted to raise his four young daughters, now ages 21 to 30, in one place.
Dr. Stacey expanded employment at Poudre Valley fivefold to 5,300 and implemented doctor incentives to provide high-quality care. Poudre Valley has won several management and professional awards under his leadership including the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige award in 2008. Some employees resisted the changes and criticized him for résumé-building at the hospital's expense, he says.
To quell speculation, he signed a new long-term employment contract and started talking openly with senior managers and physicians about his plans to stay.
"I wanted to make a difference professionally without sacrificing personally," says Dr. Stacey, who was recently named president of University of Colorado Health, a partnership between Poudre Valley and University of Colorado Hospital.
He says he has turned down "at least a dozen" offers to head larger hospitals elsewhere. Rather than move on to a bigger organization, he says, he is putting his family first.
It's important to revisit your decision now and then and make sure your reasons are still sound. People are often motivated to take a new job by intrinsic rewards, such as enjoying the challenge, the subject matter or the people, Dr. Siegel says. But when moving upward, people are more likely to be motivated by factors like pay or status. "Those may be very compelling but they're not always very satisfying," he says. "Ask yourself why you took the job in the first place," he says. Are those motivators still in force?
Debra Benton, a Fort Collins, Colo., executive coach, surveyed 100 managers several years ago and found two-thirds didn't desire to move up. Many cited fear of making peers jealous or of breaking out of a comfortable role. "People are more afraid of trying for success and not getting it, than of settling for what they have," she says.
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