Passed Over for Promotion Activities

A whiteboard coaching activity is suggested as a helpful tool for someone who has been passed over for a promotion. The timing of the activity is important, as it should be done when the person is in a calm and positive state of mind. The activity involves visualizing the current state, exploring strengths and opportunities, and identifying the desired state. Through this process, an action plan is created to differentiate oneself and take steps towards achieving the desired promotion. It is emphasized that taking action and holding oneself accountable is crucial for success. Now, a great activity for somebody who's been passed over for a promotion is to use a whiteboard coaching activity. Now, when you do this, it's certainly arbitrarily up to you. You have to pick your timing, and you want someone who's in a really good space. Not someone who's 100% gotten over it, but somebody who's ready to pursue actions to move in the right direction. And let's just assume it's continuing to go for another promotional opportunity. If that person is really jaded and they're angry and they're showing emotion, it's not the right time to do this activity. So you're going to want to do it in a timeframe that they're calm in a really good space. Now, the reason we suggest whiteboard coaching here is because it uses a visualization technique. When people can visualize how to get from point A to point B to point C and so on, they will get in the car and they will travel, so to speak. So whiteboard coaching is where you sit down and you draw two lines vertically. You create three columns, column one, column two, column three. Now, there's a lot of adaptations of whiteboard coaching. The first thing you do is you get them to revisit their current state. You sit down and say, Julie, as we sit here today, where do you feel like you have strengths with your current job? What opportunities do you think exist within your current job to continue to grow and prosper and improve? And what's the one thing that you really like about your current job? Now, in the immediate news of not getting the promotion, most people don't visit that. That's where you as the coach have to pick the right time when they're in a really good state. Once they fill up that left side of the board, and you can write it for them, here's the cool thing. When they're looking at these answers that you're writing down, and you can also do it virtually via like a PowerPoint or a digital board, they're actually looking at themselves. Nobody in their right mind when they get passed over for a promotion is walking into your office and saying, you know, I'm kind of ticked off and I just wanted to let you know, boss, I took everything out of perspective. Now, I bet you're laughing. So when you fill up column one, you go to column three and say, look, you went for promotional opportunity. I think it was a great learning experience. Now you have a differentiating factor. And we're going to get to that in column two. But now you have an opportunity that most people never take. And you plant that seed. You entice them. Then when you get to column three, you say, okay, what's that desired state? Is it still being a team leader, first-time manager, shop floor supervisor, whatever it might be? And it could be the same promotion or it could be another promotional opportunity. And you write that down. What's your ideal state? What's your destination? Is it still the same? Has it changed a little bit? And if the person goes back to being jaded, say, well, hold on a second. I understand you're still upset. So are you giving that experience the power to negate you from promoting yourself or going for more promotional opportunities? Most people are not going to say, yeah, that's what I'm doing. They're going to say, no, no, I shouldn't do that. I was overreacting. Sorry about that. And so when you get to that third column, you're going to write down, what's your desired state? What does that look like? What do you bring to the table positively to a promotion like that? What strengths do you currently have that will serve that job well? And honestly, what opportunities do you have to continue to raise your game so when you do interview, you've really put in the time and work to get that promotional opportunity? You write all those things down. That's the desired state. Then you go back to column two and say, okay, let's craft out our actions together. What can we do together to make sure that we get to that side of the board? You list those things out. Here's the big question. Here's the big part of the activity. When they look at that whiteboard, you say, I want to share something with you. If we do this, I want to share a statement with you, and I'd love to hear your reaction. The statement is this. Most people would throw up their hands and give up. What we're looking at is an action plan to differentiate you that will absolutely separate you from most of the people in the world. When you hear that, what's your reaction? What they're going to do is talk positively about themselves. And when you do that and you create that action plan, it is bestowed upon you the responsibility, especially in that middle column, is to schedule those actions. The first thing we can do when someone's passed over for a promotion to start canceling sessions, that would get them the next promotion. So make sure you hold yourself accountable.