Promoting Internal Ability as a Manager

This may sound counterintuitive, but sometimes one of your most important roles as a manager is to get rid of your best people!?Obviously, I don’t mean you should fire them! But sometimes your best people need a bigger challenge than you can offer them. Or their interests lie elsewhere. So as a manager, your best bet is to help them achieve their goals by helping them have internal mobility - finding a new role within your company.?

1. Have career conversations with your people at least 2 or 3 times a year. In those discussions get a handle on how your employee wants to progress, what they love and want to do more of, and what they hate and want to do less of. Encourage them to think about and share their long-term aspirations. You might be able to help them get what they want inside of your department, but you may also see other areas of your company that may be a better fit.
2. Give them coaching and feedback to help them improve. A great manager is a connected manager, and a connected manager takes the time to share what they see: what their employee is super strong at and encourages them to build that strength, and what their employee needs to get better at and which skills to grow. Connected management helps you keep your employees longer, helps your employees grow, and gives you a reputation for being a great manager. Employees flock to great managers.
3. Support your employees in meeting others outside of your department. Find ways for your employees to work with your peers so they can get to know each other. Encourage your people to meet others throughout the organization, and help them find mentors. That way your employees will have a better sense of what’s going on in the company, and they’ll be more valuable to you. Ultimately they may find an opportunity that’s better for them. The upside for you is that they will be a happy “alum” of your organization and a strong ambassador for you.
4. Internal mobility works both ways. Keep an eye out for amazing talent inside of your company. Build your own cross-functional relationships. Find mentors and mentor others. You’ll build an amazing internal brand for you and for your department, and you’ll find that great talent will flock to you.

Find out more through my course, Promoting Internal Mobility as a Manager, which is unlocked and available to everyone for free through 4/29! You can start the course here:

After you take the course, send me a message and let me know what you think!

Alisa