#TDSU Episode 156:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:34 - The Reddit post dilemma

00:03:14 - What does a promotion even mean?

00:05:45 - The value of titles, money, and power

00:07:32 - Walking away from management

00:09:27 - The Peter Principle unpacked

00:10:38 - The honesty problem in hiring feedback

00:12:11 - Lying on resumes and other debates

00:13:42 - Finding fulfillment as an IC over a manager

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

[JP] (0:00 - 0:09)

Quick shout out to my first girlfriend who broke up with me by the water fountain and said, I'm not attracted to you anymore. And that's why she's breaking up with me.

[Dillon] (0:10 - 0:13)

Anymore is so fantastic. That's so good.

[JP] (0:14 - 0:15)

I cried all summer, man.

[Dillon] (0:16 - 0:17)

Did you like hit the gym?

[JP] (0:18 - 0:22)

Nah, I was working at a pizza shop. I just made stuff for you.

[Dillon] (0:32 - 0:35)

Are you ready for this? You guys ready?

[JP] (0:35 - 0:36)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (0:37 - 1:20)

What's up, Lifers, and welcome to the Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man, JP here. JP, do you want to say hi?

What's going on, baby? And for anybody not watching the video, JP is spectacle-less today for I think the first time ever. It only took him 150 episodes.

To take his glasses off, and I am wearing mine today. And we have Rob with us. Rob, can you say hi?

What's up, Lifers? What's up, what's up? And I am your host.

My name is Dillon Young. Guys, it's just us. And where do you think I went immediately?

[JP] (1:20 - 1:21)

Reddit.

[Dillon] (1:21 - 1:25)

Walmart. I do my best to stay out of Walmart.

[Rob] (1:26 - 1:32)

Did I ever tell you I took my wife on our second date at Walmart? Road to topic, man. What's the topic today?

[Dillon] (1:34 - 3:13)

Yeah, you're right. I'm on Reddit. I'm reading this article here.

It is from The People's Lannister. I thought this was interesting. The title really got me.

My promotion is working against me. And it goes a little something like this. I'm trying to leave a toxic work environment.

I was promoted to director three months ago, and it's been a nightmare since. They do not describe at all what that nightmare means. I am applying to other places, and I'm having zero luck.

I've had one follow-up in the past month and was ultimately turned down after two rounds for a position as senior CSM. Because I'm too senior, they cut me because doing a case study in the final round would be a waste of my time, according to them. They don't want me to get bored, apparently, because I wouldn't be promoted for at least two years.

The team is senior, so others would be rewarded before me. I genuinely am fine with that, but they didn't believe me, or maybe they did. It just didn't work for their plans.

The company seemed amazing, so I'm genuinely upset. But every director and manager-level job has told me I don't have enough experience, so I'm either too qualified or not qualified enough. None of this makes any sense.

Has anyone else gone through this? Is this just how the CS industry is right now? I got a lot to say about this.

There's a lot here. But JP, I read all of that because I know you can't see without your glasses. You're going for a more beautiful, handsome look.

I do think you look fantastic, but we've wasted about half the episode of me having to read that to you. What do you think, based on what I just said to you?

[JP] (3:14 - 5:42)

I appreciate that. We value accessibility here at The Daily Standup. So there's a lot here.

I think that number one is that what is a promotion? I could be wrong, but it seems like back in the day, that was more like if you got a promotion, that typically meant that maybe you took on more responsibility, which would open up future opportunities, which would mean that you would get paid more money. But nowadays, it seems like you can get a promotion without getting a title change.

So it seems like those two things don't necessarily always line up. It seems like you can get into a position where maybe you have significantly more responsibilities than you anticipated. So I think that when I hear about this, I think about it in general, like company aside, everything.

Is a promotion always what you want? Some people are climbers. I think that there are some people that are just climbers.

They want to become CEOs or they want to become senior leadership. And that is what they have in their sights. That's what they want.

Hey, go for it. I think for me, if I'm going to be honest, I look for that intersection of responsibility with opportunity, with the money. All right.

I want all those three things working in my favor. I don't want to go from making maybe $100,000 a year to making $130,000 a year in a position where it feels like they're getting $200,000 a year work out of me. To me, that doesn't quite equate.

So I think for me, if I just pick a battle for this one particular thing we're looking at, I'll say, I think people should very much consider what they're looking for in their career so they can understand what their next step is. Because moving up isn't necessarily always the best decision. What company?

This person, they also mentioned wanting to go to this other company that they thought was greater. And I can tell you, the grass isn't always greener. But this is also why I say it's very much about the company you work for sometimes more than the position that you have.

[Dillon] (5:45 - 7:03)

So yeah, you hit on a ton of stuff there. I want to say two things before I throw it over to Rob. First of all, there's what is a promotion hilariously introspective.

But I think they come in a lot of different ways. The way I've heard it, when I used to ask for a promotion, my boss would say, okay, what do you want? Do you want more money?

Do you want a new title? Or do you want more power or like responsibility? And I would always get super frustrated and say, I want all three.

Isn't that the way it works? And truly, it's not. And the reason is because it's like when you're selling your house, it doesn't matter what you think your house is worth.

It matters what the market thinks the house is worth. Value is different for everybody. And it changes based on context, environment, journey, desires, right?

Whether you actually want to manage people or not is like a huge piece of this. Some people will take a title with no raise if it gives them an opportunity to try out people management stuff. And so the other thing I'll say is something I've heard more recently from recruiters is don't put the title you have on a resume or on LinkedIn or wherever you're advertising yourself.

Put the title that correlates with the work you do.

[JP] (7:05 - 7:08)

That's a whole other episode. That's a whole other episode.

[Dillon] (7:09 - 7:31)

But I think it's important. And the reason they say that is because you're never going to get away with saying you're the CEO if you're a senior CSM, right? Like you're never going to be able to speak to those capabilities and those responsibilities.

And so it'll all come out in the wash. But Rob, go ahead. In that case, I can say whatever I want.

[Rob] (7:32 - 9:26)

Yeah, exactly. I'm the senior archduke of integration. Take it easy.

No, I think JP is a great question. You hit the nail on the head when you said, is a promotion what you really want? And it spoke to me because I was thinking of when I remember there was a period of nine months or so where I kept asking my CEO every month, once a month, can I be a director?

Can I be a director? And eventually I was managing a team of like 22 people and he refused to give me a title. Friend of mine.

And I would just knock on his door like every once a month asking for this title. And only then did I realize that I actually signed myself up for a lot more stress with that promotion and signed myself up for some responsibilities that were a little outside my comfort zone, which is good and bad. And I was contrasting that with, I was having a conversation with, you guys remember Parker, who was a friend of the show.

Yeah. So Parker and I were talking yesterday. We both had this situation where we had someone on our teams, an employee who we hired as an individual contributor, who was a former manager who said, you know what, I've had it with management.

I want to go back to being an IC. I don't want to be responsible for a team, for other people, for their emotions. I'm very happy doing what I'm doing.

And there's a lot of folks I know in sales who actually, they're making a whole lot more money. Actually the ceiling is way higher for them if they're an IC instead of a manager. I was listening to a podcast recently.

I was like, if you want to make a ton more money in sales, avoid management because you're going to get capped. And you're also putting the keys to your income in someone else's pocket a lot of the time. So when I look at this post, it's funny because have you guys ever heard of the...

I'm good, sorry. You ever heard of the Peter Principle?

[JP] (9:27 - 9:30)

Yes, I was gonna... You stealing my thunder.

[Rob] (9:30 - 9:33)

Tell the people, JP, tell the people. What's the Peter Principle?

[JP] (9:34 - 9:45)

Well, now I can't remember, but I had this really cool post and it had Janet Jackson because maybe she had the Pleasure Principle. So I was gonna post on LinkedIn. This is before I was like LinkedIn's a piece of...

Go ahead.

[Rob] (9:48 - 10:38)

For those who don't know, the Peter Principle is this idea that people get promoted one step too far past their capabilities. So a really good individual contributor gets promoted to manager, but turns out they were never really meant to be a manager. They actually excelled most as an individual contributor.

And they're still now expecting further promotions and that they're capped out. And they may or may not realize that. And to be honest with you, this person feels like they might have a little bit of reconciliation to do with themselves.

There's definitely some potential privilege in this post of saying, I'm too senior and they don't want me to get bored. And okay, let's unpack first of all, why does the job suck now that you've gotten promoted? Now, once we figure that out, maybe we could come up with some more prescriptive advice.

Maybe it's not the right path for you.

[Dillon] (10:38 - 11:35)

I was having this conversation literally earlier today. You have no proof, unfortunately, as a job seeker, if the reason they say they're rejecting you is actually why they're rejecting you. The same way your significant other might break up with you and say, it's not you, it's me.

Oh, you would get bored here. But maybe they think you wouldn't be good at the job. They just straight up don't think you have the qualifications for one reason or another.

They may just not say that. I have very rarely seen hiring managers or hiring teams willing to tell you like, bro, it looks like you just don't understand how to write emails. It looks like you don't know how to write an email.

Like they won't say that. They'll say something much more ambiguous that protects them and protects you, honestly.

[JP] (11:35 - 11:46)

Yeah, Dillon, I just want to give a quick shout out to my first girlfriend who broke up with me by the water fountain and said, I'm not attracted to you anymore. And that's why you're breaking up with me.

[Dillon] (11:48 - 11:57)

Anymore is so fantastic. Like they did at one point. So either their taste changed or you physically changed significantly.

That's so good.

[JP] (11:58 - 12:00)

I cried all summer, man.

[Dillon] (12:02 - 12:03)

Did you like hit the gym?

[JP] (12:04 - 12:07)

Nah, I was working at a pizza shop. I just made stuff.

[Dillon] (12:11 - 12:22)

Also, what's interesting is, you know, the number one comment is lie on your resume. And during interviews, and positioning yourself as a highly senior candidate instead.

[Rob] (12:23 - 12:29)

I would be so mad if I knew someone lied on there. I would nix that candidate from the process immediately.

[Dillon] (12:30 - 12:53)

But then another person said exactly what you said, JP, which is, it's important to understand what you prefer, remaining in a people manager position with the same or higher salary, but needing more time to find a job, or do you want to find a job more easily? Are you creating excuses for why you're looking for certain roles to make up for the difficulty in finding the actual role you want?

[JP] (12:54 - 12:54)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (12:55 - 12:57)

But here's one- There's a lot of assumption.

[JP] (12:57 - 13:08)

There's a lot of assumptions, I think, in the end, Dillon. There is. They didn't give us a lot.

And then there's also a lot of assumptions that promotion is going to all of a sudden open up all these doors.

[Dillon] (13:09 - 13:41)

Yeah. I want to end on this comment, which I think is great. I have been able to go back from a management position to a individual contributor role by being very upfront about why I wanted it.

They say, quote, I have found a greater amount of personal satisfaction in managing client relationships than in managing people. Although I really enjoy mentoring, my strongest skills lie in my ability to work with people and not with the admin that comes with being a manager. That's a solid, solid answer.

Whether it's true or not, that'll probably pass the sniff test.

[JP] (13:42 - 13:59)

And shout out to all the good managers too. This is why we need people who really want to be managers. Because you may end up with this person here who doesn't even really want to be there and think about all the people that are being managed by them.

[Dillon] (14:00 - 14:05)

That's our time, boys. Love you both. Talk to you soon.

Peace.

[Voiceover] (14:10 - 14:41)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetimevaluemedia.com.

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