Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / How an Internal Transfer Can Help You Build a Coalition Before You Move
Transcript
- Lucas: Most advice about internal transfers focuses on what happens after you submit the application. Update your resume, line up a reference, nail the interview. But there's a move you can make before you ever apply that dramatically shifts the odds in your favor, and almost nobody talks about it. Luna: You're talking about building a coalition before you even raise your hand for the role? Lucas: Exactly. Not after you get the offer, not during the interview process — before. I came across a case recently that really illustrates this. A marketing manager at a large consumer goods company — I'll call her Sarah — wanted to move from brand marketing into product strategy. Two completely different functions, different reporting lines, different VP. Luna: That's a tough jump. Usually those moves get blocked because the current manager doesn't want to lose you, and the new manager doesn't know you well enough to fight for you. Lucas: Right. And Sarah knew that. So instead of applying cold, she spent three months doing something smarter. She identified six people across three departments who would need to be on board for this move to actually happen. Her current boss, obviously. The product strategy VP. A senior product manager she'd worked with on a cross-functional project. HR business partner. The head of her own department's talent development. And one wildcard: the CEO's chief of staff. Luna: The chief of staff — that's a smart add. Not directly involved in the decision, but someone with visibility across the whole org. Lucas: Exactly. Sarah mapped out what each of these people cared about most. Her current boss cared about coverage for the next quarter's campaign. The product VP cared about someone who could translate consumer insights into product specs. The chief of staff cared about internal mobility metrics because the CEO was pushing a 'talent from within' initiative. Then she had one-on-one conversations with each of them, not asking for the transfer yet, but asking for their perspective on her career path. Luna: So she was essentially doing a listening tour. Getting them invested in her growth before she made an ask. Lucas: Precisely. With her current boss, she framed it as 'I want to build skills that make me more valuable to the company long term, and I'm exploring options.' With the product VP, she said 'I've been studying our product roadmap, and I have some ideas I'd love to test with your team.' With the chief of staff, she literally asked 'What does the CEO see as the biggest talent gaps for next year?' Every conversation was a combination of listening and demonstrating value. Luna: And then at some point she made the actual ask? Lucas: She waited until she had a clear signal from at least four of the six that they'd support her. Then she formally applied. The whole process from application to approval took less than two weeks. She got a 12 percent raise and a dedicated mentorship budget written into her offer letter. Luna: A mentorship budget as part of an internal transfer — that's unusual. Did she negotiate that? Lucas: She did, but she had the coalition's backing. The product VP had already agreed to be her mentor and had argued to HR that a formal budget would accelerate her ramp-up. Her current boss, once he saw the support she'd built, actually became an advocate instead of a blocker. He said 'If she's got this kind of buy-in across the org, I don't want to be the one standing in her way.' Luna: That's the power of a coalition. You're not asking one person to take a risk on you. You're showing that the risk is already distributed. Lucas: And that's the framework I want to walk through today. There are four steps to building a coalition before you make an internal move. Step one: map your stakeholders. Sarah's six people is a good template, but your list will be different depending on your company structure and the role you're targeting. Luna: Who do you think people most commonly miss on that map? Lucas: Two types. First, the person who controls the budget for the role you want. That might not be the hiring manager — it could be a finance partner or a division head you've never met. Second, someone in HR who specifically handles internal mobility. Not the generalist, but the person who tracks tenure and transfer history. If that person sees you as a flight risk or a 'problem employee', it can doom your application before anyone reads it. Luna: So step one is mapping. What's step two? Lucas: Step two is identifying each stakeholder's 'currency'. What do they care about most in the context of your move? Sarah's framework was: Does this person care about continuity, capability, culture, or career development? Her current boss cared about continuity. The product VP cared about capability. The chief of staff cared about culture — specifically the internal mobility culture. And the HR business partner cared about career development metrics. You tailor your conversation to their currency, not yours. Luna: That takes some research. You can't walk into those conversations cold. Lucas: You shouldn't. Step three is what I call the 'perspective conversation' — a low-stakes, no-ask meeting where your goal is to learn and to plant a seed. Sarah scheduled hers as 20-minute coffee chats. She'd start with something like 'I'm thinking about my next few years here, and I'd value your perspective on where I could have the most impact.' Not 'I want to transfer to product strategy.' That comes later, after they've given you advice and therefore have a stake in your success. Luna: The classic Ben Franklin effect — asking for advice makes people like you more and feel invested in your outcome. Lucas: Exactly. And once you've had those conversations, step four is the formal ask — but you time it so that you're not surprising anyone. Sarah told her current boss first, in person, with a concrete plan for transitioning her responsibilities. Then she told the product VP. Then she applied. The coalition had already been activated, so when her application hit HR, there were already people saying 'I've been expecting this' and 'She'd be great.' Luna: I think a lot of people skip the mapping because it feels political or manipulative. But really it's just good stakeholder management. You do this kind of thing for external clients or for big projects. Why not for your own career? Lucas: That's exactly the reframe. This isn't office politics in the negative sense. It's building a support network for a transition that affects multiple people. If you don't do it, you're essentially asking people to support you without any context. And that's when transfers get slow or blocked. Luna: And speaking of support networks — we actually have one ourselves that keeps this show going. We don't run ads on The Internal Move, and that's intentional. But we do rely on listeners who find the show valuable. Lucas: It's true. If we've helped you think through a career move or decision, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small thing, but it means we can keep digging into these strategies without any sponsor pressure. Luna: Yeah, and it adds up. So if you've gotten something out of the show, that's the place. Now back to coalitions — one thing I want to dig into is what happens if you map your stakeholders and realize one of them is likely to block you. Lucas: That's a great question, and it's the reason mapping needs to happen early. If you identify a potential blocker — say your current manager is territorial or the target department's director has a reputation for not supporting internal moves — you have time to address it before you apply. Luna: How do you address a blocker without confronting them directly? Lucas: You find an ally who can influence them. Sarah's current boss was initially skeptical — he'd lost two people to internal transfers in the previous year and felt it hurt his team's stability. So Sarah didn't try to convince him directly. She found the head of talent development, who had a good relationship with her boss, and that person made the case that she was a high-potential employee who would stay at the company longer if she made this move. The blocker became neutral, then eventually supportive. Luna: So you need a coalition within your coalition. A kind of meta-coalition. Lucas: Exactly. And this is where the chief of staff or a senior mentor can be incredibly valuable. They have the context and the credibility to reframe the conversation. The key is that you're not asking them to fight your battles. You're asking them to share information or perspective that helps the blocker see the situation differently. Luna: Let's talk about timing. How long should this entire coalition-building phase take? Lucas: For Sarah, it was three months from first conversation to application. That's about right for a complex move across functions. For a simpler lateral move within the same department, you might need only four to six weeks. The mistake people make is either rushing it — applying before they've built any support — or dragging it out so long that the role gets filled by an external candidate. Luna: So you want to be working on your coalition in parallel with monitoring the job market internally. Not waiting until a role is posted. Lucas: Right. The best time to start building a coalition is when you have no specific role in mind. That way, when something opens up, you're not starting from zero. You've already got a network of people who see you as someone with potential and who've been primed to support your growth. It's like having a standing 401 for your career — you contribute regularly, and when you need it, it's there. Luna: I like that framing. One last thing — what about the risk that your current manager feels blindsided even after you've done the listening tour? How do you mitigate that? Lucas: The listening tour actually reduces that risk, because your manager hears from you first that you're exploring options, not from HR that you've applied for a role. But you do need to be explicit about timing. Sarah told her boss 'I'm going to start having conversations about my development over the next month, and I wanted you to know because your perspective is important to me.' That gave her boss a heads-up and a sense of inclusion. Luna: And if your boss reacts badly even to that? Lucas: Then you've learned something valuable about your boss and your company's culture. If you can't have a conversation about your development without your manager getting defensive, that's a signal that the system itself may not support internal mobility. In that case, a coalition becomes even more critical — because you need allies who can advocate for you above your manager's head. But it also means you might need to consider an external move if the culture is truly toxic. Luna: So the coalition-building process is also a diagnostic. It tells you whether the company actually walks the walk on internal mobility. Lucas: Exactly. And if it doesn't, you've invested three months in relationships that will still be valuable if you end up leaving. You haven't lost anything. But if it does work, you've essentially pre-sold your candidacy before the formal process even starts. Sarah's story is proof that it's not just theory — it's a repeatable strategy that can cut transfer time in half and get you a better outcome. Luna: I think the most actionable takeaway for our listeners is: pick one stakeholder you haven't talked to about your career and schedule that perspective conversation this week. Not an ask, just a conversation. Lucas: Good advice. And if you do that and want to tell us how it went, we're always around. For now, that's it for episode 80. We'll be back next week with another angle on making your internal move work for you.