Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Automating Their Manager's Work
Transcript
- Lucas: Priya was a mid-level data analyst at a regional bank — we'll call it Midlands Trust — and she was stuck. Luna: Stuck how? Lucas: She'd been in the role for three years. Strong technical skills, good reviews, but no promotion path. Her manager, a VP named David, was overwhelmed — he spent every Monday morning pulling together a 40-slide weekly report for the C-suite. It was manual, tedious, and it took him about twelve hours. Luna: Twelve hours of copying and pasting from spreadsheets? Lucas: Worse. He was pulling data from five different systems, running Excel macros, reformatting charts. Priya watched him do it for months. And she thought, 'I can automate this in Python in a week.' So she did. Luna: Did she ask permission first? Lucas: That's the key. She didn't ask. She built a prototype on her own time, then showed David a demo. She said, 'What if Monday mornings took you two hours instead of twelve?' David was skeptical at first — worried about accuracy, worried about losing control of the narrative. So Priya designed it so that David could still override any number manually. She built a failsafe. Luna: So he felt safe trying it. Lucas: Exactly. He tried it for two weeks. The first week, he ran both the old process and the new one side by side. Numbers matched perfectly. The second week, he trusted it. Suddenly he had ten extra hours per week. And here's where Priya was smart — she didn't just hand over the script and disappear. She asked David what other problems he'd like to solve with that freed-up time. Luna: She positioned herself as an enabler. Lucas: Exactly. David started using those hours to work on a strategic initiative — a customer profitability model that the CEO had been asking for. Priya helped build that too. Within six months, David was promoted to senior VP. And he took Priya with him — she was promoted to associate director. Luna: So by making her manager look good, she created a sponsor. Lucas: Exactly. This is the strategy we call 'automating upward.' Most people think automation is about making their own job easier. But the real career leverage comes when you automate your boss's pain points. Luna: I've seen research from Gartner that backs this up. They found that employees who solve a manager's recurring problem are 40 percent more likely to be considered for promotion within the year. But it has to be the right problem — something the manager genuinely dreads. Lucas: Priya's example hits all the criteria. First, the task was high-visibility — the weekly report went straight to the executive team. Second, it was repetitive and rule-based, so automation was low-risk. Third, she didn't threaten David's sense of control — she gave him an override button. Luna: And fourth, she followed up by asking what else she could help with. Lucas: That follow-up is what turned a one-time favor into a sponsorship relationship. David started thinking of her as a force multiplier, not just a data analyst. Luna: Right, but there's a risk here. What if the manager takes the credit and the employee stays invisible? Lucas: It happens. But Priya hedged against that in a few ways. First, she documented everything — she created a one-page summary of the automation's impact: hours saved, error reduction, strategic time unlocked. That summary was included in the project files that went to the executive team. Second, she made sure to present the automation in a team meeting when David was out. She said, 'David and I built this, and here's how it works.' She used 'and' — not 'for.' Luna: So she shared the spotlight without taking it away from him. Lucas: Right. And third, she made the automation a talking point in her own performance review. She framed it as a leadership initiative — 'I identified a bottleneck in my manager's workflow and proposed a solution that saved the department ten hours per week.' That's the language of a manager, not an individual contributor. Luna: I want to talk about the other risk — being too valuable in your current role. If you automate your own job, sometimes your manager thinks, 'Great, now I can give them more of the same work.' How did Priya avoid that? Lucas: She didn't automate her own job. She automated her boss's job. That's the distinction. If you automate your own reporting, you free up time for more analysis — but you're still in the same role. If you automate your boss's reporting, you become someone who makes the team more efficient. That's a promotion-worthy skill. Luna: So the key is to look upward. What tasks does your manager hate doing? What takes them away from strategic thinking? Lucas: Exactly. And it doesn't have to be Python. It could be a no-code tool, a Power Automate flow, even a well-designed spreadsheet template. The principle is the same — find the recurring pain point, solve it in a way that gives your manager control, and then ask what's next. Luna: What if your manager isn't technical and doesn't trust automation? Lucas: Then you start smaller. Pick one tiny piece — say, a weekly email that compiles data from three sources. Automate just that. Run it in parallel for a few weeks. Show that it works with no errors. Once they trust you with a small thing, they'll trust you with a bigger one. The psychological barrier is the first yes. Luna: And if they still say no? Lucas: Then you have a different problem — a manager who doesn't want to improve. In that case, you might need to find a sponsor elsewhere. But most managers are drowning. They just don't know how to ask for help. Luna: I think a lot of people don't realize how visible automation can make them. Priya's script wasn't just a technical project — it was a relationship-building tool. Lucas: It's a form of executive presence. You're showing that you understand the business priorities, not just the data. David's boss, the CEO, started asking, 'Who built that report?' And David said, 'Priya.' That's the kind of visibility no amount of networking can replace. Luna: Quick thing — and this ties in, I promise. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making episodes like this. We don't run ads, we don't have sponsors. It's just listener support. Lucas: Yeah, and it means we can keep digging into these specific case studies. No pressure, but if you've gotten value from any of the past 32 episodes — especially if a strategy like Priya's has helped you — it's a simple way to keep the show going. Luna: Exactly. And like Priya's automation, it's a small effort that creates a big impact. Back to the topic — I want to ask about timing. Priya automated the report in her third year. Was that too late? Lucas: Not too late, but earlier would have been better. Ideally, you start looking for these opportunities in your first six months. You're still observing, you have fresh eyes. Priya waited because she thought she needed to prove herself technically first. But the automation itself proved her technical skills faster than any project she'd done. Luna: So the advice is: don't wait until you're 'ready' to automate upward. Start small, start now. Lucas: Exactly. Pick one recurring task your manager owns that takes more than two hours a week. Offer to build a prototype. Frame it as an experiment. And let the results speak for themselves.