Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Creating a Career Playbook
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a kind of career ambiguity that's worse than having no path at all — and that's having a path that nobody wrote down. Luna: You mean like when your manager says 'just keep doing what you're doing and you'll be considered' — but 'considered' never turns into 'promoted'. Lucas: Exactly. And today's story is about someone who decided she wasn't going to wait for someone else to draw the map. Her name's Mei Chen. At the time, she was a senior marketing manager at a mid-sized B2B software company in Austin, growing fast, but famously unstructured. No formal leveling criteria for marketing. No career ladder. Luna: So she built one herself. Lucas: She built a career playbook. Not for the whole company — just for her own role. But it ended up becoming the template for the entire marketing org. Luna: I love this. How did she start? Lucas: She went public. She pulled up every job posting she could find for senior marketing manager, associate director, director, senior director — at competitor companies, at aspirational companies. She scraped the 'requirements' and 'preferred qualifications' sections. Then she did something smart: she went to LinkedIn and looked at the actual career histories of people who held those titles at companies she admired. Luna: So she was building a data set of what the market actually expects at each level. Lucas: Right. And she interviewed a few people internally, off the record — senior leaders in other departments who had been promoted. Asked them, 'What do you think distinguishes a senior manager from a director around here?' Most of them had never been asked. But they had opinions. Luna: I bet those conversations were gold. Lucas: She told me one VP said, 'Honestly, a director here doesn't do better marketing — they do better stakeholder management.' That was the key insight. The playbook wasn't just about marketing skills; it was about organizational influence. Luna: So the playbook translated that into concrete behaviors. Like what? Lucas: For the senior manager level, she listed things like 'independently manages a campaign with minimal oversight' and 'routinely presents results to the marketing team.' For associate director, it became 'manages a team of two to three' and 'presents to the C-suite quarterly.' For director: 'defines the marketing strategy for a product line' and 'serves as the primary stakeholder liaison with product and sales.' Luna: She essentially reverse-engineered the promotion criteria from market data and internal norms. Lucas: Exactly. Then she booked a 30-minute meeting with her manager. Not to ask for a promotion — to share the playbook and ask, 'Does this look right?' Luna: That's a brilliant move. You're not demanding anything; you're inviting collaboration. Lucas: Her manager was a little taken aback, but he was impressed. He said, 'I wish everyone did this.' And he added two things: one was a skill she hadn't considered — 'cross-functional project leadership' — and the other was a specific metric: 'increase marketing-sourced pipeline by 20 percent year-over-year.' Luna: So the playbook became a living document, not a static list. Lucas: She updated it, shared it with HR as a potential template, and within six months, the VP of marketing asked if she'd help roll it out across the whole department. Luna: And did she get promoted? Lucas: She did. About nine months after she started the playbook, she was promoted to associate director. She told me the playbook itself wasn't the reason — it was that the playbook forced her to actually do the things on the list. Luna: That's the hidden value. It's not a lobbying document; it's a roadmap for your own behavior. Lucas: Right. And I think there's a bigger lesson here about what the playbook actually is. It's a tool for reducing the ambiguity that holds people back. If you don't know what 'executive presence' means at your company, you can't develop it. But if the playbook says 'lead one all-hands presentation per quarter,' that's actionable. Luna: You know, this reminds me of something listeners have told us — that they appreciate when we share tools they can actually use. If this episode has helped you think about your own career path, or if you've gotten value from the show before, we just want to say: the show stays ad-free because of listener support. If you'd like to help keep it that way, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, and it's a small thing that makes a big difference. Thanks for that, Luna. So back to Mei — one thing she mentioned that I think is crucial: she didn't keep the playbook secret. She shared it with peers, and some of them used it to push for their own promotions. Luna: That's generous, but doesn't it risk making her look less special? Lucas: That's a common fear, but she found the opposite. By being the person who created the framework, she became the go-to person for career conversations. That's visibility she wouldn't have had otherwise. Luna: Okay, but I want to push back a little. What if your company culture is toxic and the playbook reveals that the stated criteria don't match reality? Like, the playbook says 'mentor junior team members' but you see that the people who get promoted are the ones who take credit for others' work. Lucas: That's a real risk. In that case, the playbook becomes a diagnostic tool — it exposes the gap between what the company says it values and what it actually rewards. And that's valuable information. Either you leave, or you start documenting the discrepancy to force a conversation. Luna: So it's not a silver bullet. Lucas: No. But for most people in reasonably functional organizations, it's a high-leverage move. Let me give you a specific template. Start with one sheet of paper. At the top, write your current title. Then draw three columns: Skills, Projects, Behaviors. For each column, list what you think is required for the next level. Then go find data — job postings, LinkedIn profiles, internal conversations — and revise. Luna: And then you share it with your manager? Lucas: Yes, in a 'help me calibrate' meeting. You're not saying 'promote me.' You're saying 'help me understand the game.' That's a conversation most managers are happy to have. Luna: I think the key is that Mei didn't wait for permission. She built a tool that made her manager's job easier — defining what success looks like. Lucas: Exactly. And in the process, she became the person who defined the standard. That's a promotion move in itself. Luna: So what's the one thing a listener could do today, right after this episode? Lucas: Open a blank document. Write down three skills you think you need for the next level. Then go look at one job posting for that level at a competitor. See if your list matches. That's the first step. Luna: And if it doesn't match, you've just found your gap. Lucas: Right. And you can start closing it tomorrow.