Overheard chat about why people don’t progress at work

[OchreCrab]

I overheard a conversation at a cafe about why people don’t progress at work.

Im 40 and was self employed until 32 selling a product with no staff and just myself. I had to move countries to be closer to mum who’s had health issues. I also had a baby so was away from the workforce for a year.

I have a PAYE job and started on £21k and after job hopping a few times I’m on £34k. I hope to progress and I've been placed with a mentor. I have a lot of weakness in my communication.

However I was wondering if a reason why I’ve not progressed is because of ability, how can you tell? I don’t communicate well but I do hope to work on my low self esteem. It’s also hard to get training/support whilst at work due to busy managers. I’ve moved companies and want to stay in this job for a little while longer (due to baby and hopefully learning about the job/industry). Also could get a funded cert via my employer.

i hope when I’m 50 I’m head of something.

Aibu I’m thinking I can’t progress?

I would say progression at work is partly company bc culture and structure and partly your relationship with your team and management.

Yes, you can be amazing at your actual job and a hard worker, but from experience, it’s about balancing getting the right and important things done whilst being such an asset to your colleagues and company.

I personally found that some of my barriers to progression at an organisation has been their culture around how you progress. For instance, one company I was heading and leading everything, working across teams, my role was more Director than manager, but they were a small company and didn’t want to increase salaries, so I stayed in the same position. I didn’t mind it, I just knew that to progress I would either have to wait it out and “prove my value” by brining in more money to the company or job hop with all of my experience.

Another company I worked for has a very long process for progression. They would promise promotions but it would take about 2 years to get there because of the bureaucracy - but also it was more of a one in, one out situation too - so you were waiting for people to leave. A restructure meant that we could all progress - but you really had to be smart about where you moved and how, and what helped were reputation (getting work done and relationships) and connections to the right managers.

If you struggle with communicating, find ways that you are good at communicating. I used to contribute to our intranet a lot. I also took part in corporate internal events (you know those people that help to plan Christmas hampers, or something cheesy for world happiness day) - I enjoy that and I do this kind of thing outside work anyway, but it helped me to get recognised.

Have more 121 conversations. Ask questions in meetings. Suggest new things and follow through. Track your own progress so that when you do an end of year report you can show your manager that XYZ wouldn’t exist without you, and these are the projects that you have carried out and followed through on.

So you overheard a conversation in a cafe. What exactly was it you heard and why is it relevant to this post? I’m confused.

It sounds like you’re heading in the right direction for what you want to do, as well as having the determination to get there.

I had two big weaknesses. One was building relationships with my colleagues, I’ve leant in hard to this over the last 2 years and made huge progress. The other is presenting, I was honest about it and I was given the opportunity to present on a smaller scale which supported me and allowed me to become more comfortable in presenting

You seem to understand where your weaknesses are. Head into your mentor sessions with some objectives to counter your weaknesses and also check out the likes of Erin McGoff who has some great content.

You’ve had some really good advice and suggestions already OP, which is great to read.

Can I ask: were you similarly flummoxed in verbal communications when you were self employed? If the answer is no, I wonder if that’s because you were an expert on your product/service and knew your offering intimately, so felt under no pressure when speaking, even if unprepared.

If so, I would ask if you consider yourself an expert in your current field? If not, perhaps this is something you could be proactive about working on. The more you know about your subject, the less likely you are to be caught off guard / get the answer “wrong”.

I’m usually reluctant to recommend the use of AI to people who are still developing their skills, because you don’t want to create over reliance on this tool and risk halting the development. You also need a certain level of skill to be able to use AI and then edit the output to suit your own style, use the appropriate tone, check inaccuracies etc, and if you lack some of those initial comms skills you’re not able to do that. However, in your case I think using AI would be a useful tool for you, if you can dedicate some time to writing the correct prompts and hone the end product.

Finally, I wondered what the objective is of your mentor programme? I note this is for a year, so I presume there is an objective attached to this and it would be good to consider what you’ve asked for and on what basis this was granted. The reason I say this is that while a mentor will help to guide you, I do think there will be an expectation that you come to the table with some thoughts, questions, reflections etc for discussion, relative to your the objective of the mentor project.

It might be worth considering:

• What work-related projects / achievements are you most proud of?
• What was a good learning experience you enjoyed and benefited from?
• What projects or which tasks felt like you had to drag them over the line and why?
• What tasks do you find very easy that others struggle with (and vice versa)?
• What energises / enthuses you at work?
• What type of activity / task drains your energy?
• Are you being stretched beyond your capabilities in your current role?
• What kind of stretch would you like?
• What is your preferred style of learning?
• What type of colleague do you enjoy working with and why?

This type of professional self reflection can be really helpful in uncovering some hidden preferences / challenges.

Hope this helps for now in some way, but it sounds to me like you are already progressing and have a growth mindset - you just need to consider where you want to get to and explore the right routes to building your skills.

Have you got time to do something like volunteering, thus meeting people and talking etc but perhaps in a less stressful situation, ie, not being paid to do something might lesson the stresses of getting it right and thus improve your communication skills.

Sometimes things just come with age and experience and perhaps you need to be kind to yourself and not think about it so much as that’s probably tripping you up before you even start. Maybe relaxation techniques before a meeting. I did some self hypnosis for medical reasons twenty years ago but have used it in other situations to calm myself before stressful meetings etc.

Have you tried using AI? If you are sending an important email to a large group, run what you want to say through chat got and ask it to make it clearer, more concise, focus on a particular area (whatever is most relevant).

I wouldn't send the AI version as it can be a bit much and sounds artificial (as indeed it is) but it is excellent at structuring information to help you see how to improve.

Same if you need to present information. Let it help you organise your thoughts better but use your own words.

Its mumsnet FGS. I dont write as professionally on here as I would at work 🙄

You just need to be fluent at talking pure 💩in an interview.

None of us do, but OP is coming across as barely literate in her comments here. I know she has identified communication as an issue, and it seems like it is perhaps more than just verbal communication that's a problem, given her difficulty in writing a coherent sentence here. That in itself might indicate why she might find it hard to progress at work. I actually wondered while reading the thread whether she might have a learning disability.

Sorry that was supposed to quote a previous post.

I'm a "Head of" and think you'll struggle if you can't communicate clearly.

Senior management level is all about communication.

Sharing your vision with stakeholders and getting them to buy into it, giving clear feedback to those who you line manage, reporting to the Board on your successes to justify your role! It's endless.

I'd say you can comfortably be a bit crap at the actual job at this level (I'm not of course! 😅), so long as you can communicate.

OP - I’m not being nasty, but I think this might be a problem in progressing with some jobs where communication is key. In management roles you’ll need to be able to communicate clearly and precisely with your team. I know from experience that managers who can’t communicate cause all kinds of trouble.

Is it that English isn’t your first language (in which case, you’re doing pretty well) or just that you find yourself tongue-tied at expressing yourself due to anxiety or lack of vocabulary? For any of these situations it’s possible to improve things with training.

The one thing that gets people moving up the career ladder is confidence. If you don’t have confidence in yourself and you ability you’ll stay exactly where you are.

Sorry but you come across as scatty and not knowing what you want, apart from ‘a top job’. You need to be more focused. You need to understand your current role inside out and where it fits within the business so you can see where you could move to next.

Most people have a job not a career.

Unfortunately, being a good communicator is key to progressing in a lot of roles. Toastmasters is a great and low cost way to practice both your formal presentation skills and thinking/speaking off the cuff.

I'd also be wary of too much job hopping as I've always found it easier to get promoted internally (although I've always worked for very large organisations). Are you jumping ship before you've given enough time for promotion? Do people know who you are in the organisation? Do you network internally as well as looking for jobs outside?

In my experience you usually need to be working above the level expected of your role in order to be ready for promotion. Do you have a competency framework and can you work towards demonstrating that you're performing at the level above?

I have always taken a lot of secondments to take the next step up and learnt from other people.

Being put on the spot can be uncomfortable but you are allowed to say that you will take that as an action and come back to everyone - admittedly not every time but you do get to it after a while.

I've been lucky to have had good jobs and managers who I have loved working for, but there good because I have enjoyed them. Pay progression is important but it's not about being a head of department or being the most senior person in the room it's about doing your job well and looking around for new opportunities.

I suffer with this.

I think if you are having trouble communicating your feelings, then you need to work on understanding your feelings first.

so if someone asks you about a new intiative, and you’ve been put on the spot, and actually haven’t formulated an opinion instead of just blurting out something like ‘ Yes that’s amazing, wow um yeah let’s do this!’

what I’ve learned to do is pause, take stock of my feelings (which are usually ‘ why the fuck are you asking me? I don’t even care, I haven’t even grasped what you are trying to do here and how much extra work it is, plus I don’t think it’s going to work anyway) then you speak slower and add waffle at the beginning of a sentence to give you time.

so you say ‘Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for asking for my thoughts. I can see you’ve spent a lot of time on trying to improve the xxxx issue, and it will be key to moving forward in xxx area. (You are buying tile to process your feelings, regulate your emotions and come up with a waffle answer). My intial thoughts are positive, I’m really interested in how it will look like on the ground and how it will be received by the team (basically good luck with that) and how we can use it as an opportunity to build on the really good existing relationships we have as well as develop others. I’d be very interested to hear (because I’m a great listener and you’ve picked on me so you can fuck off) what others think.

Basicall you need to learn to bullshit a bit, bounce shit back and watch others very carefully and learn from them.

I must admit OP, I'm very upset at the misleading title. I thought you were goug to divulge some juicy gossip like, "I don't progress because I won't give the boss a bj". This was 90% of people's comments I heard when someone missed out. All the people getting their promotions were close friends of the boss. It does help as they are with you more so can give you more tips, but you just need to find out what the manager wants to hear. Very rarely is it about he actual ability to perform, more just talking the talk.

After reading your posts on this thread, I wonder if this might help.

To be effective, communication has to be precise and have clarity. Otherwise people have to ask follow up questions or misunderstand what you are saying and communication becomes confusing rather than effective

Eg your thread title stated that you overheard a conversation which made you doubt your ability to progress but you didn't elaborate on that. Were the specifics of conversation relevant or did it just trigger a thought process in you?

Several posters have said they don't understand what you're trying to say and you've misunderstood one response. Take time to consider what you actually want people to take or understand from your communication.

I'm not saying this to criticise but because this suggests to me that maybe you need to take time before communicating to mentally prepare what you want to say/communicate. Maybe your thoughts get a bit jumbled? Take time to process what someone else has said, even if that means asking them to repeat what they have said or reading it more than once? Take a deep breath before responding more slowly maybe.

These strategies will buy you a little bit of extra time to process your own thoughts.

I wonder of this is related to an issue growing up when you felt criticised for what you said or that you had to be perfect? Because panic about responding to people, being uncertain about your own position on something, being unable to express yourself clearly and low self esteem can be related to that.

Communication skills are a very important part of management and leadership. You will get into all sorts off HR issues without them and you won't be able to keep people who report to you accountable. Have you done communication training? Have you done leadership training? I did MBTI years ago, it's very outdated but helped a lot in understanding that people have different styles. There's much newer stuff about different styles. The VIA character strengths survey is also helpful. Most likely your mentor may suggest you do that.

I hear you! After 16 years as a high performer, delivering over and above the role description and continually overlooked for promotion, I left. New company - 18 months as a horizontal move, 3 months of that at higher level duties, promoted to director role. 12 months in director role, murmurings of senior director in near future with acting options at higher again. It's refreshing to be recognised and rewarded.

Not saying it is the case with you because I dont know you but I do think there is a level where people can reach and that's it.

For instance I will never be a CEO or anywhere near. I dont have the skills to do it a lot of the soft skills are hard to learn or fake. So anywhere near CEO is out of reach for me.

On the plus side, communication skills can be learned and you clearly used them when you ran your own business.

You may feel a lack of confidence speaking in a meeting etc. because you need to prepare. No teacher/lecturer would just walk into a class and wing it. They will have spent a long time preparing for what they are going to say and how they are going to say it, have notes etc.

You should do the same. So if you are going to a meeting and you are worried you will be put on the spot and get tangled up with what you want to day, you need to read the agenda and write down what you want to contribute to the various topics. Then stand up and practise saying your comments.

You will need to practise several times and still not be confident in the meeting so take some notes. Just a few words on each topic to remind you of the most important things you want to say.

No one can not prepare and hope to wing it and expect everything to be fine.

If you prepare you will become as confident, fluent and articulate as the next person - practice makes perfect.

It's crap having no money, but (without meaning to be patronising) life is not about the job you do.
Your role in life is raising four autistic kids, as well as you can. That is your direction.
I would say something like "I'm sure you are brilliant at it and a wonderful mother", but of course I don't know that, even if it is true.

Sending you good wishes and strength.

I recommend that you read free materials at this resource. Wes Kao is writing a lot how to improve your written and verbal communication especially on executive level (if you want to progress) and gives excellent PRACTICAL advice.

www.weskao.com/newsletter

If you are sounding confused/unclear/waffle it can be an issue in climbing the corporate ladder and become head of something. However the good news is that these skills can be improved if you focus on them.

Good luck! You can do it.

@OchreCrab
There are two ways to 'progress' in work: going into management, or becoming a technical expert / specialist in a narrow field.

Management is all about communication and being a 'people person', as well as strategic thinking, organisation and planning.
Being an expert often means higher pay but minimal line-management and few or no employees under you - although you do still have to communicate to the business managers what you have been doing and achieving.

Is your role at all technical or specialist? That might be a pathway that suits you better.