Too many people sit at their laptops doing their minimal best while begrudging their boss, organization, and current job, hoping that something better will come along. Or people do good work and think that someday someone will notice and they’ll get the role and recognition they deserve.
If you want to advance your career, you must know how to ask for more responsibility at work.
You may be rolling your eyes thinking, “More? I can’t do more. I already work evenings and weekends. I sleep with my phone and haven’t taken a vacation in two years, and you want me to do more?!?!?” Actually, I want you to stop sleeping with your phone and take a staycation. But that’s a post for a different day.
When I say do more, I don’t mean to do anything anyone asks nor anything your organization needs. Offer to take on more work that is aligned with what you want to do AND is important to the leaders of your organization.
Before starting Candid Culture, I ran an operations unit for a career college. Four years into my tenure with the company, one of my peers left, and his role wasn’t refilled. I felt his department was important to our organization’s success, so I offered to run it, in addition to my already big job.
My new department was a change agent’s dream. I outlined a strategic plan and long and short-term goals. I re-wrote job descriptions and org charts. But six months into taking on the department, I couldn’t get one change approved. I was confused and frustrated.
I had initially been hired to turn another department around, and I’d been very successful at getting changes approved. Yet this time, I could get nothing approved. After six months of banging my head against a wall, I finally ‘got it.’ The owners of the company didn’t see the department as valuable, thus they weren’t willing to invest in it.
I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to see this. When my colleague’s senior-level job wasn’t refilled and there was no freeze in hiring, I should have known the department wasn’t seen as important.
If you want to know what’s important in your organization, look at where the money is being spent. Who is getting resources?
When I say ask for more, I mean be strategic about what you ask for.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What do I want to do?
- Where in the organization are there opportunities to do that kind of work – that is important to the organization’s leaders?
- Who will support me in doing this work? Who won’t?
How to ask for more responsibility at work. Tell your boss and/or department leader:
- I really enjoy working here. I enjoy the people, the work and our industry.
- I’m committed to growing my career with this organization.
- I’m interested in learning more about ________________________.
- I’d love to run ___________________________.
- I think we have some opportunities to make improvements in _____________________.
- How could I get some exposure to ____________________.
- A project is starting in ______________. I’d love to be on the team. What are your thoughts about that? Would you be comfortable supporting my participation? If yes, how can we make it happen? If not, what would you need from me in order to support it?
The work you take on does not need to be high level. Everyone in an organization does grunt work. Just be sure that whatever you offer to do is seen as integral to the future of the organization. You’re not likely to get what you don’t ask for.
Read chapter five of How to Say Anything to Anyone and manage your boss better.
The post Want to Advance Your Career? How to Ask For More Responsibility At Work appeared first on Shari Harley.
