Most of us meander through our corporate careers with a burning ambition to learn. This learning serves us well to do our jobs better and if we’re lucky will result in a promotion. Then, repeat.
By now, most of you with a few grey hairs will be mumbling profanities starting with BS under your breath.
While it’s true that hard work and dedication to your role may earn you a promotion or two in the early years of your career, the unfortunate perception these days is that you have to be able to promote yourself. It’s not enough to be the best at something – it should be but it just isn’t. You have to have a “brand”.
Apparently.
A banker friend of mine used to say that it takes years and at least one economic cycle to be a proper banker.
I don’t know when self-promoters got the upper hand in business and it isn’t a new development but never have there been so many of them. We Australians used to pride ourselves in the art of BS detection, now we actively participate in it. The BS that is not the detection.
Self-promoters are the people at work who will engage with senior management at every opportunity, take at least some of the credit for others work (even if in a small way) and do it often. They will be there early and leave late. Usually they don’t do any real work. They’re very good at convincing their colleagues into “helping out” as they often don’t know what they’re doing. They will be the ones mining the IT system for business opportunities that others have originated to claim as their own…I could go on and on.
Some examples are in order…
A young chap working for a small accounting firm takes the train to work every day from the outer suburbs of Sydney. On that train he gets to know a few bankers and decides that’s what he wants to do. Within six months he’s convinced one of them to try him out. Within 12 months he’s changed banks and is at the same level that his former boss took 6 years to achieve, within five years he’s senior management. One day he comes across an old banker that calls him out for what he is. A talentless person who has no idea what he’s talking about and can’t understand why his career is stalled. It doesn’t end well for either of them.
A young lady working for a major funds manager is deemed to be too quiet for promotion. A tag that has remained with her until the funds manager is taken over by a major bank. She changes tack and hitches her wagon to the new management team. Unlike the previous example, this lady had a modicum of talent – in funds management. But she’s now been promoted into the senior echelons of a bank.
In my career I had reason to meet various CEO’s. There was one CEO of a major Australian bank who – at the time – had been recently promoted into the role. Part of my job at the meeting was to convince that bank to acquire banks in Asia (as we had been mandated to sell one). The topic got onto swaps (derivatives) when the CEO leaned in to one of the advisers surrounding them and asked “what is a swap?”
Everyone heard the question. From our side of the table there was utter disbelief that someone could go through the ranks of banking and not know this expression. On their side of a table they pretended like nothing had happened. Their emperor/empress still had clothes. This CEO is now regarded in the press and by younger bankers as someone to emulate. Bollocks.
I should stress that self-promoters are gender neutral. I have met both male and female bankers who are very good at it. They’re just not very good at much else.
Why is all this important?
Imagine an engineering firm where the chief engineer had gotten there because of self-promotion and surrounded himself with younger engineers cut from the same cloth. One of those engineers submits a drawing for a bridge to be approved and if neither of them know what they’re doing there will be deaths.
Banking is similar. We’re now seeing the result of decades of self-promoters rising to the top of banking. Boardrooms and senior management ranks are rife with self-promoters. Sometimes these people who don’t know what they’re doing will make decisions that will end in tragedy – you’ve all see the headlines.
Banking promotions used to have a filter. You worked in a retail or business banking/corporate role. You spent time in risk/credit. Those two areas had a very good way of discovering your short-comings and strengthening your weaknesses. Impostors were weeded out early. These days, senior management are parachuted in from consulting firms or other management roles. They don’t know the organizational culture that they have just adopted so they go about changing it.
Amongst all these designer clothed wannabees are some real bankers. These are the ones that we’ve come to know in our role as brokers. We have a responsibility to find these bankers and connect them with clients and we do. However, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find people who know what they’re talking about.
We’re currently working with a company in North-West Sydney. They’re a family company who have grown from nothing using only their home loan to fund their growth. They have now outgrown their current banking arrangements. We’re seeking a new banker to help them to continue to grow. Instead, what we’ve seen are bankers that only see the company as a feather in their cap. Another one for the KPI. Our search has been long but not unfruitful.
How will this help you in your business?
Chances are you’ve come across a few bankers who know not what they do. If these bankers are promoted and you’re left shaking your head then you should raise some concerns with the senior management of that bank. Or you can do what clients have always done and leave.
My preference is for you to complain. If enough clients complain the self-promoters will be weeded out and we’ll be out of business. Eventually.
If you just change banks you run the risk of perpetuating the rise of self-promoters in the industry. This isn’t good for anyone. Because I’m sure your paths will cross again.
Ok, so the irony of promoting my business while writing about self-promotion is not entirely lost on me. But I’m part of a small business and this is an inexpensive and informative way of promoting ourselves.
At least we know what we’re doing. That, my friends, is the key difference.