Beliefs About How to Get Promoted

Wenqi Han and Daehee Choi UMEI 013 II July 27 2011

Everybody has a dream for their own life. A person may want to get a stable job. Another person may vaguely want just a better life. Whatever we want, we have to succeed in our work. How can we succeed in our work? In other words, how can we get promoted

in our job? Everybody wants to know that. However, nobody can confidently tell us which way is the best for promotion. The purpose of our research is to find out the differences of their beliefs of how to get promoted between common students, teachers, office workers and the experts who publish articles and books on this topic. Firstly, we researched several articles and books about the experts suggestions on promotion. Secondly, we conducted a survey to find out beliefs about how to get promoted. According to Stephen R. Covey, effective people have 7 habits for their job (Covey, 61). First of all, being active and being prepared for new tasks, especially for a negative or difficult one. Next, understanding and keeping in mind the tasks from start to finish can help us to get a higher possibility to success. Moreover, the ability to set priorities, working for profits for both sides, and seeking first to understand, then to be understood should be borne in mind. Finally, being willing to cooperate and being a good team player, as well as taking opportunities for professional development are the keys to succeed (Covey, 65, 95, 145, 204, 235, 261, and 287).1 However, we find these seven habits are slightly different from what we believe. For instance, one of our teammates, who has worked for 12 years, thinks that a close relationship to executives is the most important fact. In addition, showing professional leadership ability, great quality of work, length of service, and

earning respects from others are of considerable influence on promotion. Therefore, we made a questionnaire to collect the information of what people believe is very important for them to get promoted. You can see the survey in the attachment. For our survey, the general objective was to detect peoples beliefs about a promotion. The specific objectives were: (1) To figure out general factors for a promotion; (2) To establish which factor is the most important for a promotion; (3) To detect the different thinking for a promotion among several groups of people; and (4) To provide the way of promotion from experts. In the survey questionnaire, we prepared two types of questions. One type was choice of importance, and the other type was a short-answer question. We asked these questions to 38 people and all of them answered. They had different jobs such as office workers, students and teachers. Also they had different nationalities such as American, Chinese, Korean, and so on. The results of the first part of the questionnaire - what do you think about the importance of things to get promoted, we finally concluded that quality of work, ability to set
priorities, and earning the respect of others are the three top things which people believe are of the most importance. On the other hand, understanding and keeping in mind the tasks from start to finish, close relationship to the leaders, and length of service are the three things, which people

believe are of the least importance. We find this is interesting because two of the top choices are not included in the book written by the expert. Quality of work and earning the respect of others are just our group discussions result. Moreover, understanding and keeping in mind the tasks from start to finish, which is believed not important, is actually one of the keys for private victory according to the expert, Stephen R. Covey. In this case, we researched more books for comprehension. In

On Becoming a Leader, written by Warren Bennis, we found more that are not mentioned by Covey. Knowing yourself as well as the world that you are facing to, developing yourself by trying everything and Getting people on your side coincide more with what we added to the survey (Bennis, 53, 73, and 155). Therefore, we can see that opinions differ among different experts, and it is necessary for us to read more books rather than just take one persons suggestions or even just follow what you believe. The chart below is the occupation of peoples belief for each factor.
No. Question Very Important

(%)
66

Important (%)

Not Important (%)

Quality of work

24

11

Be willing to accept new responsibility

50

37

13 21

Understanding and keeping in mind the tasks from start to finish

32 53

47

Ability to set priorities

42

Think Win-Win

- Working for profits for both sides

24

68

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

26

66

Be willing to cooperate and be a good team player

47

50

Sharpen the saw

- take opportunities for professional development

45

47

Having leadership ability

45

53

3 16 32

10

Close relationship to the leaders

37

47

11

Length of service

26 53

42

12

Earning the respect of others

42

-The top three factors for promotion among survey responses were quality of work, ability to set priorities and
earning the respects of other.

-You can see a graph of this table in the attachment.

Furthermore, opinions vary when we compare the responses by careers, gender, and by person. Firstly, we looked into the difference among different careers. The graph below show the percent of people who think the factor is very important.
150%

100%

Office worker Student Teacher

50%

0% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

numbers on the x-axis refer to the factors listed in survey In the graph, we can easily see the big difference between officers, students, and

teachers in number 1, 10, and 11, which refer to quality of work, close relationship to the leaders, and length of service. Although over 40% officers believe that quality of work is very important, there are 40% more students and teachers believe so. We may say this

phenomena show that our new generation has a good spirit. Nevertheless, the officers who consider close relationship to the leaders, and length of service are very important are around 50% higher than the students and teachers, let alone no teacher checked very important. This can be the real world, but we still feel lucky because our new generation still believes they can succeed by hard working. And if we can keep this, the world can be fairer in the future. We also looked into the difference between two genders. The graph blow shows the percent of people who think the factor is very important, divided by gender.
100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Male Female

numbers on the x-axis refer to the factors listed in survey In general, women responded more like students and teachers as analyzed above.

Our hypothesis is that women tend to have more influence on the beliefs of students. Our survey questionnaire part two, we asked for what in the responders mind is the most important one above or in your mind. The answers were: time management, communication skills, appearance, and so on. We find there are all various answers for this open question.

The purpose of our research is to find out the differences of their beliefs of how to get promoted between common students, teachers, office workers and the experts who publish articles and books on this topic. After studying the experts books and our survey results, we found substantial differences do exist. Based on our analysis, we conclude that there is no right or wrong answer for the beliefs of how to get promoted. Since the people who become executives vary, the fit answer also varies. We need to keep the harmony and balance of the factors for promotion.

Work Cited Bennis, Warren. On Becoming a Leader, 2nd ed. Perseus Books, 1994 Covey, Stephen R., The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Free Press, 2004.

Graph: Peoples beliefs of the factors for promotion by choosing from very important, important, and not important

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% V