How not to get a promotion as a strategist
Doing great strategy work - becoming more fluent in the practice of strategy, demonstrating this growing expertise on projects, consistently making the client happy - seems like it should be enough to get you to the next level, yes? Often it’s not. It turns out that strategists need to offer more than being good at strategy.
Counterintuitive? Maybe. Frustrating? Probably. But it’s important to remember that “Strategist” isn’t just a title. It’s a function - one that affects the client, the account and the agency. To be successful in their careers, strategists need to recognize all the ways they’re apt to be evaluated, and develop their capabilities in each.
Here’s how I think about it, which is by no means an industry standard. But most strategy leaders I’ve spoken with agree that this rubric translates pretty well into the way they think about promotions.
1. Contribution
Here is where the strategist shows how well they can do the job of strategy - fluency in frameworks, a command of processes, mastery of the vernacular - and uses this fluency to help the client achieve their objectives. As the strategist progresses the expectations around their contribution increase as well. Someone vying to be a Director needs greater mastery than someone looking to be promoted to Senior Strategist. But this attribute is really around the strategist’s ability to deliver the work the client needs.
Contribution is how the strategist makes a client successful.
2. Leadership
Strategy is a leadership role. It requires regular contact with clients, building and adapting processes, and making dozens of decisions that can affect not just the outcome of a project, but the quality of the relationship. A good strategist unburdens others at the agency from some of their leadership responsibilities, and is seen as a thought partner by the client.
Leadership is how the strategist makes an account successful.
3. Impact
This is the one that eludes many strategists. As people become more senior, their ability to impact the health of the agency also needs to increase. Impact for a strategist doesn’t just mean contributing to a project that generated positive outcomes for the client. Impact is agency growth. Ascending strategists don’t just have to contribute to projects that make the clients happy - they have to contribute to projects that make the clients come back for more projects. And impact (growth) can be demonstrated in other ways - like being able to write strong RFP responses or proposals, or creating thought leadership that boosts the agency’s profile, or creating relationships with senior marketers at brands that turn into new clients. Impact isn’t always the job of strategy, but it is the job of any strategist who wants to ascend - particularly above the Director level.
Impact is how the strategist makes their agency successful.
Absolutely get better at the tools and processes of strategy. But as you apply them think also about the role you play (or could play, should play) for the client, the account and your agency.
*without switching agencies - a topic for another day