Internal promotion – get an outside decision maker

The Tim Ferriss podcast has fantastic guests and the interview with Safi Bahcall was an exceptional one. In the podcast he talked about how to manage internal promotions. I have summarized his insightful guidance on hiring as follows –

When someone is going to be promoted from a team then it is best to get someone from outside that office (can be in the same national or global organisation). This is so the candidates for the promotion do not spend all their time sucking up to the bosses in their office but on doing an amazing job.

As if the candidates know that the bosses in their office will be the ones to decide who gets the promotion then it is more effective for them to spend time sucking up to the bosses and sabotaging their competition than doing a good job.

But if an outsider is bought in to make the decision on who will get the promotion and the candidates know that their colleagues, peers and clients will all be interviewed about their performance. Then they know that the most effective way for them to get the promotion is to be excellent at their current job.

As sucking up to the decision maker and sabotaging their colleagues will not help them.