"Has Anyone Worked Closely With Them?" Is Not a Promotion Process

Somebody's promotion often comes down to two questions asked in a room. Does anyone have feedback on this person? Has anyone worked closely with them? That sounds like a reasonable way to gather input quickly, and what it really does is hand the decision to whoever happens to be sitting at the table.

Proximity bias shows up first. Half the people answering barely know the candidate, or worked with them on one project six months ago, which is nowhere near enough exposure to judge readiness for a new role. Recency bias shows up right behind it. Maybe the only interaction someone on that committee had was last week, when the candidate pushed back on them. Maybe the pushback was completely correct. Doesn't matter… it left a taste in the mouth of a person who now holds influence over whether this career moves forward. Collect input that way and you don't get a fair process. You get an average of whatever memories were available in the room that morning.

There's a better shape for this. A promotion committee's job is to objectively evaluate the case that was made, not to evaluate the person. That single change moves the conversation from opinions to evidence: the impact they've delivered, feedback collected systematically from the peers and stakeholders who actually worked alongside them, and a real argument for why they're likely to succeed at the next level rather than just having succeeded at this one. This isn't process for its own sake. A framework built this way holds up the same at twenty people and at two thousand, and it stops the outcome from scaling on the accident of who happened to sit near whom. However promotions get decided at your company, that mechanism defines the culture. People figure out quickly whether getting ahead runs on evidence, or on being remembered by the right person in the right week.

0:00 How promotion decisions really work

0:17 The feedback trap most companies fall into

0:36 Proximity bias: when committees barely know candidates

0:50 Recency bias: how one interaction derails careers

1:15 The better way: evidence over opinions

2:30 Building scalable promotion frameworks

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