The Promotion Committee Skill

Promotions are decided in a room you're not in, by people comparing you to candidates you've never met, reading a packet in four minutes. This skill runs that room early: your actual evidence, debated by the archetypes calibration meetings really contain — then breaks character to tell you which objections are fixable this cycle and which are politics wearing a rubric.

What This Skill Produces

• The transcript — four committee archetypes debating your packet, 12–18 exchanges
• The verdict memo — promote / hold / needs-a-cycle, with the real reason vs the feedback you'd be given
• The debrief — gaps ranked by fixability, with the evidence that would close each

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The packet substance — accomplishments with scope/impact, the level sought, the ladder criteria if available
• The manager's pitch — how strongly and with what evidence they'll advocate (honest read)
• The context — how many slots vs candidates, your tenure at level, any known skeptics
• The known weakness — the thing you hope nobody asks; the committee always asks

Framework: The Four Chairs

Committee mechanics to honor: packets get minutes, not hours — the first artifact carries disproportionate weight · "next-level work already happening" beats "ready for next-level work" everywhere · scope inflation, once caught, taints the true claims too · absence of a named sponsor beyond the manager is itself discussed.

Output Format

Calibration: [name] → [level] — [cycle]

Simulation — a plausible adversarial reading, not a prediction.

Transcript

[The debate, grounded ONLY in the supplied packet; where evidence is missing, the committee notices the absence — that's the feedback]

Verdict Memo

Outcome: PROMOTE / HOLD (real reason: …) — and the softer version HR will relay What tipped it: … The comparison that mattered: …

Debrief — out of character

Quality Checks

• Every committee claim traces to the supplied packet or a noticed absence
• The Bar-Keeper quotes level criteria against specific accomplishments
• The verdict's real reason differs from the relayed feedback when it realistically would
• The debrief separates evidence gaps from slot/timing politics honestly
• "At-level vs next-level" framing appears — it's the axis promotions actually turn on

Anti-Patterns

• Do not pull punches — a committee that loves the packet teaches nothing
• Do not invent accomplishments to debate — absences ARE the finding
• Do not let the Sponsor win by enthusiasm — packets win on evidence the skeptic can't dent
• Do not present politics as fixable — naming the unfixable is the kindest output
• Do not stay in character in the debrief