My dojo doesn’t believe in awarding child black belts. The rationale is that a black belt is about way more than just your ability to perform techniques well. There’s a code of values that goes along with it, and the thinking goes that it takes some measure of maturity and life experience to develop a decent understanding of the meaning and significance of that.

Never mind the fact that your kid could have the cleanest technique and be able to best all of the other kids in sparring… and it’s still not going to be enough to overcome an adult attacker who’s dead-set on kidnapping them. Helping your child develop confidence is good; giving them a false sense of security by handing them a black belt… not so much.

When we as adults see a child black belt, we may not realize it consciously, but subconsciously the value of a black belt is degraded every time it happens. We don’t take it seriously anymore, because hey, my kid has the same rank as you. How hard can it be, right?

So what does this all have to do with the workplace?

Obviously, we don’t actually have child black belts in the workplace; but we have something similar. Every time an organization promotes an employee 17 times in 12 months, it sends a similar message; these ranks just don’t hold that much weight.

If they did, you’d have to spend more time at each one before being given the nod to move on.

Now before you go wagging your finger at me: I’m all for meritocracy, and I don’t believe that fair and equal are the same thing. If someone is a star performer, they should be treated better than the average employee. No, that has nothing to do with my point.

My point is that, similar to earning your black belt, I believe that most roles in most organizations require both a certain amount of time spent in the role to fully grasp it, as well as a minimum threshold of life and work experience before it can be reached with any measure of credibility.

Let’s look at the title of “Director,” for example. If you came across someone who has been working for three years and had the title of Director, would you take them seriously? I’d struggle with it. To me, someone with three years of experience just hasn’t seen enough of how the work world functions to understand the things I would expect a director to understand: organizational politics, how to tactfully navigate tough conversations, how to fight for your team, how to shield them from day-to-day garbage, and so on.

As a result, my opinion of the Director title would be devalued because it was given to someone who, as smart as they may be and as well as they may have performed in their previous role, just doesn’t have the other stuff nailed down yet. A premature Director promotion on the basis of individual performance alone is no different from a child black belt title on the basis of technique alone.

Wrapping it Up

If you’re an organizational leader reading this, ask yourself: what are the factors that contribute to the decision to promote someone in your world? Are they the right ones? What message do your promotion decisions send to other employees? Are they seen as decisions that carry weight, or are they viewed more like participation awards, given out to keep entitled employees happy?

If you’re an individual contributor or someone looking to be promoted, ask yourself this: what can I bring to this title to be worthy of it? How can I develop myself to be a multi-faceted leader or contributor so that, when people see that I hold a particular title, their opinion of that title is elevated instead of devalued?

If you take this approach to your personal development – to always try to behave and perform in a way that elevates the title you’ve been trusted with – you’ll quickly prove to your leadership team that you’re the kind of person who can be trusted with the next title and more responsibility… because by virtue of the approach you take to your work, you demonstrate that you care about more than just “getting the job done.” You care about more than just the “technique” – you care about the principles and values around it.

And that’s a perspective worth promoting, both in the workplace and in the dojo.