Making work more visible

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What’s the right amount of self-promotion?

As someone who’s spent too much time on LinkedIn over the past few years, I’ve OBVIOUSLY thought long and hard about this. But the point isn’t exclusive to social media. Every business should understand the contribution of every individual. Even when they’re not good at celebrating their own achievements.

That’s why making work visible isn’t a binary choice:

1. Shout about yourself at every opportunity, boring and irritating people in equal measure.
2. Let your work speak for itself and hope someone notices.

Over the past year, I’ve spent 100s of hours exploring this question, discussing it with CEOs, managers, new starters, and leadership experts. In summary:

• Businesses aspire to be data-driven.
• They want to eradicate presenteeism and anecdotal feedback.
• An evidence-based approach based on who creates value is compelling.

The problem? Most businesses don’t have the data or systems to achieve this.

Why? The ‘output’ from some jobs is more challenging to measure than others.

Some examples…

Customer Service:

Measuring a customer service rep’s effectiveness at handling calls is relatively straightforward. Nothing’s perfect, of course. I’d take longer calls with a satisfactory resolution over dumping callers to bump numbers up, for example. But, as a rule, combining call volumes with listening tools gives you a good sense of productivity and performance.

Sales:

Similarly, judging salespeople on whether they hit or exceed their target makes sense. Yes, sometimes targets aren’t well conceived. Obstacles can affect performance, whether personal issues or a poor product. But, on average, particularly when measured relative to others in the team, you can make a decent assessment of who’s succeeding.

Account Management/HR/Project Management/Content Marketing etc:

(Ok, I just lumped a bunch of unrelated and entirely different jobs together, but it’s easier to support what I’m about to say!)

When ‘outputs’ are less tangible, most managers struggle to judge whether someone is doing a ‘good’ job. He/She who isn’t afraid to blow their own trumpet dominates the recognition awards. While this may not be a new problem - there was always a loudest voice in the room - distributed teams are making it more difficult. For those fading into the background to become more visible, and for leaders to spot their contribution.

How to avoid ‘loud voice syndrome’?

Typically, people don’t speak up for themselves and celebrate their work for one of two reasons:

1. By nature, they’re not boasters.
2. They don’t even realise they’re doing great work.

The first point is understandable but unhelpful to you as a manager. You want and need to see the value they're creating.

The second point needs more work, but tweaking how your team tracks and shares its progress can help.

1. Each time something positive happens during the day, log that moment. It could be a great meeting, feedback on a winning presentation, progress on a learning goal, or a "thank you" from a colleague
2. At the end of every week, select the top three moments and share them with the team. Do the same at the end of every month and every quarter - curating your personal highlights reel.
3. Create a ritual for celebrating the moments that have added value. The ritual could contribute to a business objective or KPI. Or it could be more personal, like helping onboard a new team member or supporting a colleague through a tricky time.

The secret here is the consistent feedback loop and not waiting for a quarterly or annual appraisal to discuss what is and isn’t working. We all know that by then, you’ll have forgotten! We have bad memories, and performance reviews are usually an exercise in recency bias.

The result?

• Consistently sharing individual and team highlights makes acknowledging and celebrating individual contributions easy.
• Empowering your team to track their journey and tell their story builds connections.
• Crucially, you don't leave recognising value and impact to chance.

This is the kind of self-promotion that helps everyone.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, get in touch. I’ll share how I’m helping organisations introduce this approach to improving performance management.

Have a lovely weekend,

Ollie