Not Communicating Your Impact is Killing Your Career
- Gregor Ojstersek from Engineering Leadership <gregorojstersek@substack.com>
- Hidden Recipient <hidden@emailshot.io>
Not Communicating Your Impact is Killing Your CareerIt may be the reason you get overlooked for the promotion or worse, be part of the next layoffs. This is what to do to avoid it!
IntroThis is the thought that came to my mind recently and I just had to write more about it. I’ve seen countless engineers doing great work, but afraid to come across as if they are “bragging” or “selling”. But then, when it’s time to announce the next promotion, they get overlooked. Or worse, they might be part of the next layoffs. Great managers will notice this and will give feedback + direction on what to do, but that will not be the case in a lot of situations, as great managers are hard to find and once you have them, they should be appreciated. It’s really important that you take ownership and find ways to not only do great work, but also make sure that everyone knows about it as well! This is an article for paid subscribers, and here is the full index: - “My work speaks for itself” Let’s get straight into it! “My work speaks for itself”If you find yourself in the words above, there’s a good chance you haven’t been communicating your impact well. And it’s time to make some adjustments. There are 2 things I like to say. The first one is:
And the second one is:
Assuming that everyone knows that you are doing good work is in most cases, going to be a wrong assumption. You need to actively ensure that people know that you are doing good work. But, Gregor, this sounds like I need to “brag” or I need to “sell”, this is not me, I like to just be in the fine details? Well, let me tell you a very important thing. We are all always selling all the time → both personally and professionally. And I don’t see it as “selling or bragging”, I see it as being clear and ensuring that our work is perceived the right way. Let’s get into a specific example next. You assume that everyone sees that you are doing great workAnton Zaides recently shared a great post that caught my attention. The dilemma that he mentioned perfectly describes what we are talking about today. It’s not all about doing great work, you need to make sure that everyone understands that you are doing great work as well. And if you assume that people do, you probably assume wrong. And here is my comment: As you can read from my comment, I didn’t mention anything about bad management or how bad it was from the manager’s side to not give the deserved recognition. And the reason is that you can’t get better if you are “putting the blame” on others.
Of course, there are a lot of cases where managers are not doing their job the right way and some might also make their report’s day-to-days a lot harder. But you can’t control that. And the easiest thing to do would be to blame others, especially your manager, for not seeing all the hard & great work that you are doing. Because if you do that, there is no actionable thing for you to do. Which is a totally wrong way to look at it. There are so many things that you can do to make sure that everyone around you (including your manager) understands how great of a job you are doing (especially in an EM position). If you don’t do that, you are not only putting a bad light on yourself, but also on the whole team as well. As I mentioned, always look at everything as a learning opportunity:
Now, let’s also talk about the other side effect that may not be so widely discussed if you are not actively communicating your impact. Not actively communicating your impact may be a reason for you to burn outI’ve recently read this article: Burnout in High Performers: Why Success Often Hides the Signs and it resonated well with me. I have also shared my thoughts on Substack Notes. Here is my comment: But what really burns me is if I am doing something for longer time and that doesn't fit within my goals or if my work doesn't necessary fit the expectations I've set for myself. That's why when I was a Senior Software Engineer and didn't know what "the next step" is going to be -> that really demotivated me and was burning me out.” Roi Ezra commented on the note where he mentioned exactly what we are talking about today. I believe the biggest reason for burning out is not the hard work itself, but not seeing the necessary outcomes or not being able to achieve what you wish to achieve or you haven’t received the deserved recognition, as we talked about earlier.
Especially if you are putting a LOT of effort into it for a longer time. From my experience, this pattern has been especially prominent in women engineersI’ve seen this pattern everywhere, but for some reason, a lot of the women engineers I worked with and also managed didn’t communicate their impact the right way. They were all amazing engineers and they all did great work, but if I wouldn’t be very involved and if I wouldn’t see all the great work that they are doing, it would unfortunately get unnoticed. They were some of the best engineers I worked with and they were crucial for the success of the projects. But again, if I wouldn’t know that and told everyone about how great of the work they are doing, they wouldn’t get the well-deserved recognition and internal credibility. And I believe there are a lot of cases where great work goes unnoticed, because they have a manager who is not as involved and they don’t personally communicate their impact the right way. And as we mentioned before → you can say it’s the manager’s fault, but ultimately you can’t control how involved your manager is. You can only control that you do great work and also communicate it as well. You may be part of the next layoffs if you don’t communicate your impactEspecially with the recent news about Microsoft laying off 3% of its workforce. There might be more companies going that direction, so it’s becoming more and more important to communicate your impact and not assume that everyone knows it. There is definitely a chance that you do great work and you communicate your impact the right way and still be a part of the layoffs, but ultimately, this is really important to understand:
And Impact equals to either saving or making more money. So it would be foolish for companies to lay off people who have a huge impact. Of course, this definitely happens, but due to the nature of how businesses operate, such people will have the least chance to be part of the layoffs. And in case you are affected by layoffs and do all the right things, you have a great case, where you made a lot of impact and it’s easier for you to get the next role. My secret to learning to communicate my impact...Subscribe to Engineering Leadership to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Engineering Leadership to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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