Not being recognized for what you're good at?

Dear friend,

On a scale from 1 to 5, how would you rate the quality of the work you deliver? On the same scale, how would you rate your ability and willingness to give visibility of that same work? If you have rated your work on a 4 to 5 and your ability to give visibility of it on a 1 to 2… keep reading 😊

What do you believe the reasons are for your reluctance to claiming your achievements ? Chances are you are right now thinking about one of those two things (or both):

• “Why should I have to bring attention to my work? Good work should get noticed by itself!”

• “If I start bragging about my work I would be like that jerk of colleague, completely self-centered, who doesn’t stop talking about how good he is and only cares about himself!”

Let me give you a few points around those two topics, which may help you softer your positions there:

• The reason why people need their attention drawn to your work is simply because we’re all overwhelmed with information. Expecting that your boss knows everything you’re doing, if you’re not openly communicating it to him/her is unrealistic. I doubt your manager is monitoring your e-mail or seating next to your office looking at who you’re meeting or what you’re doing all day long at work. Plus, you’re probably not the only person working on the team. So… how could your boss know?

• When you raise the point about comparing with your self-centered colleague, this is reflecting an “either-or” thinking. Either you are a nice person who thinks first about others and the team and doesn’t claim the credit for its own work (or shares it immediately when receiving a compliment) or you are an ego-centric person only caring about yourself. The reality is that here is a variety of possibilities between those two antagonistic positions. You don’t need to be one or the other. You may look for a middle ground that serves you fairly while you keep displaying genuine interest on your colleagues’ work.

But your reluctance to claim your achievements is probably by now a well-entrenched habit. Changing it requires to identify the limiting believe that generated the behaviours which became, over time and through repetition, your habit today. So where does this type of thinking come from? Usually from two places:

• Our education: Chances are you were probably told, when you’re young, that “only selfish people talk about themselves”. Maybe this was part of your religious believes. Or maybe part of your sports training, while being part of a team.

• Our past working experiences: perhaps early in your career you developed the habit of working autonomously. Your boss was very busy and wanted you to do your job and only let him know if problems raised. As a result, communicating to your boss about your day to day work became an unnecessary task which, in your eyes, could be seen by your boss as a sign of not being able to perform your job and being a top individual contributor.

While these believes may have been serving you well in the past, if you feel like there is a disconnect with your management and experience some of the following “manifestations”, it maybe time for you to try some changes on your behaviors and look at developing new habits. How does this way of being stuck manifest?

• On our relationship with others: our work goes unnoticed, or worst, someone else takes credit for our work

• On our relationship with ourselves: frustration, feeling stuck

In their book “How Women Rise” Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith talk to us about Ellen, a Software Engineer at a Sillicon Valley company, experiencing the fact that she was not being recognized for what she was good at. Keeping it short, her manager was not noticing all her contributions. As a result, she got a mitigated performance review, which made her feel frustration and stuck.

After an initial reaction of feeling devalued, she quickly moved into a mode of “what can make him have this impression?" The answer appeared to her as obvious: her manager was not on her head neither he was monitoring all her day-to-day activity. He couldn’t know she was doing well in the area he was not perceiving a good enough job. The solution Sally found was simple: she would weekly notify via e-mail her manager about her activity related to this area and the progress made. Very soon she started experiencing the benefits of such practice: her manager proactively reached out to let her know how useful it was and how she was helping better positioning her manager, her team and herself. As an additional benefit, she could use all the emails she sent as a collection that worked as a work diary, to help her prepare her next performance review.

But, as Sally and Marshall explain, the whole process of change in behavior, while developing the new habit, was awkward and felt uncomfortable at times for Ellen. This is totally normal, as our brains operate in auto-pilot when we allow them to act according to our habits. When our brains perceive a familiar situation and we decide to change the behaviour we do as a response, alarms raise. We are not intended to be doing that. There is already a pre-defined routine. Still, perseverance and self-discipline will help you repeat the new behaviour again and again, building a new neuronal path of response to the familiar situation and therefore recording the alternative habit in our brain.

So, if you recognize this habit in you and also realize that it is being a source of frustration and being stuck, I invite you to take action! How to tackle this habit?

• First, start by recognizing and expressing the value of the work you have provided every day. This step will help you deal with the relationship with yourself. At the end of your working day, you could go through it in your mind and complete the following sentence with whatever is of great value (for you or the others) that you did that day: “I congratulate myself for having…”. This is an important step, as it will help you realize the contribution you have made and therefore, decide what is worth communicating to whoever needs to hear from it (your boss, your team, an executive within your company or a partner, etc). Record all your sentences. They will be the material to help you communicate your message.

• Second, send the required communication at the frequency and using the most adequate media. Decide what the most suitable frequency and media are for the goal you want to reach. Start sending your messages on a consistent, regular basis. You being reliable and dependable with your communication is important for the person receiving the messages. But also for you, as you work to create a new habit. So don’t miss communication times. If your communication is weekly, send a message every week, even if you believe the amount of content is not enough. Quality is better than quantity. Focus on the items that bring most value to your partner. Being concise is important, especially when dealing with executives. If the person requires more details, (s)he will ask for them.

So this is my challenge for you this week:

1. Identify if/where you’re being reluctant to claim your achievements

2. Start recognizing and expressing the value of your contribution every day in that area

3. Decide who/how/how often should receive a communication about this activity

4. Mark the first date on your calendar with a recurring event at the selected frequency

5. Send your first message on that date and be consistent on sending messages every time it is required in your plan

Let me know how it goes. And don't hesitate to forward this post to anyone around you who may need it. They are very much welcome in our community!

Create an awesome week for you and those around you!

Ezequiel