Ways to distinguish yourself – #42 Maintain visiblity

posted in Distinguish, General on by

Many people have a notion that if they keep doing good work they will
be recognized and rewarded. It MAY happen but it is not an entitlement.
In fact it is an ideal scenario. If it happens it just shows that you
have a “super human” as your boss 🙂

I first met Michael Weismann of Fresh Perspectives when I was still the CEO of CIGNEX.
When Micheal heard that I was running a services company, he made some
quick remarks that still resonate well with me. Two things that I can
remember even today:

1. If you pull out the pain, you pull out the visibility

2. When solutions become invisible, value diminishes

and here is the bonus

3. The better you are at your job, the more invisible you become except for failures

If whatever you do is flawless or spotless, many times rather than
saying “Wow!” people think that the job in itself was very easy. One
option (not desirable) out is to create a “mini-crisis” to attract
attention and clear off the crisis and look like a hero.

The other option (which I think is the right one) is to learn to make
people understand your value and maintain your visibility. It takes
commitment and discipline to craft a strategy to ensure that people see
value in what you are doing. But it is time worth spent thinking and
implementing to maintaining visibility for your work.

PS: If you like this post, please vote for my proposal “25 More Ways to Distinguish Yourself”  that will motivate me to complete the remaining 8 items in the series.