Not Communicating Your Impact is Killing Your Career
It 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!
Intro
This 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”
- You assume that everyone sees that you are doing great work
- Not actively communicating your impact may be a reason for you to burn out
- From my experience, this pattern has been especially prominent in women engineers
- You may be part of the next layoffs if you don’t communicate your impact
🔒 My secret to learning to communicate my impact
🔒 How to do great work + making sure everyone understands it
🔒 My top 5 tips to effectively communicate your impact
🔒 Last words
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:
You can do the best work in the world, but if the expectations are not managed correctly, it will not be perceived that way.
And the second one is:
Doing great work is only half of the work, making sure that everyone knows about it is the other half. You need to do both.
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 work
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.
The only way to improve is to take full self-accountability → what can I do to learn from this and make sure I improve.
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:
How can I share my wins in a better way and make sure everyone understands them.
How can I collaborate better with my manager and build a good working relationship.
Understand the feedback from the manager fully.
How can I have a better internal and external credibility + social proof (if everyone thinks you are doing good work, that also plays a role in how manager think of you as well)
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 out
I’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:
”I've found out for myself that hard work alone does not burn me out.
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.”
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.
When you are putting a lot of effort into something and after some time you see it as a total waste of time, that’s where there’s a big chance of burning out.
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 engineers
I’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 impact
Especially 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:
Overall business goals are to either save more money or make more money.
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.