Practice coming at issues from
different angles now. The more you
present constructive counterpoints
the easier it will become, and you’ll
be more likely to speak up when it
matters most. The trick here is being judicial. Not everything you do deserves broader
attention. But some things do. In those cases, talking about them doesn’t
make you an attention junkie it makes you a good communicator. If the
personal attention makes you uncomfortable, focus your advocacy on
the work itself. Draw attention to the discovery, milestone or lessons
uncovered by your effort. The company will be better for it and you will
too.
14) Promoting Yourself. 15) Admitting You Don’t Understand Something.
Periodically we survey our team to
get a sense for how each employee
is feeling about the company and
their own career development.
One theme that sometimes comes
back is how to get ahead without
being self-promotional. Usually the
comment goes something like this:
“It seems like the company always
recognizes the same people. I do
good work, but it seems like no one
notices.” I was a good six months into my job as a product marketer for a software
company before I finally owned up to not knowing what an API was. I mean
I knew what an API was. I’d Googled it, obviously. API stands “application
programming interface” and constitutes a set of “subroutine definitions,
protocols, and tools for building application software.” Thanks Wikipedia.
(I’ll hit you up on that next fundraising round), but for all my internet
research, I didn’t really understand what an API did.
The honest response to these
comments is: You’re right. “How would you describe this -- in layman’s terms — to the average
reader?” I asked.
Smooth. Always blame the reader.
“Well, developers are pretty accustomed to APIs so don’t worry about
needing to educate them on it.”
Growing companies are chaotic.
They
churn
with
activity:
breakthroughs and setbacks, new
projects and discoveries. Keeping
up with it all isn’t practical, so
managers rely on signals, and
tasteful self-promotion is a valuable
signal.
Self-promotion
is
sometimes
misused to serve the ego, but
there’s a way to pull it off that also
also serves the company.
We are taught not to be overly self-
promotional. We are encouraged
to value the achievement rather
than the accolades. That message
is almost right. It focuses on what
matters most but fails to recognize
that talking about an achievement
can fuel its fire. Promoting an
achievement
can
galvanize
others to bring their ideas to it
and ensure future efforts learn
from it. And yes, it can get you
noticed.
Then it came time for me to explain that my company, HubSpot, was
opening up more of the helpful little buggers to the public and I did not
know where to begin. So, I went to my product manager and did what any
ego-protecting protagonist would do, I tried to fake it.
Not smooth.
I folded.
“Ok, then, how would you explain it to me? I mean, will you explain it to
me? I don’t get it. “
And thus began my relationship with APIs. I still don’t understand all the
details of how they work, but I’m much smarter for having gotten over
myself and asked the question.
Don’t fake it until you make it. Get over yourself and ask the question.
I’ll stop there...
... but this is really just the beginning. Who knew there were so many
uncomfortable things in the world?
Written by Meghan Keaney Anderson
@meghkeaney
Adopted by
Francesca Kaganzi.
July - December 2018 Fellowships recarp
ROTAMIRROR Holiday Issue 2018
10
ROTAMIRROR Holiday Issue 2018
11