“Your work does not speak for itself. You do”

I always believed, that if you work hard, you would be successful in achieving whatever you want in life. I thought this mantra works in the corporate world too. My work will speak for me, so I won’t have to blow my own horn. I was a bookworm in school and always placed in the top 3 for school exams. I didn’t have to talk to anyone about my accomplishments and achievements. My grades and work ethic spoke for me. Everyone praised me and respected me for my assiduousness towards my studies, grades, and various assignments at school. Not sure if all my friends felt the same for me but some did for sure. When I grew up and started working, I thought it will be the same. I was naïve to realize the corporate world is so different than any school or college. It took me so long and many hardships to understand that if you are a hard worker and silent, you will attract more work only but not recognition. You would remain swamped with work and hence lose any opportunity to create influence on others. Despite working hard, you are not seen unless you make some noise. You keep on dreaming, that leaders and managers will praise your work one day. They might day in front of you in their office. But is this attitude help you to grow in an organization? After years of experience, I can confidently say it won’t. Some industries are averse to that, but consulting and any other corporate world are the same. It is the biggest mistake to depend on others to highlight your work, or to presume they know already. You live in that illusion while others get benefitted or take advantage of the same.

Well, after spending years in consulting, I have come to realize that your work doesn’t speak for itself, you do. In a large organization, everyone is busy with their agenda and working under a tight schedule. If you are working in such a place, you can’t keep your head down and work hard. To succeed and grow vertically, you must make your work visible to your leadership team. No one wants to be an annoying braggart, but it is a skill that must be mastered. You need to be present in the meetings, in required forums and you should be seen. Especially for women, it is important to learn this art. We are the ones, who usually do the work in the background for our managers. It is rare that we can talk about how hard we have worked. It is not a good idea to wait for someone to pat your back every time, because 90 out of 100 times, you will be ignored or missed. You may get the praise in the close setting from your manager, but it is not enough to grow in your career in any organization. Let me share one of my experiences that taught me a very important message.

“If you want to be promoted, you need to get involved in organizational initiatives, other than your regular project assignment”. These words were pounding in my head, and I was constantly thinking about what that other work could be. It was the time; I was working for a large consulting organization in 2013. I was deluged and overloaded with the current assignment and on top of it, doing some other assignments was quite a stretch for me. Moreover, I am not the person who can conduct “Funtoosh” or fun activities at the workplace to be seen by leadership. Not demeaning the importance of these activities, but I am not talented enough to execute them. I don’t find them fun at all. I prefer to do something more technical, intellectual tasks like technical training, sharing insight, writing a technical paper, building proof of concepts, etc. They might be regular and mundane tasks for some, but these tasks are quite satisfying for me. Well, I was in a conundrum at my workplace in a reputed consulting firm. I wanted to be associated with something, which would help me to wade through this sinking sand; corporate race. I wanted to prove I have everything in me to be promoted to the next level.

After waiting for a couple of days, I got my calling. The firm was launching an “Innovation quest” across regions to come up with innovative, technical solutions, ideas for the unresolved business problems, requiring technical, one has seen during the project phase or otherwise. The purpose was to motivate the team to think differently. Directors and Sr. Managers were looking for volunteers to organize this event from scratch till final execution. I thought this was my chance. I didn’t want to participate as I knew I won’t be able to give time to prepare a technical solution considering my plate was already full. However, managing this event would be a heck of an experience. Let’s do it! I echoed these words in my head and got myself plugged into the organizing team. Initially, the momentum was very slow. That helped me to manage this work and my assigned project work better. However, after a few months, the workload increased. In between, the manager who was supposed to be managing the planning and execution of this event was fired on the day of launch. My manager was supposed to kick start this event in a Townhall meeting. In that meeting, we planned to explain the rules of that competition with timelines. The slides were prepared, and I was ready to support him in case he needed any detail during his pitch and opening. I reached the office on time and was quite upbeat about this program. An hour passed; I didn’t see my manager in the office. I was getting anxious. He was never late. Why today on such a big day? The nervousness started spiraling in my head. I had no clue what to do. Suddenly, I was called into the Sr Manager’s office and there the whole world crashed down. I got to know he was fired!! Yes, you read it write- he was fired. Was he fired for not liking the event? That’s too much. No, just hold on, it wasn’t because of that. There were some other reasons but without going into the weeds, the bottom line was he wasn’t there anymore to launch the event today. The Sr. Manager asked me, can you launch this event today in a town hall meeting? I gulped and agreed to do this. I didn’t have an option to say no. But I have never done that before. I didn’t prepare my speech. I was supposed to be standing on the sideline to support my manager while he would speak on the stage. Now, I had to do his part. Anyways, the clock was ticking, and we must decide fast. I was hesitant and doubtful. At the same time, I didn’t want to show my weakness to my Seniors. In pressure, I agreed to do this launch. I didn’t realize it was my chance to shine and showcase my work. If I look back now, I think this was one of the right decisions I took. It was a blessing in ignorance. This gave me the platform to increase my confidence and to be seen by everyone. I had to move out of my comfort zone, but I got benefitted from this. Finally, the event was launched successfully, and I guess I got little fame too. Kidding!

Well, it was a great kickstart and after the launch, I was given full responsibility to manage this initiative. I forgot to mention it was a regional competition between different locations of the companies, so I did have other Managers working from other locations for this program. The final show was planned in our office.

The day came after months of hard work by me and other members of the PMO team. Two of the Sr. Partners were in the office along with Directors to select the best 3 ideas. We had finalized 6 teams to present their technical ideas to the leadership. All arrangements were done, and each team will be going to the conference room one by one to present their slides. They had 30–45 minutes only. I was too much busy with my project work hence I thought anyways this meeting can run on its own. It wasn’t a stage presentation anyways. The teams were given their sequence, and all was well. I wanted to focus on my other project work, rather than wasting any more time executing this event. Everything was taken care of and there was no need for me to do anything. I had planned it so well that it can run on autopilot mode.

On that day, I noticed my colleague who was on the planning team had traveled to our office to attend the meeting in person. I was surprised. Why did he need to be here? He was not presenting anything to the partners. He was just in PMO like me. Not only did he fly, but he decided to sit in the conference room too. Unbelievable! I wasn’t interested in sitting in the conference room. My workload was quite heavy, so I was confident this meeting could run itself. I was not presenting so I thought I had no role to play. I told him we might not need to be inside the conference room. He simply replied,” I’m going inside as I have worked hard to plan for this competition, and I would like to be seen by leadership as well”. I was dumbstruck. It didn’t strike me at all. It was satisfying to see my planning and flawless preparations to run this event smoothly. This event did not require anchoring. I was confident this meeting can run on its own. I never thought about my eminence. Because I always believed, the work I have done to manage this will speak for me. But here this guy, who recently got engaged in the planning team, is ready to take all the credit by just being present in the conference room. It stretched me to manage my project and this initiative. I expected that the leadership would recognize my efforts. Well, his response was enough to shake me up. It was quite silly of me to think the same. Eventually, I attended the meeting for the entire day. It was helpful not only to create a stature but to do networking with Seniors as well. That guy taught me an excellent lesson, when you work hard, be present to talk about your accomplishments as well. As children we were taught, appropriately, not to brag. It’s time to unlearn that habit. The corporate world is very competitive. To get credit for your hard work, you need to be there to own it, to talk about it. The woman usually downplays their accomplishments. She works hard in the background but doesn’t come forward as she is too busy taking care of multiple things. It’s well known that women are multitaskers, but we are reluctant to claim credit for it. Accept what you deserve and talking about the same will not make anyone small especially if you are working in this corporate world. Turns out, great performance is not the standalone foundation for sustained career momentum we’d all like to believe it is. The message is quite clear — Your work cannot speak for you; you must speak for yourself.