Treats

Words to the wise - See others

Never be afraid to toot your own horn

When you first start to climb the corporate ladder, you want to believe the company you work for has 20/20 vision and automatically knows who their strongest performers are. It’s easy to think that by doing better work than your peers, you’ll be ‘spotted’ ahead of them and recognized accordingly. It’s only when you start to see people being recognized ahead of you that you realize that even the best companies are not all-seeing and all-knowing.

Rather than passively waiting to be spotted, think about taking a more active role in creating the conditions for recognition to happen. Among other things, this can involve making sure your best work is seen by the right people in the organization, volunteering to present that work in public forums and working with your manager to expand your personal footprint by identifying opportunities to interact with senior colleagues in the organization outside of your immediate circle. If you’re an introvert like many of us are, this will not come naturally at first, but over time you will learn a way of tooting your own horn that doesn’t compromise who you are and doesn’t appear forced. As idealists we still wish the world wasn’t like this, but our strong advice is to accept that almost anywhere you work this will be the reality to a greater or lesser extent - learning how to navigate this reality will be a critical part of your development.

“In the present day corporate world, it is utmost important to build a personal brand for yourself and anyone who knows the basics of brand-building would know that it is impossible without self-promotion”

– Abhishek Ratna, Author