Only twice in my life I’ve said to my husband: “I will never have dinner with those people again.”
The first time was years ago. Two rising stars in my husband’s industry, a husband and wife team, invited us and two other couples to their house for a dinner party. I was seven months pregnant and still teaching, which made me the odd one out on both counts. They talked shop all night until one terrifying moment over the main course when the hostess interrupted the conversation to ask me: “So when are you due?” When I told her, she shuddered visibly and went back to talking shop. It was the only interaction I had all night, besides hello and goodbye.
No one likes to be invisible. At work, it’s a surprisingly easy pattern to fall into. The harder you work, the easier it is to feel invisible. You come in, hit your deadlines, crank out your work, stay on top of email, show up on time for meetings, and in some reasonable spate of time, you expect other people will notice and reward you with kudos and a promotion.
After a while, you’ll notice that it doesn’t work that way. We’ve all seen a boss who takes credit for the work of several people below in the team. We’ve all seen the person who comes in late and takes long lunches with people from totally unrelated departments get promoted before the people putting in longer hours.
People like that get rewarded because visibility is valuable currency in an organization. By their very nature, organizations are collaborative. They need people who bring teams together to achieve complex, often far-reaching goals. The most visible people are doing essential work: creating and reinforcing a common vision, team building, encouraging, challenging, innovating, and supporting others. Exchanging ideas is absolutely necessary to ensure the organization stays vital and competitive.
Consider what would happen if everyone simply came in, did their work, and went home. Before long, the work would get stale and boring. Complacency would set in, there would be no innovation, no questioning of how we can improve or do better, and the organization would soon find itself in a rut. No one would want to have dinner, much less another workday, together again.
To be sure, visibility can have a down side. If you’re spending too much time in meetings, you can be perceived as micro-managing, arrogant, meddling, or so focused on networking that you forget about results. If you promote yourself and your agenda too strenuously or directly, you can get pegged as bossy or pushy.
Effective leaders find a balance between getting things done and getting ideas cross-pollinated with other people’s views. At the entry level, it’s you should be spending 60% to 70% of your time doing your work and mastering the technical skills required for your industry. For managers, the ideal balance is about 50/50 between work and meetings. For more senior executives, it’s usual to spend closer to 70% of your time in meetings. It’s important to be aware of how you’re spending your time and strike the right balance.
If you’re spending less time than you should interacting with others, here are 5 tips to help increase your visibility.
1. Socialize with people at work
If you want to be visible, be the spirit leader. That means, cheering others on, celebrating when other people succeed, working hard alongside others and urging them to keep going. My daughter won the spirit award at her gymnastics club in 6th grade while the other girls were winning medals. OK, she didn’t turn out to be an Olympic alternate, but she’s gone on to an incredible corporate career and continues to rise. Her team spirit lifts morale and improves team performance, and that gets her noticed.
Building team spirit is the fun part of going to work. Find the people at work you admire and like the most. Take time to connect with them, listen to them, encourage them, learn from them, confide in them. You will naturally over time disclose your work challenges and successes, and they will theirs. Your successes will be encouraged by more people and celebrated more widely. In other words, you’ll become more visible, and others will see you as a leader and manager. Actually, you will be a leader, because that’s exactly what leaders do, inspire and champion others to achieve team success.
2. Speak up in meetings
Speaking up more in meetings is one of the most common goals I encounter in coaching. Sheryl Sandberg first pointed out how many women sit at the back of the room, take up as little space as possible, and try to avoid being noticed. Let’s be honest: it’s not just women. While more men are comfortable taking up a lot of room in public settings, there are plenty of us, male and female, who dread or shirk the spotlight.
You don’t have to have a brilliant idea or contribution for your voice to be important. The best solutions emerge from discussions that include diverse voices and elicit a variety of opinions. A question that draws attention to something no one has noticed can improve whole processes and make the difference between a good and a great project. Sometimes, a simple question like, “how can we be even better?” or “what’s the history behind doing things this way?” can make everyone pause, reflect, and move one step farther toward better results. Speak up if you are curious about something. You are probably not the only one with the question, but as the voice of others, your visibility will rise.
3. Volunteer for high visibility projects or initiatives
Most organizations are actively seeking people willing to take on projects and initiatives. Experimenting with the new and different is the life-blood of innovation and future leadership in an industry. The people who step up to be a part of or to lead a new team in uncharted waters get noticed.
You might want to start by leading something soft, like a volunteer day effort such as a beach clean-up or volunteering at a school. You’ll meet people from around your organization in a low-stress, positive setting and naturally strike up friendships. These first steps make it easier to volunteer later for a more high-stakes position, like a product research and development team, a process review, or a group tasked with finding new sources of customers or revenue. Just being part of the team will help you build confidence and visibility, and you’ll feel more confident to step up as a leader next time. If the initiative fails, be sure to bring valuable insight back to the company about what went wrong and how it might be done better next time. If you succeed, be sure to recognize everyone who contributed and to celebrate widely with everyone.
4. Find a mentor or advocate
It’s advice you’ve probably heard before, but having a mentor or advocate is one of the best ways to be visible. When someone else is touting you, you avoid any risk of being seen as arrogant or self-promoting, which can turn others against your progress. The hardest part is getting a mentor or advocate.
Advocate relationships don’t come from asking someone to help you. The best way to build the relationship is to first do a favor for someone above you. That may be volunteering for a tough or crappy job with long hours or weekend duties. Whatever it is, make sure the work you do makes the person above you feel good and look better to others. Having done something valuable for them, most of them will naturally want to do something to return the favor. They will want to encourage you to do more of the stuff that makes them look good. They might bring you along on their next big move, or help you get promoted when they move up. Be careful not to rely too much on one advocate throughout a career. It can damage your reputation if that person has a misstep or even if you are perceived as “their” person, not deserving of promotions on your own. Still, having a mentor is a great way to be seen at higher levels.
5. Mentor someone
Mentoring works to advance the needs of the mentor and mentee. If you are having trouble finding a mentor or advocate, try finding someone you can mentor and advocate for. Having someone who can help you look better at what you do, will earn you both a friend and an advocate. If you connect with a team-member or peer, talk about ways you can co-mentor to make each other look good, get noticed, and reinforce your successes and visibility. These can be simple favors like recognizing and reinforcing each other’s ideas in meetings. If you find the courage to speak up, the other person can recognize it. It could be something simple like saying: “I think Karen is on to something here. How can we follow up on it?”
If you don’t have a peer you are close to, look for someone below you who is willing to do some hard work in order for some recognition from you and your peers. If you have a tough project that needs a little grinding out, get help from someone on the next rung down, and make sure to recognize them when the project is done. A public shout out in a meeting or launch party can go a long way to making someone feel they are recognized and gives you a platform for others to notice your generosity and team spirit. By demonstrating your willingness to encourage and recognize others, you’ll be visible as a leader bringing a team together to accomplish something beyond what you can do alone.
It’s easier and more important that you might think to build your visibility in your organization. Sharing a vision, building a team, collaboration, and questioning are what organizations are all about. So set your sight-lines up above your cubicle walls and get out there!