Are you getting recognised by the people who count in your organisation?
It is one thing being really good at your job, expert in your field and able to bang in big results, and quite another getting noticed.
Getting noticed means that you have to be out there building relationships with key people. Those with power and influence, those who can help bring your forward and make you shine.
Yet this is easier said than done. Firstly, you are busy doing your job. Secondly, they are busy doing their job. And finally, why would they be interested in you in any case?
That it is not easy doesn’t make it any less vital to your success going forward. I’ve written a lot over the years on this topic, and here are seven quick suggestions that you might like to consider focusing energy on.
Become Distinctive
In busy places with lots of talented and ambitious people clamouring for attention, you have to find a way to really stand out. It has to be for something that is valued by the senior level management for it to be capable of attractive attention, and it has to be substantive. Building a distinctive reputation can take years and paying attention to it will help to speed up that process.
Take Your Reputation on Tour
Yes, do the rounds — fix meetings with all the prominent/powerful people. Communicate with them face-to-face what you do, how you add value and how you believe they can benefit from your work. While you’re there, make sure and focus on building the relationship and finding out what’s going on in their world.
Apply Stakeholder Management Principles
If you set your influencing goal as establishing your reputation within a given group, the stakeholder influence process is a brilliant approach to figuring out the key people you need to engage with and, also, coming up with a plan to do that.
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Create Disturbance
Do you always have to agree with everything? If your reputation is based on your particular expertise/knowledge, introduce objections and challenges to the organisational debate. Become someone who has a strong opinion (no, not opinionated, argumentative or critical – these things don’t work so well).
Position Your Contributions
When you create disturbance, challenge, or offer ideas, make your statements from your reputational standpoint; “from a process simplification perspective, that is likely to cause major problems downstream because…” or “from an outsourcing point of view…”
Ask For Help
If you are trying to add more value to your organisation, bear in mind that senior players have an automatic vested interest. Meeting with them to gain their input and support to grow your unique contribution provides a superb opportunity to also make a reputational impression.
Just Do It
Rather than volunteer to do things, just do them. If there is something sitting there, needing to be done you might be able to get it almost finished before someone else recognises that it might be their job. Decide if you wish to graciously hand it back later, after gaining the visibility.
Colin Gautrey
Provocative Coach/Mentor | Specialism: Impact and Influence
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The Gautrey Unleashed Blog
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