corporate lessons stop doing invisible work

When I was working my first job out of college, I got passed up for several promotions. I was doing all the work that I needed to be doing, but the problem was that the right people didn't know about it. The people who were getting promoted weren't necessarily doing better work than me, but they were being more deliberate about making sure the right people knew about their work. They were scheduling one-on-ones with their managers' managers to tell them about a project they just finished, or they were networking with managers from other teams to see if there were any cross-team initiatives they could lead. And ultimately, what they were doing was making sure that there was enough important people who knew their name and what they were doing and why it was important. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to promotions, there's going to be a room of people and a list of candidates who can potentially get promoted. And you need to make sure that when people look at your name, they can easily remember everything that you've done and why it's important. So now I think of getting promoted kind of like going on a campaign trail. You have to do the work, but you also have to make sure that people know who you are and why you're important.