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> 5. Being visible. If you do great work but nobody knows about it, did it really happen? Share your wins, present at all-hands, write those design docs that ev

> 5. Being visible. If you do great work but nobody knows about it, did it really happen? Share your wins, present at all-hands, write those design docs that everyone will reference later. And don't forget that when managers or seniors are involved, there's magic alchemy that comes from spreading the credit around. Suppose Bob works under Alice and Bob, mostly solely, accomplishes something significant. If Alice presents and takes credit for it, Alice might receive 1 credit point. If she presents it as Bob's work and never mentions herself, Bob will get the 1 credit point. But Alice will pick up some credit just for presenting (let's guess 0.5 unit), Bob will get the 1 point, and because Alice now manages Bob, whose stature just went up, she'll get an additional (let's guess) 0.25 point. So you've got 1.75 units of credit instead! Never be shy to give credit to others. You will benefit too! (This is also one of the 11 Laws of Showrunning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27867023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27867023 among other links )

silvestrov 1y ago
This is one effect that a lot of narcissists don't understand: You get more by giving some away. So you can get only get to the top when you spread coins around.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Loughla 1y ago
  With the number of narcissists I've seen be wildly successful, I have to disagree with you. There is a very clear and well established path to the top for people who only care about themselves.
  - mlrtime 1y ago
    How are you defining successful?
    - Loughla 1y ago
      So for the purposes of this I'm talking about success at work. Because that's what the article and discussion are about. No that's not how I define personal success. But that's also not relevant to this.
- mlrtime 1y ago
  This is true in life that most non narcissists figure out (including myself). Self actualization comes from helping others and less on yourself.
fusslo 1y ago
anecdote: My first company got bought out and the CEO went around awarding bonuses. It was a calculus of around ( 0.4 * salary * number of years ). When it was my turn, he double-checked with HR that I had worked there as long as I had I was super jr, but sat next to his office. Didn't know I existed. Thanks for the link and perspective
- Chris2048 1y ago
  As in, you had worked there very little, or very long?
  - fusslo 1y ago
    2 years (company was 4yrs old)
dilyevsky 1y ago
That’s cool theory and all but in reality alice will get all the credit and no one will even remember bobs name. People are mostly wrapped up in their own thing and 2 months later at best they will remember one sentence and that it's somehow attached to alice. Get people doing the work on your team to present it if you want them to get credit or stop pretending you actually care about this
- Maro 1y ago
  It depends on the manager, whether they repeatedly recognize/name the individual contributor (or team), and use the project's success to get good outcomes for that person (increment, bonus, promotion). Not all managers are incompetent or corrupt..
- hamandcheese 1y ago
  This might be my naïveté as an engineer but I've never seen a major technical accomplishment presented and thought "yeah, that manager did that"
  - nosianu 1y ago
    That may be true for things you experienced yourself, but not for what you heard about others elsewhere. From researcher team leads to company owners, the names communicated and remembered are those at the top (even if the original communication mentions those doing the work, the journalists and everyone else will strip away those "details").
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jaymzcampbell 1y ago
I've always used "we" when describing and presenting work done as part of a team, even if solo. There's a certain skill in knowing when to promote yourself, and how you do so. These days I tend to be positive in a group sense, and take direct specific ownership of failings. I may be lucky but I think this has led to a lot of respect from coworkers and c-suite that I've engaged with. I've never once felt like people don't know who is getting the work done in the end.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Everywhere I've worked, come annual review time, everyone is supposed to emphasize what they did, not what the team did. "We're considering promoting you, not the team, so tell us what you did!" Same with interviews: You're not supposed to say "I was a key contributor of Team X that shipped Product Y." You're supposed to say "I shipped Product Y." So you have this weird contradiction where you're expected to work as part of a team, but then measured on your own contributions in a vacuum. So if you take credit for the team's effort, you're the bad guy who gets rewarded, but if you admit it was a team effort and take credit only for your contributions, you're forgotten for not having enough impact.
  - jaymzcampbell 1y ago
    In these situations I will frame my contributions directly without the "we" part, speaking to how I contributed to a particular team output, or if it was 100%, I'll just say as much. My comment was in terms of general talk to stakeholders / presentations / casual conversations - then I default to "we". E.g. if I add some new feature to a tool and deploy it, I'll say "we've just pushed X...". If I do 99% of some particular feature, I'll still say "we've added Y...". In an annual review I can still speak to what I specifically did. I have probably been lucky in the teams and team sizes I've been in, but I've not had a problem with this. For context I've mainly stuck to small (<50) and medium (<500) companies. My one experience (due to acquisition) of directly working within a 5000+ company was certainly starting to feel like what you described, I got out.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    You don’t get promoted in any well functioning organization until you operate at the level you want to be promoted to. That means that if all you did was work that only involved your own labor instead of work that involves being over an initiative that involved other people, you can’t be promoted above a mid level developer (no matter your title). You didn’t show that you can work at a larger “scope”. You can look at the leveling guidelines for almost any tech company. Even if you are a mid level ticket taker, you should at least try to talk to whoever your project manager is and take responsibility for delivering an “epic” or “workstream” that will show that you are coordinating a larger deliverable.
NoPicklez 1y ago
You need to give credit where credit is due, if you are presenting someone else's work and they put in the majority of the work you must share that. Yes you may have been part of it and perhaps even reviewed it, but you must give them significant credit. Nobody likes people who take credit for others work and it will be quickly found out. Particularly if the work gets critiqued and you are asked to stand by it. This isn't some fancy law, but general decency.
nedt 1y ago
But of course that's only for things with positive outcomes. If it's negative Alice would start saying "we" and "I" and then come up with a solution that can again give Bob credit because of the positive outcome in fixing something.

silvestrov 1y ago

This is one effect that a lot of narcissists don't understand: You get more by giving some away. So you can get only get to the top when you spread coins around.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Loughla 1y ago
With the number of narcissists I've seen be wildly successful, I have to disagree with you. There is a very clear and well established path to the top for people who only care about themselves.
- mlrtime 1y ago
  How are you defining successful?
  - Loughla 1y ago
    So for the purposes of this I'm talking about success at work. Because that's what the article and discussion are about. No that's not how I define personal success. But that's also not relevant to this.
mlrtime 1y ago
This is true in life that most non narcissists figure out (including myself). Self actualization comes from helping others and less on yourself.

fusslo 1y ago

anecdote: My first company got bought out and the CEO went around awarding bonuses. It was a calculus of around ( 0.4 * salary * number of years ). When it was my turn, he double-checked with HR that I had worked there as long as I had I was super jr, but sat next to his office. Didn't know I existed. Thanks for the link and perspective

Chris2048 1y ago
As in, you had worked there very little, or very long?
- fusslo 1y ago
  2 years (company was 4yrs old)

dilyevsky 1y ago

That’s cool theory and all but in reality alice will get all the credit and no one will even remember bobs name. People are mostly wrapped up in their own thing and 2 months later at best they will remember one sentence and that it's somehow attached to alice. Get people doing the work on your team to present it if you want them to get credit or stop pretending you actually care about this

Maro 1y ago
It depends on the manager, whether they repeatedly recognize/name the individual contributor (or team), and use the project's success to get good outcomes for that person (increment, bonus, promotion). Not all managers are incompetent or corrupt..
hamandcheese 1y ago
This might be my naïveté as an engineer but I've never seen a major technical accomplishment presented and thought "yeah, that manager did that"
- nosianu 1y ago
  That may be true for things you experienced yourself, but not for what you heard about others elsewhere. From researcher team leads to company owners, the names communicated and remembered are those at the top (even if the original communication mentions those doing the work, the journalists and everyone else will strip away those "details").
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

jaymzcampbell 1y ago

I've always used "we" when describing and presenting work done as part of a team, even if solo. There's a certain skill in knowing when to promote yourself, and how you do so. These days I tend to be positive in a group sense, and take direct specific ownership of failings. I may be lucky but I think this has led to a lot of respect from coworkers and c-suite that I've engaged with. I've never once felt like people don't know who is getting the work done in the end.

ryandrake 1y ago
Everywhere I've worked, come annual review time, everyone is supposed to emphasize what they did, not what the team did. "We're considering promoting you, not the team, so tell us what you did!" Same with interviews: You're not supposed to say "I was a key contributor of Team X that shipped Product Y." You're supposed to say "I shipped Product Y." So you have this weird contradiction where you're expected to work as part of a team, but then measured on your own contributions in a vacuum. So if you take credit for the team's effort, you're the bad guy who gets rewarded, but if you admit it was a team effort and take credit only for your contributions, you're forgotten for not having enough impact.
- jaymzcampbell 1y ago
  In these situations I will frame my contributions directly without the "we" part, speaking to how I contributed to a particular team output, or if it was 100%, I'll just say as much. My comment was in terms of general talk to stakeholders / presentations / casual conversations - then I default to "we". E.g. if I add some new feature to a tool and deploy it, I'll say "we've just pushed X...". If I do 99% of some particular feature, I'll still say "we've added Y...". In an annual review I can still speak to what I specifically did. I have probably been lucky in the teams and team sizes I've been in, but I've not had a problem with this. For context I've mainly stuck to small (<50) and medium (<500) companies. My one experience (due to acquisition) of directly working within a 5000+ company was certainly starting to feel like what you described, I got out.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  You don’t get promoted in any well functioning organization until you operate at the level you want to be promoted to. That means that if all you did was work that only involved your own labor instead of work that involves being over an initiative that involved other people, you can’t be promoted above a mid level developer (no matter your title). You didn’t show that you can work at a larger “scope”. You can look at the leveling guidelines for almost any tech company. Even if you are a mid level ticket taker, you should at least try to talk to whoever your project manager is and take responsibility for delivering an “epic” or “workstream” that will show that you are coordinating a larger deliverable.

NoPicklez 1y ago

You need to give credit where credit is due, if you are presenting someone else's work and they put in the majority of the work you must share that. Yes you may have been part of it and perhaps even reviewed it, but you must give them significant credit. Nobody likes people who take credit for others work and it will be quickly found out. Particularly if the work gets critiqued and you are asked to stand by it. This isn't some fancy law, but general decency.

nedt 1y ago

But of course that's only for things with positive outcomes. If it's negative Alice would start saying "we" and "I" and then come up with a solution that can again give Bob credit because of the positive outcome in fixing something.