I've always felt that promotions boil down to popularity contests. That it's all about knowing the people.
The other day the CTO of the company I work for said something that gave me a whole new perspective:
How arrogant are you, to think that people should come watch you work to see the value of what you do?
It was quite a statement.
But they weren't wrong. I can't expect everyone to know what I'm up to. And the larger the company, the more challenging it is.
But this goes beyond just promotions. The same applies to writing and software projects.
I've never promoted my stuff anywhere. It isn't in my nature to put myself out there. Unconsciously I suppose I do believe the "do good work and an audience will come" model. And that isn't necessarily wrong - it has served me relatively well so far. But as there are more and more talented people and more and more great projects out there, it may not be enough.
It really depends on your goals. If you are doing something just for you, forget about this and just do your thing. But if you want to build a broad audience for it, just doing good work might not be enough.
This introduced me to the P.I.E. model: performance, image, and exposure. This is from Harvey J. Coleman's book "Empowering Yourself, The Organizational Game Revealed".
The base is always good work - performance. Without quality work the rest doesn't make much sense.
Next comes image. This is how other people see you. Things like your personality, attitude, how you dress, etc. It's your personal brand.
And, finally, exposure. This is telling the world about how great you are. It's all about being visible. Hosting company events or meetings, getting involved in groups, publishing articles/blogs online, and so on. Putting yourself (and your work) in front of as many people as possible.
This model proposes that if you are looking for a promotion you will need all three. And exposure has the most weight, not performance.
If you're curious, here is an article that goes into a bit more depth.
I can't say that I like it, but it does make a little more sense to me now.
See you tomorrow-ish 👋