Defensive Career Driving

To have a positive career you need to be appropriately recognized and rewarded for your work. But there are a lot of ways that credit and/or rewards can get missed. Often it’s something unintentional, like your boss or some other executive simply didn’t realize what you accomplished, or didn’t understand the right way to compensate you for the value you’re adding. Sometimes it’s more nefarious, and someone is trying to take credit for your work or otherwise keep you down. Either way you need to drive defensively - taking actions that allow you to make forward progress even if people around you are negligent or malicious. All of the techniques below can be approached in a benign way, but I realize that they may come across as cynical. There is a less cynical set of takes at the end as well. Take Public Credit Many organizations basically only know how to value you from what you announce publicly. If your role doesn’t own an explicit topline number for the business, it’s shockingly easy…