Everyone loves a maverick. The one who bends the rules, who gets the job done. Who leaves fireworks in his wake (it’s always a man) and doesn’t mind breaking a few chickens to make an omelette. The people who rescue the projects in a tailspin, who shout loud and carry a big stick.
What happens to the projects without fireworks? The sysadmins that don’t have to explain why they got breached? The project managers who don’t have to explain why they went over budget? The developers who aren’t in the office past midnight fixing bugs? The people who aren’t visible because they fix the problems before they become visible?
I grew up watching Formula 1 with my dad, in the era of Senna and Mansell. Senna was fiery, pushed the car to the limits, exciting to watch. Mansell was controlled, steady, hitting the right line, and easing the car in as if it was on rails. Senna looked like the hardest worker, but Mansell broke his run of world championships.
If you’re competent, if you get the job done, then people believe that your job must be easy. It’s not easy to beat a triple world champion. Sometimes you need to anchor your achievements in advance, so people understand the challenge in hindsight, especially if you are marginalized in the workforce such that your achievements are minimised.
The Difficulty Anchor
It’s even harder once you move into any management role, success is due to your team (and be damn proud of that success), but failure falls squarely on your shoulders. If you don’t have a strong sense of your own self worth, it can hollow you out, and leave you with nothing but a thick skin.
Take on extra responsibilities, be the consistency for the team when the powers above you are a maelstrom of confusion and musical chairs. And nothing happens.
Remove obstacles and no-one sees them.
Anchor your team’s success. Quiet, dependable successes make everyone on the team happy : no drama, no overtime. But it can be hard to show the work behind the scenes that makes it look so smooth.
It’s not just a dev problem, a good sys admin is invisible, designers struggle to prove their worth (How to Prove Your Design’s Value – Hack Design
https://hackdesign.org/lessons/57-how-to-prove-your-design-s-value?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=howtoproveyourdesignsvalue ).
Market yourself. I know you hate sales and marketing, you’re happy to leave it to others, but you need to give yourself the confidence to be proud of your achievements and make sure people understand what you did. Share it with your boss and your peers (you’ll need some recognition when it comes to your appraisal). Promoting yourself is not someone else’s job. Practice it. Embrace it. Be proud.
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Craig Nicol 