How to make your work visible

#37, Nov 10, 2023

Vasi is here.

I have a question for you.

Can you honestly say that you are adequately valued at your job?

“Let me do my work, and my manager will appreciate me afterward.”… “My manager will just see my hard work and reward me for it.”

These words are typical for the hidden hard workers.

If you’re not getting the recognition you expect, then you need to start making your work visible.

Or in other words – start being an A-player.

A-players (who both do good work AND make it visible) – are the ones who really get the appreciation they deserve and are evaluated adequately by their manager and their team.

If you don’t believe it – this previous dose answers the question: “Why does it make sense to start making your work visible?”

And if you already have an answer to my initial question, and it’s negative – this dose is for you.


Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 6 seconds.

⏸ a little stop before starting:

The dose reaches you on this musical wave

[… the sun sets and hides behind the mountain. sip of coffee. chill on the balcony. sip of coffee… back to work]

Okay, the Professional Vasi is back again ▶️

What’s the issue about?

 

How to make your work visible?

(* without bragging)

Making your work visible is a way to communicate the progress and value of your work to your manager and others within your team.

To start doing this in a conscious and meaningful way, it’s important WHEN + HOW exactly to do it.

The examples are from conversations and work chats of our gang… and to be Honest Vasi – most of them are not mine…

When to make your work visible?

 

1. For awareness:

“Hey, gang, just letting you know, after lunch, I’ll be working on my presentation. But I’m available on Zoom if anyone needs my support.”
→ you inform your colleagues where your current efforts go.

In this way:

✅ you synchronize your expectations with your teammates

✅ you set expectations for those who depend on you

✅ you allow discrepancies in expectations to surface between you and your teammates

 

2. When asking for feedback:

“Gang, I’m sending you the presentation draft. Let me know what you think so far.”
→ you share your work and openly ask for feedback on it.

 

3. When you need help:

“Yesterday, I fixed one of our platform’s pages to be SEO-friendly. I struggled a lot with text styling. Hari, I’ll share my screen for you to see how it turned out. Do you know a faster way to do this?”
→ you state the difficulty you faced, providing context and sharing about your work.

 

4. When sharing your emotions regarding your work:

It can be in 2 scenarios:

→ to celebrate your success:

“Gang, I finished the new comic yesterday. Check out how it turned out. I’m really pleased to have started drawing the comics again!!!”

→ to share your struggle with some difficulty (not necessarily seeking help, it can be just a self-revealing act):

“Ugh, totally stuck here… This is the hardest part of writing the newsletter – the final refinement before sending it.”

How to show your work?

Ways

1. By visualizing and/or prototyping:

– showing the first draft
– sending a screenshot
– sharing your screen
– doing a demo

 

2. By involving a colleague in your current task:

“Hari, I’m sharing my screen for you to see how I’ve fixed the settings for mobile friendliness on the newsletter in Mailchimp.”

 

3. Putting your teammate (or your team) in the loop of your emails.

 

4. Writing a blog and/or posts.

 

The principle to apply

The key is not just to show the final result of your work, but also the path to reaching that final result.

Show the depth of your work. Let’s see the difference between the two replies:

“Gang, I fixed the problem we had at Testimonial.to”
→ only the final result is present.

“Gang, I managed to fix the problem we had at Testimonial.to together with their support.”
→ sharing more details about the journey to the final result.

To achieve this, you need to know how to say a lot by saying a little → check out The Inverted Pyramid Approach.

Using the pyramid, don’t just state the most important info, but provide some important details to show the depth and scope of your work.

Questions to consciously ask yourself to assess how to do this

 

→ Are you doing it in front of the whole team?

→ What’s the purpose to share your work?

→ Which channel should it be?

Stay Healthy, my dear Pill-er!
– Vasi

Get
a dose of soft skills directly in your inbox!

Learn more...