Getting your work seen sounds like something only the self-promotional types need to worry about. Most of the people we work with assume that if they do good work and stay dedicated, recognition will follow naturally. And to be fair, much of life is a meritocracy. That’s a good thing.
But a meritocracy can only reward the work it knows about. If something brilliant sits finished on your computer, or in a drawer, or in a document nobody has opened, it isn’t doing anything yet. The work has to be seen before it can count for anything.
Who knows you matters as much as who you know
This is the belief we come across again and again with academics, researchers and professionals who have put years into something and assumed the quality would speak for itself. It rarely does, not because the work isn’t good, but because nobody’s looked at it. Who knows you matters as much as who you know, and that applies whether you’re publishing research, pitching an idea at work, or trying to be considered for the next opportunity.
It’s worth asking yourself plainly what you’re doing to make sure your work is actually seen. Not shouted about, just visible enough that the right people can find it and judge it on its merits.
We wrote a while back about how humility and self-promotion can end up working against each other, and this sits right alongside that. Wanting to stay modest is a good instinct, until it starts costing you the very recognition your work has earned.
If this is something you keep running into, it’s the kind of pattern we help people work through in coaching.
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