He recalled that he had once spent months scouring the world for a man or woman to fill a certain job in his oil empire. "The specifications were pretty demanding," he said. "The person had to be fluent in several languages, have a thorough command of international finance, be able to read an engineering blueprint and have several other attributes, including personal charm. After looking for this rare bird for a long time, we finally found a fellow in Paris who more or less filled the bill. We hired him at a very nice salary. A year later I learned, by sheer chance, that we had a young chap in one of our American operations who would have fitted into the picture even better. Do you see what his mistake was? He didn't make himself known."
It is a bad mistake indeed. It is supremely frustrating when the world fails to recognize your accomplishments. Many people seem to feel the world owes them such recognition. They sit around hoping the applause and rewards will come to them automatically, and when nothing happens, they howl at the unfairness of it all.
They are right about one thing: the world is unfair. The career battleground knows nothing of fairness, and you should not expect any. If it happens, be grateful, but never build your hopes on it. To be sure that whatever you do is recognized, you must learn the art of personal publicity.
There are eight key components of this art:
Taking On Challenges
One of the best ways to make a name for yourself in an organization is to take on tough, intimidating tasks that nobody else wants to touch. Take on risks. Yes, of course you may trip and fall. But it isn't often that anybody's career is damaged by an isolated mistake. If you take on a tough task and fail at it, you dust yourself off and try something else.
Most successful people in business urge risk-taking as a personal policy. "Always be ready to take on challenges," counsels Martin R. Shugrue, who started his career as a pilot and is now Pan Aim's senior vice-president of marketing. "Never mind about the risks. If you spend all your time worrying about risk, you probably aren't going to get anywhere."
Failure is part of life. Don't be afraid of it. For as President Harry Truman was fond of saying, "You can't win a game unless you're willing to lose it." Sooner or later there will come a time when you take on a challenge and win. That one bright victory can get you talked about more than years of steady, risk-free plodding.
Merely doing your job competently won't often win you much publicity, except in very small organizations. "Who's this Sheila Smith on the overtime list?" Executive A will ask. Executive B replies, "Oh, I think she works in Quality Control someplace. Good worker, I've heard." Executive A nods, shrugs, and never thinks about Sheila Smith again.
The scenario can be much better. "Who's this Sheila Smith?" asks Executive A. Executive B says, "She's the one who went up to Chicago and straightened out that mess about the EPA records, remember?" Executive A says, "Oh, she's the one, is she? ..." The mess Sheila Smith straightened out may not have been very big or important. But by taking a risk, by being willing to fail, she has given people reason to remember her name.
Being Seen
Make a point of attending as many functions in and around the company as you reasonably can. Not all employees are invited to all functions, of course, but the average person does get invited to more than he or she really wants to attend. Never mind. Attend them anyway.
Go to meetings, seminars, after-hours groups, and company picnics, free movies on health and safety, lectures by visiting economists. Many people assiduously stay away from all such voluntary gatherings, feeling that they have more interesting ways to spend their time. But you are not going to imprint your face on people's minds if you are seldom seen outside your office.
Job-Related Socializing
Also seize opportunities to spend unstructured time with people in the company and others who do business with it. If you go to a meeting and somebody suggests a cup of coffee afterward in the cafeteria, go and have that cup of coffee unless it really upsets your schedule. If it does, then make a point of suggesting an alternate time and be sure to follow through when the time comes. If somebody suggests a drink, go along; and if you don't want an alcoholic drink, sip ginger ale... If somebody suggests a breakfast meeting, accept enthusiastically even though you hate getting up early in the morning.
And initiate such socializing opportunities yourself. Whenever you feel comfortable with somebody, suggest lunch or a drink once in a while. It wouldn't be a good idea to try this with a boss you have just met, or with any superior with whom you have a distant and formal relationship. But if you and your boss or mentor arrive in time at a mutual easy, casual, friendly feeling, then it is perfectly acceptable and pleasant for you to broach the idea of an unstructured hour or so away from the office.
Don't approach this kind of job-related socializing in a cynical spirit. Some do-and, as a result, many people who are not in business careers seem to assume that all job-related socializing is joyless, manipulative, and money-oriented. This is certainly not true. There is no reason why people who work together cannot enjoy the simple pleasure of one another's company. The business world would be a cheerless place indeed if we all sat glumly in our offices and never spent a convivial hour together.
Moreover, work-related socializing makes the work go more smoothly and pleasantly. If you and some of your peers have lunch or a drink together once in a while, you all benefit from an improved understanding of each other both as task-group colleagues and as people. If you and your boss have a problem to discuss, you are likely to find that both of you think more creatively and interact more productively over a restaurant table than in an office setting. And finally, this kind of socializing advances you toward your goal of becoming widely known. Today you spend some after-hours time with someone simply because you find him or her pleasant to be with. Tomorrow that person may be in a position to do you a career-making favor.
Talking About Your Job
You may feel you can do your job competently all by yourself; you need no help and would rather not have to put up with the interference. Even if you are convinced this is true, it is never a good idea to become isolated in a job. Instead of making yourself a hermit, you must go out of your way to talk to other people about what you are doing. You and your job should be as widely publicized as possible.
Ask others for advice, even if it's only to confirm a decision you've already reached on your own. It flatters people to be asked for advice. It is also a subtle way of saying, "Hey, look at me! Look at the complicated work I'm doing!"
Needless to say, you don't want to make a nuisance of yourself by phoning or going into somebody's office with mundane questions every day. Just once in a while, when you have the kind of question people can get their teeth into: "Mr. Prescott, I wonder if I could ask your advice. A peculiar problem has come up in our new billing system, and someone told me you once solved a similar..."
Memos
The memorandum or memo--business-world jargon for an office-to-office letter--can be an important publicity tool if you use it right. Most people don't.
The first rule of good memo-writing (or good letter-writing, for that matter) is to keep it brief. Anything longer than one single-spaced typewritten page is too long. Half a page is ideal.
The second rule is to prepare it in such a way that its gist can be gathered from a lightning-fast skim-reading. Many business executives riffle through their mail at high speed in the early morning or at night; they are practitioners of the skim-reading technique, in which the eye sweeps down the page and slows only when it encounters key sentences and phrases. So make it easy for your readers; make sure your point isn't buried. To help it stand out, use typographical tricks such as underlining. This draws attention to main points and gives readers a quick understanding of the way you want them to organize various thoughts in their minds. The paragraphs you are now reading are written and displayed in this way.
The third rule: use pleasant, friendly, informal language, favoring short words and short sentences. Studiously avoid two extremes: don't let your language sound stiff or pompous, but on the other hand don't let it degenerate into the cute or slangy. Pompous language is irritating, causes some to dislike the writer, and leads others to dismiss him or her as a show-off; while cute or slangy language makes many uncomfortable and may actually offend some. Write simply and directly, as you normally talk.
The fourth rule: don't allow your memos to sound arrogant or give off an air of a know-it-all. A memo in which you are directly issuing orders to subordinates can of course have the sound of confident authority, though even that should never sound pompous. But any memo circulating to peers or superiors must contain at least a hint of humility. Avoid the sound of someone issuing final judgments: "I have decided that the way to solve this problem is... We intend to issue instructions to the effect that...instead, make it sound as though you seek advice, will welcome comment, have been and will continue to be a good listener: "After many talks with the individuals involved, my present feeling is that the way to solve this problem may be... However, the question is complex. I'll welcome any insights or suggestions …
Bragging Without Bragging
Be careful to publicize any achievement you consider important-passing an educational milestone, for instance, or finishing some challenging task. To do this, you must learn the technique of bragging without bragging.
Undisguised, direct bragging annoys people: "I finally solved that billing problem, and Mr. Prescott said he thought I handled it brilliantly. You win few friends that way. Some will be jealous. Some will wonder why they should have their work interrupted so you can crow about your triumph. Some will be bored. All will wish you would go away and shut up.
So seek ways to spread the news without directly bragging. You can mention your triumph obliquely in a memo, for example: "After seeing our problem of the missing bills resolved, I've been asked to tackle something else on which I'll need your help. Or you can use a technique that we looked at in another context--asking for advice: "Ms. Baldwin, maybe you can give me some guidance. I've just finished a night course in computer programming, and I'm trying to figure out what direction to go in from here ..."
Still another good way to publicize an accomplishment, if you handle it carefully and don't try it too often, is to organize an informal celebration in your own honor. Just be sure you don't bill it as a celebration of your own great brainpower. Instead, it is a celebration of the end of an arduous uphill climb. "I finally finished that computer course," you tell your colleagues. "What a relief! From now on my evenings are my own, and I'm going to use this first one for some fun with people I like. How about joining me for a drink after work?"
Company Media
Many companies, divisions, and even smaller departmental units maintain publications that carry news and features about their people. These publications range in size and elegance from glossy magazines to single-sheet newsletters. It is worth noting that companies tend to keep them going even during times of desperate cost-cutting. Why? Because they are not considered a frivolous expense. In the words of a former editor of Union Carbide's HQ News: "These in-house publications get read. You'd be surprised how well they get read by top management, among other people." The moral is obvious: seize opportunities to get your name and accomplishments written up in any media published around your place of work.
You may be pleasantly surprised to find how easy it is to do this. Oddly, the competition for space in the average house organ isn't keen. Quite the opposite, in fact. "We often had to beg people to give us news," the Union Carbide ex-editor says. "It's like pulling teeth."
Most people in the business world are either too modest or too busy or too lazy to spend the small amount of time necessary to get their stories properly told in workplace media. Don't make any such mistake. Speak to your house-organ editor or newsletter writer. The chances are you will find him or her starved for good stories and eager to hear yours.
It goes without saying that you must have a story to tell. Wait until you are doing some interesting work and have saved up a few anecdotes and some cogent thoughts about it. Or wait until you have achieved something special: a promotion, an educational diploma. Then seek out the editor and tell the story in a bright, anecdotal way.
Outside Media
Publicity in media not associated with your company is valuable in less direct ways. Much of this outside publicity will filter back into the company; your boss and others will read about you and think what an interesting person you are. (You should make sure this happens, of course, by bragging without bragging anytime you make it into an outside publication.) Another value of outside media is that executive recruiters read them. It's an excellent strategy to get yourself noticed by recruiters even though you have no plans to relinquish your job. The outside media most open to news and features about business people are:
Journals of professional societies: If such a society exists in your field, join if you can-and then send in news about yourself (or get your company public-relations department to do so) when you pass important milestones or have some other interesting story to tell.
College alumni publications: Most are hungry for news of alumni and alumnae.
Newspapers, particularly local ones: Large metropolitan dailies publish news of job promotions and other executive changes, but generally limit themselves to top-management goings-on. If you aren't in top management, you are likely to find a welcome in smaller newspapers published in your home town or county.
Trade journals: Unless you are in top management, it isn't likely you will see your name and picture in Fortune or any other general business magazine, but smaller magazines devoted to specific industries, trades, or professions are often happy to get news from readers. Many such magazines operate on tiny budgets and cannot afford large staffs of reporters. They depend on people such as you to supply them with news and features.
These are the four types of publications in which your outside publicity campaign is most likely to bear fruit. More rarely, you may get other opportunities. A local TV or radio station may want to interview you about local economic conditions, for instance. Or your company's board chairman may retire, and a newspaper reporter may phone you and ask for comment.
Be sure to consult with your boss and the public-relations department, if there is one, on all your outside publicity activities. This is a matter of common courtesy and is also for your own protection. Remember, you can get into trouble with your boss and others by appearing to do things secretively. The PR director may be jealous of his or her bailiwick and could become highly annoyed if you get yourself into a lot of outside media without consultation. So talk to the PR people; tell them what you're up to. If nothing else, it will make them happy-and perhaps they can give you some solid help.
Unless your company has rigid rules on the subject, you don't normally need to clear everything with the PR chief before releasing it to the press. Suppose you are commenting on the retiring chairman, and you say something innocuous: "He did a lot for this company, and we're sorry to see him go." It is hard to imagine how a statement like that could make anybody mad. So you are probably safe in releasing it to the inquiring reporter--just so long as, shortly afterward, you pick up your phone and tell the PR people what you have done.
But suppose the reporter is probing for a hot story. He says, "I have it from a reliable source that your board chairman was involved in a kickback scandal a while back. What do you know about that?" In this case, only one answer is possible for you: "I can't comment until I clear it with the PR people."
The reporter will be annoyed and angry. He will grumble to his editor about getting the "usual corporate runaround." Never mind. Don't feel sorry for the reporter. It's your job that is at stake.
