Strategic Self-Promotion

One of my favorite icebreaker activities is called a "brag circle."

In small groups of 3-4 people, I invite people to go around, rapid-fire, sharing personal or professional wins from the last few weeks. There's a speed element here – each person going right after the previous one, not pausing to discuss or dig into it. 

Inevitably, in our debrief, people share that it felt awkward at first to talk about themselves – we've been trained not to brag about our accomplishments, or not to center ourselves in the process. But, after a few minutes (and a few rounds of practice), they feel a bit more comfortable spontaneously identifying accomplishments. The end result – a morale boost for the group, and a deeper awareness of all of the other things everyone is working on that might not be apparent.

Strategic self-promotion doesn't come naturally to most folks. Proactively sharing your own accomplishments can feel like bragging, and many of us have been trained to diminish what we've done, or – even more insidiously – share credit unnecessarily. You see this in the norm of the [not-so-royal] "we" – as in "We launched this project," "We landed a new client," "We transformed this process." I know my first manager trained me so thoroughly to "always say 'we'" that for years afterward, I continued to do so – even when I was literally the only paid staff member. 

Of course, I'm not suggesting you never share credit again, many projects do involve multiple stakeholders, and amplifying the accomplishments of others is a really important way to build culture. But strategic self-promotion is an important skill to master – in today's fast-paced, distributed, asynchronous workplace, you can't assume your results speak for themselves.

Ready to give it a try? Here are three tips to keep in mind:

1) What do you want to be known for? Self-promotion needs to be in line with your longer-term goals, so it's crucial to consider what it is you want people to think about when they think of you. Are there skills or strengths you're looking to be recognized for? What stories support that narrative?

2) Practice your response to compliments – This sounds a bit cheesy, but so often, when we receive positive feedback, our immediate response is to downplay the compliment (or chalk it up to some other factor). If that resonates with you, consider jotting down a line or two that doesn't diminish your contributions so you don't get flustered in the moment. 

3) Embrace LinkedIn – I know most people hate LinkedIn, but it really can be a great entry point for strategic self-promotion. You can take a moment to update your profile with your most recent accomplishments (just turn off the "notify my network" option if you don't want the update shared with your whole network). You could also share an update about what you've been working on, or a press release about a project you just launched. LinkedIn is most effective when you engage regularly with your network, so do future-you a favor and experiment with posting more often – even once a month can really set you apart. (And if you're planning a job search within the next 6 months, this advice goes double!) Bonus – if you post something like this on LinkedIn, feel free to tag me or send it in a DM and I'll be sure to cheer you on!

One benefit of strategic self-promotion? Keeping track of your accomplishments is a great career practice for many reasons – it helps you pay more attention to what you do (and don't!) like to do, it helps you keep track of info you can use to update your resume and LinkedIn, and helps you notice opportunities to do more of what you're uncommonly good at. 

What's one tiny action of strategic self-promotion you can take this month?