Comment by epolanski
2 years ago
Intelligent people will see that you solved issues before they even happened.
So in small teams where visibility is clear those things are obvious.
It's in larger orgs where you want to climb the ladder that you get bonus points for the problems fixed but not those you prevented.
It also really depends on your organization and how they quantify and reward impact. There are ways to get credit for preventing issues. Establish the baseline level of quality, broadly create classes of issue, define a plan to solve that class of issue and measure your impact relative to your goals at the end.
At a big company you should be able to turn that into a number - 'this kind of issue was costing us $X/quarter, and thanks to my work, it is now costing us $(X-N)/quarter, in line with my estimates.'
It's performance season so I've been giving a lot of thought to how you quantify and attribute impact especially for folks in lower-visibility roles.
Not every company is going to see it this way but that's kind of a truism. Not every company sees any one kind of impact the same way, and you have to think about that relative to your career goals. I think aligning with your manager at the start, quantifying your impact and showing your results is going to get you the recognition you deserve at any company worth working at.
Intelligent people are in larger orgs too. They learn very quickly that promotions aren't tied to effort and anticipating problems or resolving future problems.
The intelligent, optimistic and genuinely good, helpful people who don't learn this (or refuse to compromise their good nature) end up burning out, getting performance managed or with PTSD
Right, don't work in that org. Find the org with more of the intelligent, optimistic and genuinely good, helpful people.
Some people don't want to give up the job at High Status High Pay Corp. That's the trade-off they are choosing. (Not every HSHP Corp. has to be a bad place to work, however.)
You can have intelligent people in the largest orgs, if they are good at hiring. You can have inexperienced people in small teams or companies, and it happens often.