The Invented Crisis
SteveMany years back when a few friends and I were plugging away deep in the bureaucracy of a massive American corporation, occasionally the lunchtime conversations would veer from fantasy football to strategies for how we might get ahead and progress our careers, (and earnings), in such a large organization where it was not always easy to get noticed for doing good work.
Crisis? - Stay on the Line
Then as now, simply showing up on time, getting your job done quietly and efficiently, and not drawing attention to yourself might have been a little more welcome an approach to career management in the eyes of most of our managers, but to us, it never seemed like a strategy that would adequately separate you from the army of similar looking, sounding, and performing staffers that had the same aspirational ambitions as you did. Back then for sure, remaining anonymous would probably only guarantee you one thing, you'd definitely stay anonymous.
One guy in the group my colleagues eventually settled on a personal strategy to help differentiate himself, a little plan we ended up calling 'The Invented Crisis'. The details were fairly simple, for every problem you solved, for each even small process improvement you developed, and for any new idea to improve information quality or service levels, you first 'invented' and communicated a 'crisis', that your eventual solution, (one that you had already figured out), would be the salvation for. As my friend saw things, there was not much value to solving problems if no one, especially some well-place managers and executives, did not have a sense of the nature and scale of the 'crisis', before he stepped in to save the day and deliver a solution. I think his strategy worked to some extent, over time he began to be seen as the kind of person that was a 'problem-solver', and occasionally would get assigned some interesting and challenging, (and higher profile), kinds of projects because of this reputation.
It is kind of common for some people to have a hard time taking credit for the good work that they do and to have their accomplishments duly noted and registered by those leaders in positions in power. By generating a sense of artificial tension and drama by virtue of the Invented Crisis, my friend never seemed to have that problem. Whatever good work he did, he made sure not only did the 'right' people know about it, but they also knew about the dire consequences and outcomes that had been avoided by his quick thinking, intelligence, and ability. He ended up moving up the hierarchy somewhat faster than the rest of his peers.
Was the Invented Crisis kind of phony, devious, and self-serving? Yep.
Was it a pretty successful approach (for him), to competing in a tough and crowded organization? Yep.
What do you think - how do you make sure you get credit, recognition, and reward for the good work you do?
Reader Comments (2)
Great story, Steve. I have to wonder - is this an invented crisis or just good communication (or as some would say, good "managing up")?
Then again, I question the culture of this company in which an employee is forced to toot his own trumpet in order to get some well deserved recognition. It sounds like this organization could use a healthy dose of strategic recognition - and a total readjustment of their culture to better recognize and - ultimately - engage all employees.
Hmmm.. I may have to blog further on this myself. Thanks for the inspiration!
I would post a thoughtful comment, but I have a crisis to go invent/solve ;-)