The Best Person On My Team Got Made Redundant Because Nobody Knew What She Did

She was the most qualified, flat out.

She solves problems before people realize there are any to solve.

She knows where every company department actually sits, not just where the directory says it should be.

If you have an issue, you will go to her, not to her boss, and the whole team knows this.

Come spring, the corporate reorganization comes, she was laid off and two obviously incompetent human beings somehow carry on their careers.

I was fuming, then I was less fuming, then I was mostly concerned because I realized the process, not conspiracy or ill intent, which removed her was a result of an utter lack of understanding of what she actually did.

Work went unnoticed because the thought of documenting it could only be seen as tooting her own horn.

The Uncomfortable Truth You Need to Accept First

Good work does not speak for itself.

This is true, although I’d have fought tooth and nail against it for a few years since it’s the sort of advice one encounters on LinkedIn and directly contradicts the illusion of a meritocratic ideal.

But if a manager, who deals with ~9 metrics and a hazy insight into the lives of ~2 dozen direct reports, isn't told about things, they don't know.

They aren't intentionally neglecting to recognize you; they often don’t even see the things you’re doing, but they do see the bits of work that manage to bubble up to them.

“Visibility isn’t self-promotion, it’s information sharing."

The thing that worked best for me was embarrassingly small

I started writing down all the work I did each week, all four minutes per Friday.

I use a plain old text file, in fact, it sits on my desktop right now, where I note in a one-liner each week what I accomplished: unblocked so-and-so, fixed whatever, got the client updated on the deadline.

After about two months, I started noticing changes: My one-on-ones became smoother since I now had concrete items to open with, instead of, ‘Things are good.’

My performance reviews took about forty minutes to prepare instead of a six-hour cram session.

And, this is the big one, I began identifying patterns in my own work that I'd been completely blind to before, namely that I was spending considerable time on something no one ever asked me to do.

Visibility That Doesn’t Make People Hate You

But it's a delicate balance.

We all know at least one: the office equivalent of the person who, in every group email, writes "Here's my update!!!" followed by three paragraphs about their every move; the person whose updates in meetings always turn into self-aggrandizing soliloquies.

These kinds of attempts rarely impressed and often annoyed, and they may work for your boss for a quarter, but that's about it.

Work is not the result of agony.

Work is the result of input.

Write Things Down. Mostly Because of the Unglamorous.

Now for the less sexy, but no less critical, aspect of it.

In most situations, the fight isn't a quality issue as much as a "we remember that differently several weeks down the line with much higher stakes" issue.

So, after every discussion where an agreement was made, a deadline was moved, or a risk was articulated, spend 60 seconds writing it down.

There is nothing remotely sinister about this, unless you’re in deep the shit, in which case even the simplest email can be “official”.

That note is your memory.

No need to be formal; use an email to yourself, a note in a text file.

“The situations that often get you into trouble are the low-stakes, non-critical events that pile up.

They are almost never the big, blockbuster crisis.

It is usually something small you brushed aside at the time: You mentioned casually at the end of last week that you wouldn’t be able to hit the Tuesday deadline and will mention it later this week.

You were ‘joking’ about flagging an emerging risk with your manager, who just saw it as banter not information.

The passive-aggressive battle played out over chat, where nobody can tell how their words will be perceived.

You assumed someone else would take the lead on an ambiguously assigned task because neither of you wanted to look overbearing by raising the issue.

In all these situations, the problem is more timing and vagueness than a personal failing.

Any bad news can be handled if it’s delivered up front.

The bad news delivered after the deadline introduces the perception of incompetence because now someone has to consider what else you might know.”

On Arguing With Your Boss (Because You Will)

You don’t need to clamp your jaw shut and hold all thoughts hostage.

Instead, just do it in private, focusing solely on a single topic (e.g., risk), and commit to following their decision, even if they ignore your concerns: “I see potential issues with X due to Y, but ultimately it is your decision, and I will stand by it and implement it successfully.”

I remember learning this because I watched someone take the opposite route.

And the consequences weren’t immediate but manifested over time.

The individual’s brilliant idea was considered, and it was good.

But at that critical juncture, all that anyone remembered was the argument; my friend lost for the offense of being perceived as an unsupportive team player.

Not because they were wrong, but because they hadn’t learned to show that even when they believe they're right, they know how to follow through and execute on a bad decision.

I’ve never once told a boss “I told you so,” ever.

It was unnecessary and universally recognized how right I’d have been.

And so I find myself thinking of her sometimes; I’d not say she was wronged by anyone, as such.

But, she was out of sight and out of mind.