Even if you are not an independent consultant or run your own business, personal PR is still important to advance your career and stay in the minds of others to take on new initiatives.
How do you go about staying top of mind in a positive light without bragging or brown nosing within the corporation? Here are some tips to help stay ahead:
1. Be pro-active with your boss and everyone you work with, including clients
Don’t let an issue get to him or her without fair warning. Help him or her stay abreast of the great things you and/or your team is doing, and what needs to be improved.
Also stay on top of requests from others. If you can’t help someone within 24 hours let them know you can’t help till X date and either set a date to help and put it on your calendar or delegate to someone else to get to it. Remember you don’t always have to delegate down, but to your peers and up to your boss.
2. Be a problem solver, even if it is not your problem
My boss reminded our team of a book called “The Oz Principle” which is about being accountable for not just your actions, but for the organization at large. So if you see a problem that may not be yours but indirectly impacts you or your organization, see if you can help to solve it. If anything it will get folks in other divisions see you be proactive in trying to solve problems that impact the organization.
3. Find initiatives that synergize with your interests
If you feel like you are not maximizing your talents, see if there are other ways to get involved in itiatives in your organization or other groups. Talk to your boss to see if he or she can help you navigate ways to connect with others.
4. Recognize and congratulate others in your company
Get a “congrats” from someone? Remember to thank them. See someone get promoted or rewarded for something great they did recently? Send them a person note congratulating them on what they did.
5. Stay On Top of Initiatives to Promote Your Team
Be it an internal recognition program to nominate members of your team for or a marketing initiative to gather case studies of wins in the field, remember, if not selected, to always submit people, artifacts and ideas.
6. Be Professional
No matter how laid back your company is, or stressful and finger pointing a situation may become, remember to always take the high road and look at situations via the facts for lessons learned and ways to improve. Keep out the emotions.