Increase your visibility

In the third of our series of articles based on my interview with Joel A. Garfinkle, author of ‘Getting Ahead – Three Steps to take your career to the next level’, we discuss how you can go about increasing your visibility.

The importance of visibility may not seem obvious. Perhaps working hard and producing results have been sufficient during your early career experiences for others to take notice and compensate the good work you’ve done.

You may have received past promotions based solely on merit and hard work. Your perception improves and your career may for a time move ahead nicely, you are successful but you’re stuck with nowhere to go. Talent and ability to perform take you only so far. Be warned: if you don’t proactively leverage and utilize visibility, your career will stagnate.

Start working on your visibility plan

So, what steps can I take to become more visible? Here are four things you can do:

1) Identify and obtain exposure to key decision makers in your company. Make a list of all the key players and create a strategy to become visible to each of them. You might need an introduction from another colleague to contact these individuals for advice, support or mentorship.

2) Get to meet the senior executives in your organisation or department. Don’t be intimidated by a person’s title or reputation. After all, they were all where you are today at one time in their careers! Reach out to them and make sure they know who you are. They will genuinely appreciate the initiative.

3) Proactively seek out the answer to a leader’s question. When someone in a position of influence lacks clarity on a situation or is pondering something new but isn’t able to get the answer he or she needs in that moment, that’s your cue to provide the answer.

4) Get a mentor or several mentors. These individuals can use their networks of executives with whom they liaise regularly to introduce you to top executives. As your mentors get to know you and your work, they’ll come to see that connecting you with these influential individuals will benefit everyone.

Once you have increased your visibility, you’ll become known and valued in your company. Influence is now possible. That’s the subject of our final interview.