Memories can be short. Our most effective acts at work can also go unnoticed.
It’s therefore important to have a compilation – a brag document – of what you have accomplished.
“Some kinds of important work are more visible/memorable than others. It’s frustrating to have done something really important and later realize that you didn’t get rewarded for it just because the people making the decision didn’t understand or remember what you did,” Montreal software developer Julia Evans notes on her blog.
Starting to prepare one early in the year can be sensible so later on, when evaluations occur, you are well-armed. Indeed, while the document is primarily to remind you of your accomplishments, a crib sheet, she suggests you might want to share it with your manager if there are periodic evaluations. She was initially nervous doing so but her manager offered thanks, because it made his job easier. “Giving them a document that explains your accomplishments will really help your manager advocate for you in discussions about your performance and come to any meetings they need to have prepared,” she writes.
The brag document can also help you notice patterns. Reading it may remind you what you are most proud of accomplishing, what you were happiest doing and which projects had the most impact. It also is a handy way to chronicle the fuzzy work where you are primarily helping others.
She prefers to write her own brag document in a marathon session every six months or even at year end. But many people chip away at it, adding updates every two weeks or so. She recommends one separate document for each year. It might run five to 10 pages – a lot happens in a year and you might want to include graphs or charts that illuminate your impact. In addition to listing accomplishments, you might want to write a narrative explaining the big picture of your motivation and work.
“One thing I want to emphasize, for people who don’t like to brag, is – you don’t have to try to make your work sound better than it is. Just make it sound exactly as good as it is.” Ms. Evans writes.
She recommends starting with your major goals. That can be a springboard to sharing them with your manager and coworkers so they can see how to support you in accomplishing those goals.
Much of today’s work world revolves around projects so that will be a main element of your brag sheet, detailing your contribution. As well as your specific input, stress the output – the impact on the organization or its customers. That may involve going back later, as statistics or comments come in.
She suggests a section on collaboration and mentorship. Did you help new team members get started? Did you mentor a colleague on a project or more generally? Did you become a resource to answer questions for a team on a project you weren’t actually a member of? In her field of software, design and documentation can be a requisite section. And she recommends taking time to mention your role in “company building”: Efforts that helped the company overall, not just your specific projects or team.
Include a section on learning, listing important things you learned or skills you’ve acquired recently. “It’s really easy to lose track of what skills you’re learning, and usually when I reflect on this I realize I learned a lot more than I thought and also notice things that I’m not learning that I wish I was,” she writes.
Finally, take time to document accomplishments outside of work, which can help when you reflect on your career and future. If the term “brag” turns you off, find one that works for you. But documenting accomplishments can be personally satisfying and also help remind others of your worth.
Quick hits
- MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says “as I am more and more alienated from what social media is right now, I am finding mental health in just reading book-length treatments of things. It just helps to read, to nurture your attention span, to read things that take longer to understand.”
- When you find yourself facing a difficult conversation at work, consultant Andy Lopata recommends writing a letter to yourself from the person with whom you are in conflict, a hard but important step that allows you to see the conflict through their eyes. Suggest a meeting and play back their concerns to them, share what you would like to achieve and establish common ground.
- Brevity can be vital in writing promotional material for a website or other purposes so AJ Beltis, a wordy writer who is senior marketing manager at HubSpot, initially gets all of his thoughts down in writing and then asks: “How can I say this more concisely?”
- Atomic Habits author James Clear says “the amateur does not know what to do. The master knows what not to do.”
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.
Harvey Schachter