All articles

Why working harder does not make you more visible

You work more, prepare excessively, deliver twice over. And the promotion goes to someone else again.

The reflex makes sense

When something does not work, doing more of it is one of the oldest strategies there is. For most things it also works.

For visibility it does not, for a simple reason: performance is the precondition, not the trigger.

What actually triggers promotions

In most organisations it happens like this: someone thinks of you when a role opens up. For someone to think of you, they have to know you want it.

That is unspectacular and still regularly overlooked, because saying it out loud feels uncomfortable.

The silent agreement

Many capable women work according to an agreement they never made with anyone: I deliver, and in return it gets noticed.

The other side knows nothing about this agreement. That is why they do not keep it, and it is not ill will.

What more work additionally does

Whoever performs more and more confirms the yardstick to themselves: apparently it is still not enough. Every additional hour delivers another piece of evidence that the assumption holds.

That creates a loop which from the inside does not feel like a loop, but like diligence.

The way out is smaller than you think

It does not consist of working less. It consists of one sentence to a person who decides: I would like this role.

That takes twenty seconds and changes more than the next weekend worked through.