The readings of this post is exactly the reason I loathe the whole drive to get promoted, instead of working to do what makes sense to improve your team, your teammates, and your company.

As a manager, my goal is to discern the difference between these two, and will do what I can to support those that focus more on improving the team vs. chasing a promotion by focusing more on showing how they’re better than everyone else.

Even if this is more effective strictly regarding getting promoted, I would much rather be — and work with — the type of people that care more about elevating the team.

I used to be a "shooting star" developer. I was always the most productive member of my team. I was the go-to person for any complex problem. At some point in my career I decided to change from being a shooting star to being a "rising tide." Instead of being the best individual contributor I focused on making everyone else the best they could be. That's when my income really skyrocketed.

My life experience is that there is sort of a karma. I helped a lot of people become better at their jobs and expected nothing in return. Some of those people went off to be extremely successful, and they wanted me to come along with them in making tons of money. Expecting nothing in return is the key. People know if you're keeping score.

I cannot agree with this enough. I'm 29 years old now, so not particularly old but not 21 anymore. When I was 16 working as a concert promoter all the hard working musicians from my middle of nowhere home town in Canada became successful, either in the music industry or in another industry. I'm still friends with people I let sleep on my floor during those times.

On the tech side I've stayed late to help push projects through. People don't forget. I have friends from 7+ years ago, some who's weddings I've stood at. We _still_ talk about the time we made a miracle happen and got the project out the door the night before. We _still_ talk about the time production went down in front of 1,000,000 users and we rage coded a solution together.

Compound interest works with relationships just like it works with money. Real trust builds over years. I've been the tag along for a few projects now that I never would have found without being friendly and helpful in the past.

Are you actually earning more and objectively better off in economic/status terms by doing this?

I ask because another common failure mode with getting stuck is to essentially 'rage code' into working free overtime and accepting bad conditions all because of the camaraderie i.e. someone is exploiting the positive characteristics of bonding. If it matches with your goals, that's fine, but often people look back and realise they were essentially exploited in this way (see: team-building exercises in a lot of minimum-wage style jobs to see a pure & distilled form of this kind of thing.)

Perhaps just something to be aware of! I don't mean to be overly negative, so apologies in advance if I've gotten a completely wrong impression here, but I do believe the general risk of this failure mode in career/life exists and is common.

I rage coded in my early 20's, you're right, it doesn't work :) Made some buddies out of it but more importantly it gave me the absolute feeling of panic and respect that a system CAN and WILL go down in production in front of customers if you don't get the operations side perfect.

That fear drove me to get great at operations. Now I've made a reputation as the person who can enter a dumpster fire project that's always behind and breaking and change it to a project that the whole team can deploy at 5:00pm on a Friday, close their laptops, go home and play with their kids and rarely get paged.

A more concrete example is I did great work at one company for 2.5 years then followed my boss when he quit to another company for a significant raise and title bump. The best part was even though it was a new job, I had 2.5 years worth of trust equity with my boss, so I could push new ideas through to the rest of the org through him without having to spend months building trust with a new boss first.

>Compound interest works with relationships just like it works with money.

This is a really great way of putting it because compound interest also works on social debt (being a dick). Build up a lot of it, and you won't go anywhere.

Hahahaha, I almost spit out my coffee reading this. I never thought about it that way but it's so true! The only thing worse than credit card debit is the compound interest of social debt. And social debt spills over to other circles!

There's been times where someone's applied to a job I've worked at and I've noticed they worked at a previous company with a mutual past colleague. I've texted the colleague and asked "Hey, so and so's applied here. What was your experience with them?". Oftentimes it's "Oh so and so's great! We made some miracles happen at HerpDerp Co." but every once in a while I'll get back "So and so is fine." or in a few situations "Honestly So and so was a good engineer but was absolutely terrible to work with on a team. Very negative to other people".

It's a small world!

Thanks for sharing this with us. This advice (change from being a shooting star to helping others to improve) seems to be in contrast to the article. Or am I missing something?

you became a manager?

I became a partner in a very small consulting firm. But yes, manager positions were widely available.

Save your loathing. This is possibly the hardest problem in management. It is an open secret that nobody really knows the formula for consistently promote the correct people.

>>I loathe the whole drive to get promoted, instead of working to do what makes sense to improve your team, your teammates, and your company.

Enough with this nonsense.

If you/organizations wanted this, they'd put their money on it and hire/pay people for doing good work. Instead of repeating elaborate back channel rituals that involves lobbying/counter lobbying and cartel like work to secure promotions for their people.

Heck not even hiring is done on these standards. People ask whiteboard leetcode questions, while what they want is skilled and productive people. They keep hiring unskilled jumping jacks, who barely contribute 6 months to any project/company and then move on. You pay top money for these people and then simultaneously screw raises/bonuses/promotion/rsus's for seasoned contributors. People who have contributed are screwed routinely and noncontributing jumping jacks are showered with rewards to drive the point home that no company or manager ever cares about skill, productivity, learning, work or value any more.

>>will do what I can to support those that focus more on improving the team vs. chasing a promotion by focusing more on showing how they’re better than everyone else.

Managers say these things because they need to keep the few contributors playing in order to fleece them so that the whole game can be paid for.

>>Even if this is more effective strictly regarding getting promoted, I would much rather be — and work with — the type of people that care more about elevating the team.

Pretty much no body does this.

  - Take credit for your work (use pronouns I and Me when talking about your work, not We) and do not allow others to take credit for your work

  - If it's a teamwork situation with other people on your level, don't do most of the work, because the credit will end up being split 50/50 in the eyes of the bosses even if you did most of it

Maybe this is true and maybe it's not, but I can't stand these kind of office politics. I enjoy working with the team and collaborating, and want to see my fellows succeed. With perhaps the exception of level 1-3 IC roles, work is almost always a team activity. Showing proper recognition to those who contributed is the right thing to do.

I think there is a second path of staying humble and empowering others. It's the path I've followed and have never had a problem with getting promotions.

I wasn't suggesting to not give credit to others when it's deserved, and I certainly believe in teamwork.

What I'm suggesting is to not shy away from taking deserved credit for yourself which many people struggle with. It will prevent you being run over by politicians and becoming resentful towards your workplace. It will also reduce information asymmetries between you and your boss and help you to get that deserved promotion. The cult of "we did X" in workplaces is a tool used by the least productive to play politics and reap credit where it isn't deserved. There is no such thing as "we" anyways. You did Z, and I did Y, and Z+Y=X, and perhaps Z is less than Y, or perhaps Z is more than Y, and without proper attribution (which can only come when you're brave enough to take deserved credit), accurate promotions aren't possible.

My suggestion to not do most of the work in a team situation is also a strategy to reduce resentment. There's nothing worse than doing all the work and getting half the credit, only to split a bonus pool 50/50 with someone half as productive as you. It's better to do half the work and have spare time for stuff that you will get credit for

What about the classic:

- dont dress for the position you have, dress for the one you want

Although as an afterthought I wouldnt know what this would be for a faang company? Black turtleneck? Hoodie? :-)

Wow - this advice is definitely spot-on, in terms of helping us reach the desired goal it describes.

And yet, in terms of the nuts and bolts of what it suggests we actually do - (not always but in many places) totally indicative of all the preening, butt-kissing, apple-polishing & back-stabbing behaviors that we all know and love -- as ways to get an inch or two ahead in the Great Rat Race:

* Get allies who can proselytize about you behind your back

* Use pronouns I and Me when talking about your work (not We) and do not allow others to take credit for your work

* Don't do most of the work, because the credit will end up being split 50/50 in the eyes of the bosses even if you did most of it

* Attend the social events and get in good with the bosses

In my experience taking credit for others' work is far more important than doing good work or taking credit for your own work.

Why would someone "deserve" to be left behind for not boasting about their performance? If people are doing good work, they should be rewarded appropriately.

I agree. But that isnt how the world works. It is impossible to be recognized these days without raising your hand, even a little

Sounds like a problem to be solved, not a problem to accept!

Maybe. How?

If you agree then why are you defending that they deserve this outcome?