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The currency of trust: The role of reputation at work
Actionable steps to build up your reputation and use it wisely.
Reputation is a real thing. It's intangible, it's barely measurable, yet it is real. People have a model of you living in their head, and they consult this model way more often than they consult you. Based on what their model of you predicts, people decide whether to approach you and if so, how to approach you. Another person's model of you might be accurate. Alternatively, it might be flawed and out of date. This metaphor might help to understand what your manager and their manager think of you.
There are many situations at work where your reputation might be a decisive factor. For example, someone in your team is working towards the next level. The promotions process requires your manager and their boss to approve the nomination. Your manager has some visibility on the people in the team, but not much. Their boss might know very little about the nominee.
In this case, the approval of your manager will depend a lot on how much they trust your judgement. They will need to put their reputation at stake when raising the matter with their boss. The outcome is more likely to be positive, if your manager's model of you tells that you have a good judgement, and you tend to do things that are good for the company. The outcome might be negative if your manager thinks that you tend to please people, and you're reluctant to tell a person that they are not ready yet.
Another example where reputation makes a big difference is when you need to ask for an exception. It might be opening for a position during a global hiring freeze or deviating from the policy that threatens the successful launch of a new feature. Basically, your reputation plays a role in any situation where you need to manage up or rely on influence without authority.
"Guess" and "Ask" context
There are two different types of situations when interacting with your manager. We can call them "guess" and "ask".
In the ask type of situations, you're free to ask whatever you want, as long as you're ok with getting both "yes" or "no" for the ask. Like, can I send you an early draft of the document for the review? Can you keep an eye on this email thread during my holiday, or shall I ask someone from the team? Any answer to such questions won't change much in working relationships with your manager.
In the "guess" context, the very fact of asking a question costs you something. Can I get a salary raise? Can I be promoted in the next cycle? Can I work four days per week while keeping the same salary? These are strong examples, but there are more "guess" situations that occur every week. You need to be certain about what answer you'll get before you ask the question. And this is where the idea of a model of you in other people's heads comes handy. If you ignore "guess" context and behave the same way as in "ask" context, it will eventually force your manager to update their model of you. They might note that you lack situational awareness, not ready for the next role, or mark you as a complete idiot.
If you're in the guess context, think about the model of you in the head of the person you're going to ask. Is their model of you accurate? Is it up to date? What are the main interactions, upon which they've built their model of you? What do you think they think about you? Which answer do you expect to get, why would they give this answer and not the opposite one?
People build their model of you based on the interactions they’ve had with you. A lot of good reputation comes from simple things like being on time for meetings, doing what you said you would do, and sharing information timely.
Consistency in the basic things is crucial. If you're being on time 50% of the time, it means you're not reliable. Being late for a meeting doesn't hurt relationships with someone you know well and have worked with for a long time. However, you being late for your skip level 1-1 might be a big part of their mental model of you.
How do you build up your reputation?
Do the basics and do them consistently. Come on time, prepare for important meetings, share information timely, and so on. This especially helps with the first impression people get about you.
Another critical aspect is to build visibility around your area. That metaphor of other people having their model of you in their head comes handy again. Your reporting chain might have outdated or incomplete knowledge about your area. Do not assume that your manager and their manager know everything about your team. Use your 1-1s with them to explain the key projects your team is working on, dive deep into the domain, and highlight significant milestones. Present your area in the best possible way, be open about the challenges and things that hold your team back from making a bigger impact.
But what if you have already built a reputation which you'd like to have changed? You need to nudge people to update their model of you. One way of doing it is to follow up on feedback. Let's imagine, you were not prepared for an important meeting. Your manager noticed that, your peers noticed that. Some of them might conclude that you're not taking your job seriously. What do you do? You work to change your behavior. In the end, you weren't prepared. Additionally, you also work to change the perception of other people.
Behavior change and perception change
Let's compare two scenarios of how you address the feedback about not being prepared for the meeting. In scenario A, you worked hard to be prepared for every meeting with your manager and your peers. For six consecutive months, you've been cracking it. There was no single meeting where you lacked preparation.
In scenario B, you worked hard to improve on the feedback. Additionally, you check every month on 1-1s with your peers and your manager if they noticed something where you can do better at being prepared for the meeting. Asking colleagues for feedback nudges them to reassess the situation. When your peer says in their own words that they saw an improvement, it means they changed how they think about you.
Now six months later. At a department meeting, someone mistakenly puts you on the spot for the question that is really outside your area. What would be the difference between scenarios A and B? In both A and B, your behavior changed. You took feedback seriously and worked to improve. However, in B you also worked on how your colleagues perceive you. I bet that in scenario B, people are less likely to default on "oh yeah, not prepared again". Because in the case of B they noticed more evidence of you being prepared. Following up consistently on feedback feels unnatural, yet it's a very useful tactic to change your reputation.
Feedback that you receive implicitly is another source of information and a lever you can pull to improve your reputation.
Implicit feedback
As a manger, you less often get feedback directly. However, paying attention to the implicit signals will help you understand how other people perceive you. Let's say you've sent an email with the summary of a recent outage to the group of senior managers. You got many questions from the group. It's pleasing to think that the managers were interested and engaged. However, it also might be that your summary was incomplete and didn't actually address their concerns.
What would help it this situation is to follow up with people from the group, as if they said to you directly that your summary lacking crucial information. Contacting one person from the group and asking something along the lines: "Hey, I see my email about the recent outage started a discussion. It's good that people trying to get into the details. However, I wonder if the summary I sent was incomplete. What do you think I should have included in my email?"
First, it sends a clear signal to the person that you value their opinion. Second, it indicates that you're trying to get better at your job and willing to take uncomfortable steps to solicit feedback. It's very likely that they will include this interaction into their model of you. When discussing your performance, or promotion, or projects for your team, they will know something about you. Great! You just nudged someone to have a model of you in their head.
Conclusion
Reputation is intangible, but it serves as the foundation of trustful relationships. The key is not what you think about yourself, but what other people think about you. Being mindful of other people's models of you will help you take deliberate steps to build the reputation you'd like to have.