Being a Proactive Worker
Advice for how to stand out in your job tends to follow similar guidelines regardless of the exact industry or position you are in. So to start off this map, I’d like to cover some of these “universal truths of success” that you’ll likely hear often throughout your career and provide examples of each. They may not cover all the things you can or should do in order to shine in your role, but incorporating them into your work habits certainly won’t hurt. These are time-tested, crowdsourced pieces of wisdom that I’ve come across myself when browsing career resources or talking to mentors.
Note: I use the word “boss” frequently throughout the advice I share below. You might not have a boss but a manager or a director or a decentralized team or something else. The idea is similar, in that this advice applies to the people you are working with, whatever the structure of your team and where your role falls in it.
1. Ask a lot of questions - as long as it’s not something you could just Google.
I’ve often heard my teachers, trying to get the class to participate at least a little bit, say “any question is a good question”. In the workplace, the spirit of this claim holds true, with a slight modification: “Any question that cannot be easily answered by a quick Google search is a good question”. Of course, there are many different types of questions you can ask. If you’re confused with your current task, you may ask for guidance on what to do or how to solve the current obstacle you face. If you don’t understand why you need to do something for a project, you may ask what the purpose of doing X or figuring out Y is. If you have an idea for what to do but you’re not sure it’s right or a good way of doing things, you may ask for your boss’ (or coworker’s) opinion on it. I’m being deliberately vague here, but the point is that there are many, many questions that are good to ask. And asking these questions will demonstrate that you’re interested in the work, that you’re thinking about how to do things right, and that you aren’t afraid to ask for help.
If you’re still worried about looking bad by asking a question, or perhaps afraid of bothering your boss or coworkers with too many questions, here’s one strategy I’ve developed: begin a question by explaining what you’ve done to try to answer it yourself. By bringing up things you’ve already tried, you’re demonstrating that you aren’t being lazy or incompetent. It also informs the person you’re asking what’s been tried and could help them figure out what you need or are actually asking for. You never know, you might be closer to an answer/solution than you realize, and sharing your current thoughts as part of the question will get you to the finish line. Just to be clear: you should always try out a couple of solutions yourself before asking someone else - that’s the first step in being proactive!
image by Isabelle Perticone
2. Always do more than is asked
The first part of this advice, which is not actually stated but implied, is doing all the work that is asked of you. This may seem obvious now, but as time goes on and you’re constantly dealing with new projects and multiple demands on your attention, it’s surprisingly easy for a task to slip your mind. When you go into meetings, whether one-on-ones with a boss or project updates with the team, bring something to take notes in. As the meeting goes on, make sure to record any and all tasks and actionable steps to take that are either brought up or assigned to you. That way you don’t miss anything and won’t have to sheepishly ask your boss for a reminder of what he/she wanted. And even if your boss doesn’t bring up a task he/she gave you in the past, it’s still a good idea to either do it anyway or follow up on it. Either your boss did forget (unlikely) and you’ve surprised him and already managed to look like you’ve done more than is asked, or he didn’t and you are showing you didn’t forget or are trying to weasel out of it. Either way, staying on top of all your tasks is essential for succeeding in your role.
Doing more than is asked can be done in many different ways. It can mean thinking up new projects or tasks that are relevant to your role. Or it can mean finding new and better ways to do those projects. Or it can mean your own small extensions to the current project or task, adding a little bit extra than the baseline requested work. For example, let’s say your boss asks you to look at some data on item X and create some charts summarizing its performance. Creating all the charts asked for in a timely manner is excellent. But if you are able to think of several other charts to create besides those requested that provide additional insight on the item’s performance, then that’s even better. Or maybe you can find another dataset that gives a different perspective or validation check on the item’s performance. Maybe you can think of other ways to provide performance analysis and include those with the charts. You can also look out for tasks that people in higher-level roles are doing and find ways to get involved with those. This has the added benefit of putting you in a good position for a promotion and having specific things to mention when it comes time for those performance evaluations. Whatever it is, doing more than just what is asked of you (the bare minimum) will put you ahead.
3. Give progress updates, explain your reasoning, and go into meetings with structure in mind
If you’ve set regular, scheduled meetings ahead of time with your boss then it’s fine to keep all your updates for then. More often than not, however, this is not the case. Workplaces tend to be much more unstructured than schools, meaning you’ll have more flexibility with how and when to do things but also less guidance. But one-on-ones will go a lot better if you go into those meetings with a plan in mind for what you want to say and what topics you’d like to cover. Don’t wait for your boss to check in with you to provide updates. Be proactive in sending updates on your work and asking questions if you are stuck or confused. It is always better to ask for help than to waste time being too stubborn or scared to ask - it’s much more likely your boss will be upset with you for not asking than for doing so. Also, don’t just send in your work without explaining how you did it and why you made the decisions you did. Things that may seem obvious to you might go unnoticed or seem unclear to a boss or coworker. Explaining the steps you took to complete a task or resolve a problem will provide clarity as well as demonstrate your usefulness. It doesn’t hurt to flex a little bit about the lengths you went to in order to complete a task or project, especially since most of that work isn’t always obvious to others. You don’t need to discuss every little detail of what you did, but making sure to hit on all the major steps is useful. It will also prove helpful in documenting all the work you did, which I will go into more detail on next.
image by Scott Purcell
4. Document. everything. Seriously!
You might think you will remember all the things you did for some task, but trust me that after months of working and cycling through projects you will be surprised at how little you actually remember. So make sure to document everything you do as you’re doing it. Personally, I like to keep a small notebook that I use as my “work log” where I write down my projects/tasks of the week, record all the work I do for them, and after that project/task is wrapped up, enter results and major obstacles I faced. Having this all in one place and in chronological order is massively helpful for jogging my memory. This has proven useful for me when needing to return to a project I thought I was done with months later, having to come up with all the work I’d done in the previous year for my performance review, and updating my resume with relevant work examples and achievements years later. You never know when you might need to remember something about work you did long ago, and you’ll be thanking yourself when you have a notebook you can check from when that work actually happened. Particularly with your work “wins”, make sure to track the impact of your completed tasks and projects, and be as specific as possible. Relatedly, in many jobs it’s also important to write documentation for the steps you took to complete a task. Especially if it’s a repeating task or something like code, you’ll be asked to provide an “instruction manual” for other coworkers or future ones to know what to do. You don’t want to be trying to remember why you took each step you did or how you did a very specific thing months later - document all your work!!
5. Explore new ideas, spend free time at work learning, and share your accomplishments.
I touched on this briefly in the above points, but I want to emphasize this piece of advice because I think it’s both very important and very hard to follow: bring your own thoughts, suggestions, and ideas into your work. This includes everything from making a small modification to some procedural task that simplifies the process, to trying out new ways to complete a project besides what is suggested, to starting your own projects and initiatives in your workplace. Being original in your work is certainly not easy, and it will likely take much time just to learn the ropes and acclimate to your position and the company before you’re ready to really add useful ideas of your own. But you can also take advantage of your status as a newbie. You’ve got fresh eyes and will likely be working in the weeds, learning how to do the small things that others overlook. These are often the areas that can use the most cleaning up and provide many opportunities for you to add your own touch. As you get more comfortable with your work, try to always add new ideas of your own to the task at hand, no matter how small of a change or improvement.
The more time you spend in a role, the easier it will be to settle. It can be tempting to just stick to the routine tasks of your job and get by doing the minimum. If that’s what you want to do, then all the power to you - it’s your job and your choice how much to invest in it. But given that this is a map about standing out in your profession, I assume you are reading this because you don’t want to do those things. So if your goal is to further your career and become a rising star in your field, you’ll need to keep pushing your boundaries. As you get comfortable with your current tasks, find new work that will enable you to learn more and try out new things. This doesn’t necessarily mean taking on more and more work. There will always be new projects available to jump on or future events and initiatives you can participate in. But as the rest of this map will show, work can also involve making connections with people or being active in your community. In many fields, a big part of early career success involves learning as much as possible - so if you’ve got the extra time, use it to invest in yourself. Read books/textbooks relevant to your job, learn how to code or improve your technical skills, acquire new skills useful in your field. Most of all, remember to take pride in your progress and share all your achievements with coworkers and friends. Selling yourself and advertising your accomplishments is a major driver of career success, and no one will be a better salesman for you but yourself.