Stop making your work feel small

Learn the zoom-out skill that changes how people see you.

“I’ve spent 3 months working on the drop shadow of a button”.

I’d just asked James, a new connection from Engineering, what he was working on. He laughed and went on to say:

“One of the most important products that Eng works on out of Sydney is Chrome. As you know, there’s a huge global push to make Google’s design more beautiful. But we can’t risk the #1 thing people love about Chrome - speed. My team’s leading the effort to test how the redesign affects performance, like how people use the buttons”.

The first line about drop-shadows is the zoomed-in view.

Most of us stay stuck there. But no one really understands (or even cares 🤔 about) the details of your work. They care about how it connects to things that are relevant to them.

Everyone’s working at different altitudes

Consider this dynamic:

You need to translate between these two worlds. That’s the skill that changes how people see you. Your promotability depends on it.

It shows up in almost everything you do - performance reviews, presenting your work, casual conversations, leading meetings and especially when talking to senior leaders.

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The 4Rs: What leaders actually care about

They’re usually thinking about some form of these things:

1. Revenue/Growth

• Getting new customers

• Making more money from existing customers

• Launching new products or markets

2. Risk

• Compliance and legal protection

• Keeping operations stable

• Avoiding major mistakes

3. Resources/Efficiency

• Doing more with the same team

• Reducing costs

• Working faster

4. Reputation

• Protecting brand trust with customers

• Managing the company’s image with media / partners

Sure, your company has a set of OKRs/goals but they usually sit fairly meaninglessly in a spreadsheet. Looking at what you work on and connecting it up to the 4Rs helps to make sense of it. You need to build your zoom out/zoom in muscle.

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Here’s a real life example

• Soph (me): L4 Product Marketing Manager

• Project: Launching ‘Getting Aussie Business Online’ (lol it was 2011…)

• My piece: Running events, supporting Comms team on press

Let’s look at two different versions of me presenting to the full Australian Marketing team.

Why SOPH B’s structure works better:

• Starts with why it matters / the problem (Reputation)

• Connects to strategic goal

• What we did and the impact

• Zooms into execution + real example

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Magic Patterns connect your work to what matters

Memorising a few of these ‘Magic Patterns’ has been a game changer for me.

1. “Let me start with why this matters, then I’ll get into the details...

Good for: All-purpose pattern for setting context from the start eg talking to senior leaders, your manager, presentations, one-pagers.

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2. “Zooming out. We’re trying to [strategic outcome]. To get there I recommend we…”

God for: Putting forward your ideas and opinions so they land better, speaking up in meetings, pushing back on priorities that don’t make sense.

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3. “As you know, we are [company priority]. The piece I’m leading is...”

Good for: Round-the-room shares in meetings, casual “what are you working on?” conversations, connecting your work to big important things.

Alt: “As you know, we’re trying to solve [big problem]. I’m helping with that by...”

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4. “We needed to [outcome]. Here’s what we did, and the impact it had.”

Good for: Project wraps, talking about contributions and achievements, performance review snippets.

Example:

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Love and impact

Soph ✌🏼

PS - I wrote this Substack with my voice using this dictation tool I’m in love with. As a three-finger typer it genuinely changed my life (affiliate link, but I’d still recommend it to you even if it wasn’t).