Being upstaged

In our last article, one of the challenging co-workers we mentioned is the one who takes credit for your work. This is an incredibly frustrating situation that is so difficult to deal with without looking petty. It is often cited by women, minorities and junior associates as something they deal with regularly, but it can happen to anyone.

Situation 1: You’re participating in a meeting, brainstorming about how to overcome a challenge the department is facing and you make a suggestion. The suggestion is quickly dismissed. Ten minutes later, someone else makes the same suggestion and suddenly everyone thinks it's the best idea since sliced bread.

Situation 2: You’re working with a group of people on an important task. You stayed up all night finishing it and after the team reviews it and gives the OK, someone sends it to the boss. In the upcoming company meeting, the boss gives a glowing commendation of the task and singles out one of the team members, thanking them for a great job and ignoring everyone else. 

Both of these situations are land mines if they aren’t dealt with properly. Getting credit for your ideas and work is critical in today’s environment. Promotions, bonuses and other recognition, such as leading the project that you suggested, are all generally based on performance. If they don’t know that you contributed, you will likely continue to be overlooked. However, if you stand up and confront the situation head-on, “I said that idea a couple minutes ago”, or “what about the rest of us”, it will cause an awkward standoff with a few mumbles, but certainly won’t achieve your goal.

There are cases where people are purposefully marginalizing you. We’ll talk about methods of overcoming that later on. However, in a lot of cases, it is completely unintentional. Understanding the flow of a meeting will help to bring clarification. As an example, at a recent meeting a junior, female engineer made a suggestion that was pretty much ignored. 30 minutes later someone else made the same suggestion and it was taken more seriously. In this specific case - context, timing and understanding was a huge difference. When the original suggestion was made, she saw the situation in a specific light, but most people in the meeting were looking at the problem from a completely different perspective. After 30 minutes the conversation had shifted and most people were seeing the problem in the same light as the original suggester. The suggestion made a lot more sense to everyone at that point. This story has a happy ending, because when the suggestion was made again the person referred to the original suggestion and the engineer who suggested it. But very often, nobody in the meeting remembers that the original suggestion had ever been made.

• When possible, keep these things in mind to avoid assuming negative intent:
• As they say, it takes money to make money. If someone is known for having good ideas or is more influential, people are more likely to agree with something they say.
• Timing is everything. When you gave the idea, it may not have been the opportune time
• Presentation makes a big difference. You may have said the idea, but presented it wrongly
• The boss who gave the commendation may not know who worked on the project and didn’t think to ask.
• The person who gave the idea after you, may not have been fully listening and heard it subconsciously. They really think it was their idea.

One of the problems with sticking up for yourself is that they can make you seem hostile or petty. You want to use strategic methods to get the recognition you deserve in a positive manner. Here are a few suggestions that may help:

• When someone else is recognized for your work, you can approach them and ask them to send out a clarification email, “thank you for the recognition, but I also wanted to mention the hard work of my colleagues, without whom this wouldn’t have been done”. This allows them to show that they collaborate and give credit at the same time as recognizing your contribution. It’s a win/win.
• Partner with someone else at a meeting who is willing to support you. When a colleague responds to your suggestion saying, “that sounds interesting, can you explain it a bit more” it will force everyone to pay attention. When someone else brings up an idea that you already suggested, they can say, “great idea, that’s exactly what ...  said earlier” 
• Ask a trusted colleague or mentor for a critical assessment of the differences between your presentation of an idea and other people’s. How can you use your unique personality to be heard. What are the character attributes of people who are more easily able to influence?
• Collaborate instead of getting upset. “That’s very similar to what I suggested, I’m sure if we work together on this we can build an awesome proposal.” That calls out the fact that you made the suggestion, but in a non-petty, positive way.
• After the meeting write up and send your proposal to the group. “As we discussed, we want to do X, Y & Z. Attached is my draft proposal to accomplish that. I would appreciate collaboration and feedback”.

You want to be looked at as a team player, who has good ideas and a great record on accomplishments. Stay positive, be assertive and don’t allow yourself to be ignored.