One day, during training that I was attending lots of years ago, the instructor asked us ‘’what do you think is the most important factor for career development and progress within an organization?’’

And he gave us three options:

• Performance.

• Image (how people perceive you. In 2 short words, ‘’your brand’’).

• Exposure (how well you are known & connected within & outside the organization, and especially with the real decision-makers).

And he asked every one of us to grab a pen and a piece of paper and to write our opinions as a percentage of these options. (Ex: 50% Performance, 30% Image, and 20% Exposure or something).

When we finished, he added the scores together to get the average, and then he showed us the results of our estimations as follows:

• 45% based on Performance.

• 35% based on Exposure.

• 20% based on Image.

However, he indicated that these were almost the typical results that he used to get whenever he held this training with any group.

But he also indicated that our estimations and numbers are not correct or, in other words, do not reflect what is happening in real life!!

According to Harvey Coleman, the President of Coleman Management Consultants, and for the last thirty-five years consulted with many of the Fortune 100 Corporations, the real numbers are different.

In his book ‘’Empowering yourself: the organizations game revealed’’, the actual numbers are as follows:

• 60% based on Exposure.

• 30% based on Image.

• 10% based on Performance.

When we saw these results, we were shocked. In the end, who can ever think that only 10% of your career progress is due to your performance?

When was the last time you cared about networking with others outside your team and department?

And do you care about your image and how people perceive you or not?

To make it easier for you to visualize what I am talking about, let us look at it from the other way around.

When the management of a company is gathered together to make some decisions about the company’s future and succession planning, and whenever someone in the management nominates a name of a candidate, the other leaders will always ask themselves some questions such as:

• Do I know this person?

• Do I know what he/she has done or accomplished?

• What are his/her skills?

• Have I heard others talk about him?

• Is this candidate visible within the organization?

• Can he/she be one of us?

• Can he/she bring this company forward? 

And if the answer to most of the above questions is ''no'' or ''I do not know'', then most probably you know already how this will affect this candidate’s career progress or in other words ‘’nomination’’.

Do not interpret my words here wrong. I am not saying that you have to be lazy or stop working smartly hard.

All that I mean is if you are an ambitious person, and willing to climb the career ladder, and if you believe that this could only be done through your performance, then you have to rethink your strategy and focus as well on your ‘’Exposure’’ and your ‘’Image’’.

So let me ask you, what are the first steps that you can take today to improve your exposure and image within your organization as well as outside?