Several months ago I was delivering what may be my last downward feedback to the engineers on my team. At my company, we go through a lengthy process of 360 feedback and several rounds of calibrating with other managers to ensure fairness. And as I reflect back on my 6 years of being a people manager, there are qualities of employees that are more highly rewarded than others. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of importance of those qualities aren’t known to most people. In this article, I will talk about the last 4 of the top 10 ways I believe will make you a successful employee at a big company, especially if you’re still young in your career. Are you ready? Standby. 

In case you missed it, you can find the other 6 ways in Part I and Part II.

7. Be comfortable saying “NO”

Eventually, you play a critical role in enough domains that you are constantly relied on by multiple people. The asks that come your way may be because you’re really important or because you’re easy to bully or both. For your long-term success and sanity, you must take control of your time and not let others dictate it. After a certain level of seniority, you should probably be saying “no” more often than you are saying “yes”. Here are things that I’ve said “no” to in the past:

• No, I will not go to a meeting that I’m not needed in

• No, I will not *stay* in a meeting that I am no longer needed in

• No, I will not help another team or colleague by spending my nights and weekends

• No, I cannot take on more work without dropping some of my current work

• No, you cannot get promoted yet. You’re not ready.

• No, my team will not help your team. There’s not enough impact.

I’ve seen many smart and ambitious managers and IC leaders want to befriend everyone in their path by saying “yes” to anything asked of them. In fact, many of them got to their senior levels by doing just that–being a “yes man.” But this is exactly the type of leadership that turns people off the most because it’s not leadership. Leaders usually have a vision of how they want to spend their and their team’s time. Saying “no” is how you protect that time to maximize your and your team’s efficiency.

In reality, one cannot be saying “no” to everything, but every ask coming your way should be examined with a high level of scrutiny especially if it’s a routine or a time consuming ask.

8. Become a “multiplier”

In a big organization, the best-rewarded people are those who multiply the impact of those around them. What exactly does it mean to be a “multiplier” though? Here are some examples:

• Selling a vision to the team

• Fixing team chemistry problems

• Setting team direction

• Killing non-important projects

• Coaching and teaching others

In these examples, you’re not the one doing all of the actual work, but because of your decisions or groundwork, any additional work that’s done by others becomes positively amplified.

On the flip-side, here are some examples of “adding”:

• Writing code to test more of the product

• A salesperson closing another deal

• A recruiter hiring another new employee

• Fixing customer issues

The dilemma with being a “multiplier” is that being an “adder” is generally easier to see incremental progress. If a sales rep closes a $1M deal or an engineer fixes 10 customer issues, that’s a lot easier to measure. For a “multiplier”, by changing the sales team’s strategy or addressing fundamental product issues, the progress will take longer to see, but will undoubtedly be magnitudes more impactful when done well. 

Many senior ICs have the capacity to be multipliers, but because it’s hard to see progress, thus more stressful, they tend to revert to just adding, but at a higher level.

The best performers in a big company are the best “multipliers.” There’s simply a bigger base of impact to multiply on top of. 

Let’s assume you are a 10x employee, meaning you are equivalent to 10 other employees. Your team’s output may look like this:

• 10 (you) + 1 (normal person’s output) x 100 employees = 110 

And imagine the alternative is that you’re a decent leader who only amplifies our team’s output by 15%. Your team’s output will look like this:

• 1.15 (you) x 1 (normal person’s output) x 100 employees = 115

In reality, leaders amplify their org’s impact by much more than 15%, but this is to depict how little adding matters in a big company. Do not fall into the trap of trying to be the best adder, but find ways to be the best multiplier and/or find ways to multiply your impact on the largest group of employees.

9. Constantly identify opportunities for the team/org/business

Up to this point, you may have been working on initiatives that other people have been asking you to do. At some point, if you want to go higher you will need to tell your management what they should be focusing on. After all, you are closer to the matter and should be much more of an expert in the domain. People who are able to identify opportunities and push the business to take on that opportunity are the ones who get promoted quickly. Here are some examples:

• Improve the login flow of a product because 80% of users never make it pass the login screen

• Cut back on the size of a restaurant menu because 80% of the menu items are cash flow negative

• Stand up a leadership training program because there’s been a surge in first-time managers in the company

10. Be direct and work with manager / leadership towards your personal and professional goals

Finally, this is one of the most overlooked aspects of working at a big company. Career growth is truly a team game. You must have your manager and sometimes even your manager’s manager on your team. Despite how you may feel, all managers want all of their reports to thrive in their careers. This is a fact because if you do well, their job is significantly easier. No manager wants unhappy reports. Ultimately, make sure that your career aspirations are clear to yourself, first. Then clearly communicate your desires with your manager and treat them as a partner in your journey. The very best people have multiple managers “championing” their careers. You will succeed if you can find one. 

Final Thoughts

After 6 years of writing performance reviews, seeing failed and successful promotions of very talented people, and reflecting back on what changed my professional trajectory, I’m fairly confident that investing in these 10 ways will far outweigh your traditional “work hard and you’ll succeed” mentality. The truth is there are different tiers of skill sets that are more applicable depending on if you’re a junior employee, senior employee, or org/company leader. I hope that these tips at least get you thinking about what else it takes to succeed at the next level in your career and to be intentional with your time.