How To Talk Yourself Up (Without Turning People Off)

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Teams, Business/management, Marketing, Strategy, Management, Innovation, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Economics, Hbr, Business/entrepreneurship, Harvard, Business, Leadership, Business/marketing, Communication

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leslie John, associate professor at Harvard Business School, has done some deep research into the ways that people self-promote in their professional lives and identified what works and what doesn't. She says it is possible tout your own accomplishments without annoying your colleagues, if you do it at the right time or enlist others to boast on your behalf. She notes that many common workarounds -- such as humblebragging -- are highly ineffective and advises people to not only look for more natural opportunities to self-promote but also try to present balanced views of themselves. She's full of tips you can put to work, even in virtual settings. John is the author of the HBR article "Savvy Self-Promotion."

Transcript

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0:00.0	So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New
0:08.1	Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for
0:13.8	free wherever you get your podcasts. Just search New Here. See you there!
0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR idea cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard. By now, most of
0:50.3	us know that doing good work isn't always enough to get you ahead in your career. Colleagues
0:54.9	and bosses need to recognize what you're accomplishing for it to really matter. Hopefully, they
0:59.7	notice on their own, but you can't count on that, which means you need to learn how to self-promote.
1:04.7	I know what some of you are thinking right now. I hate people who brag about themselves. I can't
1:11.0	imagine doing it myself. Other listeners might have the opposite reaction. You're saying,
1:16.0	actually I'm pretty good at letting people know about all the amazing things I've done. And you're
1:20.2	probably the ones that everyone else hates. So where is the happy medium? How can those
1:24.9	nervous about self-promotion get better at it? And how can natural braggarts find more subtle ways
1:29.6	to showcase themselves? Our guest today has answers. She's studied all the different ways people draw
1:35.2	attention to their own achievements and figured out which are most effective. Leslie John is a professor
1:40.5	of business administration at Harvard Business School and the author of the HBR article, Savvy Self Promotion.
1:45.9	Leslie, thanks for coming to the show. Thanks for having me.
1:54.9	So how did you get interested in self-promotion? Well, if I'm honest, it's because I was a little tired
2:04.9	of rolling my eyes at people just shamelessly self-promoting themselves. And with social media, it feels
2:12.4	like it's even more rampant. And it's just such a cringeworthy behavior. And I also think that,
2:18.8	you know, in a way, I feel sorry for those that are so blatantly self-promoting because it's not
2:24.8	helpful to them either. So I wanted to write a piece that I kind of unofficially call a Canadian's
2:30.5	guide to bragging being a Canadian, to kind of help people juggle this balance, this kind of
	...

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