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I think you're right that just quietly solving all the problems is not a great strategy for an employee, however I think this bit:

> Communicating this effectively is far more important than actually doing it, so I'd recommend spending 90% of your working time on this communication, and no more than 10% of your working time on actual problem solving.

...seems out of whack. We've probably all worked with someone like this, who did very little actual work and spent all their time on self-promotion and political maneuvering. They make awful teammates and bring everybody else down.

It's definitely worth advertising when you do solve problems, of course. If you hit a tricky one just send an email (either to team or just to boss as appropriate) with a quick description of the problem and how you solved it. No point doing good work if nobody's going to notice.



They do it because it works. Yes, they're bad teammates but they will move up, and they don't care about you or how it feels to be their teammate.


That kind of thing only works for a short while before word gets around. Maybe you can keep ducking the fallout indefinitely in a big enough city but where I live, it's a small world and you'll burn your reputation in short order.


Only if you do it badly. It's very likely that the people at the top of this "small world" in your town have done exactly this to get there.


If you spend 90% of your working time self-promoting instead of working, I guarantee you your co-workers will notice and they will hate you for it even if your current management are too incompetent to pick up on it. The only exception is if your entire department is a nest of weasels.




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