Notes from the practice.

I coach people on visibility. And I've been invisible on LinkedIn for months. The irony isn't lost on me.

A confession first. I spent 30 years in tech believing one thing that quietly held my career back: if I just do great work, the work will speak for itself. And right next to it, another belief. That talking about my work is showing off. A little cheap, even - and all the folks who do it were (put your favourite adjective here).

Maybe you believe it too. A lot of us were raised on it.

Here's what 30 years taught me the hard way. Good work doesn't speak. People do. Your manager, and their manager, are buried in their own problems. Through all that noise, even excellent work is a whisper.

So here's the reframe that changed things for me: Visibility is not about applause. It's about being accurately known. So the people making decisions carry a true, current picture of what you do and the value you create.

Being invisible is not humility. It's a cost, and you're not the only one paying it. When nobody can see your work, decisions get made on a wrong picture. The wrong project goes to the wrong person. The wrong work gets cut. You get passed over.

I'm coaching a leader right now who is ready for a senior role. They tick every box. But they are invisible to the skip-level stakeholders who actually decide. When I asked what was in the way, they said: "I'm already doing all the work and more. I shouldn't have to talk about it." That sentence is the whole game.

If any of this sounds like you, here's your week:

→ Name your belief. What's the story you carry about being visible? Could you hold it a little differently?

→ Write down one win. The challenge, what you did, the impact. Specifics travel. Adjectives disappear.

→ Share it where someone has a reason to care. Standup, team channel, a 1:1. Remote or introverted? Write it and share it. Written visibility doesn't need a stage, and it doesn't fade when the call ends.

→ Make a colleague's work visible too. Shine the light on someone else and you become the person associated with good things.

One small step. Not a reinvention.

Mine? This post. After months of silence here, this is me taking my own advice.

And the question I'll leave you with: what's the most valuable thing you did last quarter? Could your skip-level manager name it? Maybe that's too much of a challenge. Can your manager name it?

If the honest answer is no, that's not their failure of attention. It's a gap in my sharing.

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I may have written about this before, but it feels worth saying again.

The biggest challenge I see weighing on tech professionals in their 40s is disenchantment with work. And underneath it, a harder question: how do I deal with this, knowing I have 5 to 10 years of career ahead, and can't just walk away from the responsibilities I carry?

In this age of AI disruption and change, organisations pay little attention to the disengagement of one of their key groups: the middle managers. The people meant to hold the morale of those doing the actual work. And yet many are quietly going through the motions, wondering, "do I need to get up today and face work?"

It's a challenge that barely existed a generation ago. Yet it's common now, and I see it often in my coaching conversations. The line that surfaces again and again: "I don't know what I'd do if not for my job." The job has become such a big part of identity that there's little sense of what else one is capable of, or even wants.

I know that place. I lived in it for years. The one thing I knew was that I liked helping people grow, developing managers, seeing them succeed. Everything else seemed incidental. But I didn't know what to do about it.

Here I want to be careful. My story took me out of tech and into coaching, and that's not the point. Most people can't make that jump, and many shouldn't. What changed for me happened long before I left. It was a shift in how I showed up at the same desk, once I stopped pretending the question wasn't there. Leaving came much later. The part that mattered was learning to stay with the question.

In that, I did what Rilke suggests: sometimes living with the question is more powerful than rushing to the answer. I stayed there a long time, until a lunch with a leadership facilitator. I told her, "I love helping people grow, but I have no training in it. What should I do?" She said, "consider becoming a coach." She gave me a few pointers. I followed that one crack in the glass. As Leonard Cohen would say, that's how the light gets in.

It has led somewhere more ambiguous, but more fulfilling. Scary and exciting at once, but I trust that walking it makes it clearer.

So why write this today? Not to say I've found my path and ask what you're up to. It's just to say the old line might be true: each of us has a path. And it can begin right where you are, inside the very job you can't yet leave. If we stay in the questions, and ask them of ourselves and the people around us, the answers can emerge.

So here's one to carry into your weekend: if your job were not part of how you describe yourself, what's the one thing you'd still want to spend your time helping others with?

You don't need an answer today. Just notice what comes up.

And if it stirs something, I'd love to hear it. I offer a free 30-minute conversation to anyone wrestling with this. A space to think out loud with someone who's walked it.

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The Oracle layoff was a big earthquake, but we all know that the last two years specifically have seen many smaller earthquakes even in India. India is often considered "lower cost", but we are not immune to firing anymore.

As someone who has been on both sides - being given a list of people to fire, and also being on the list myself quite a few times - here are some of my thoughts and lessons.

→ A former colleague once told me to remember that each of us is a financial number to a company. Nothing more and nothing less. We are like a stock. The company is looking at us not based on past achievements or past earnings, but in terms of future earning potential - what we can give to the company going forward. Maybe that is only fair.

So what are the things one can do? Here are a few obvious things.

→ Make your resume a living document and spend good time updating it from time to time, without waiting for the day when you need to do it.

→ Upskill in a role-relevant way. Talking to people who have done it, specifically in AI, and perhaps using your company education budget is a good way to stay relevant. I have seen many middle managers invest in relevant courses which they have found very useful. The key is to find the right one.

→ Most importantly, find a financial planner. My recommendation is to find somebody from feeonlyindia.com and have a comprehensive audit of your finances. This is extremely crucial.

→ If you are closing in on 50, spending some time reflecting on options after the corporate career - in a financially supporting and meaningful way - is just as important as the point above. I think there can be more options than we think are possible today.

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In 2022-23, I had the opportunity to attend the flagship Leadership Development program of NXP called The Leadership Room with Gary Rich and Jyl Camhi.

On the last day of the workshop, Gary Rich, the CEO coach, gave a concluding talk that stuck with me. Here are the key points from his concluding advice:

→ Build your personal brand. Your brand will define your career and is the book on you. Every single interaction with a human being is your brand statement in action.

→ Seek feedback relentlessly. Don't let a day go by without asking, "What can I do better?" You will find that people are gracious and willing to help if you just ask.

→ Perspective is your advantage. The leader who keeps her head above the clouds and understands reality better than others wins. There are no easy decisions, so seek perspective every day.

→ Embrace vulnerability. It is a strength, not a weakness.

→ Know yourself first. The most important relationship is the one with yourself. If you don't know who you are, you can't lead others effectively.

→ Rise above the noise. Stay above the seductive pull to complain and whine.

→ Life goes faster than you think. It's true.

Which of these points resonates most with you today?

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I still remember that day clearly.

It was a weekday morning at work around 9:30 AM, with the sun streaking through my corner office window about 6 years ago. I did the customary quick check of my emails that morning. Even though there was nothing specific - or maybe there was - I finally woke up.

I told myself, "I know where this is going. I don't want to go there."

I called my trusted advisor, who recommended a financial planner I had in mind for a long time. I just sent an email to the financial planner to get the journey started.

I knew I needed two things:

→ Financial capital for the next few years

→ Clarity on what I wanted to do next

I had been through enough layoffs by then. This time, I wanted to leave when I was ready and, if possible, on my own terms.

Looking back as I write this today, it's amazing how things have turned around. I found my calling in leadership development for middle managers via a thing called coaching, something I had no clue about. I got trained as a coach, became certified, and have now logged 600+ hours of experience coaching leaders across geographies.

On the journey, I have met many wonderful people across the world (and some not so wonderful) and learnt a lot from both.

So, have I made it? I would say I am very far from it. But there is a glimmer of a path, and the next steps are a bit clearer.

Why am I writing this? I don't know. An overwhelming desire to share this is my closest guess. So, if you are close to the point I was that morning, don't despair. Perhaps a new chapter is waiting in ways you can't see yet.

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"I did not have the time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." - Mark Twain.

This quote pretty much summarizes the challenges with effective communication most of us face in the workplace. And perhaps in life.

Having coached at least 7 to 8 clients in improving their communication skills at work, here are some of my key takeaways and how to get better at this.

→ 1. Before the conversation ask yourself: "What do I want to get out of this conversation? What outcome do I want?"

→ 2. Once you're clear on the outcome, use the SSG framework. Proposed by David Rock in his book Quiet Leadership, the SSG framework stands for:

Succinct: What are the most important bits of what I want to convey? How can I say it in as few words as possible?

Specific: Get to the point sharing specific examples so that people can easily understand and relate. For example by sharing data or examples.

Generous: Putting yourself in the other person's shoes and understanding their needs. I am taking a risk to connect to their needs with humanity.

Here is the shift:

Before: "I want to talk to you about many disturbing things that I'm hearing from my team because as a manager, you need to know it before it becomes too explosive."

After: "I need to talk to you about 3 specific concerns I heard repeatedly in my one-on-one conversations with 12 engineers. I need 30 minutes of your time in the next 3 to 5 days as this relates to retention concerns."

What is needed to make effective communication happen?

→ Clarity before the conversation.

→ Use the SSG framework to prepare for the conversation.

→ Pauses in the conversation to keep us on track. And perhaps speaking slower than you normally do.

→ Summarizing after to ensure that both of us are on the same page with respect to what was conveyed in the conclusions.

Have you had a communication challenge at work recently? Based on this article, what is one thing you could have done differently, you think?

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Help! I am now managing my former peers.

Transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager is never easy. It is especially hard if you are managing former colleagues - the ones you used to grab coffee and rant with.

William Bridges' famous transition model highlights three stages: an Ending, the Neutral Zone, and the Beginning. This is a great format for new managers, especially when managing former peers.

1. Endings

One needs to rethink success. It is now "my team's success plus my success," rather than just "my success alone."

Relationships with former peers may never be the same. We need to accept this ending. While this is not always true (depending on the maturity of the people involved), it is a real possibility.

2. The Neutral Zone

Accept that your role involves deliberate discomfort. It gets easier over time. Have a conversation with your former peers. Acknowledge the new dynamic in your relationship. Deliberately focus on what you can do to help each individual with your new "powers." This goes a long way in getting the team to accept you as their leader.

(Pro tip: Understanding simple frameworks like Crucial Conversations or Radical Candor can help you handle these difficult conversations.)

3. The Beginning

The biggest part is developing your own confidence. This takes time, mistakes, and understanding your own values. Working with a trusted mentor or coach can greatly speed up this development.

Two things to consider:

→ Managers need to be compassionate, caring, demanding, and accountable. New managers typically think these are opposites. The answer is always "and." One must learn to be both.

→ There are times your team will not like you. It is easy to fall into the trap of pleasing your team to get what you want. This doesn't work in the long run.

Being a new manager, especially of former peers, is a great growth opportunity. Being intentional and seeking help from people who have been on the journey before reduces the jerks and makes the journey more enjoyable.

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Your first 90 days as a leader can make or break your success.

I know the pressure. You want to prove yourself fast, show impact, and fix everything at once.

But here's what nobody tells you: going slower actually gets you there faster.

Here are 5 lessons that changed everything for me:

1. Build relationships before you need them

↳ Don't wait for the "right time" to connect

↳ Join team events, schedule 1:1s, see people as people

2. Face-to-face beats emails every time in interactions

↳ Ask what matters to them and how you can help

↳ Learn their work style and decision-making process

3. Stay curious, not judgmental

↳ You'll see broken systems - resist quick fixes

↳ Ask "why is this happening?" before suggesting changes

4. Listen to the silence

↳ Unwritten rules run every team

↳ Watch more, speak less - it reveals everything

5. Get aligned with your manager

↳ Define how you'll work together

↳ Set clear success metrics for the first few months to a year

The work matters. But relationships help us go faster in the long run.

Time to choose: Build trust or rush through?

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