Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / How an Internal Transfer Can Rebuild Your Professional Reputation
Transcript
- Lucas: So you've been at your company for a few years, you're good at your job, but something's gone sideways — a project that cratered, a public disagreement with a stakeholder, maybe just a slow accumulation of small missteps. And now people in your building, in your Slack channels, they've got a version of you in their heads that doesn't match who you actually are. Luna: The reputation gap, right? And once that gap forms, it's incredibly hard to close it from inside the same team. Lucas: Exactly. Which is why an internal transfer can be one of the most effective reputation-reset tools available to you — because you're not leaving the company, you're leaving the context where the reputation was formed. You get to re-introduce yourself to a new set of colleagues who have no preconceptions. Luna: But you also can't just run away from the problem. You have to be smart about how you do it. What does that actually look like? Lucas: Let me give you a concrete case. I know a marketer at a major consumer goods company — let's call her Sarah. She was in brand management for a flagship beverage line. She led a product reformulation that was supposed to modernize the flavor profile. It bombed. Retailers delisted the SKU, social media was brutal, internal reviews cited 'poor consumer insight testing.' Sarah took the hit. Her director lost trust in her judgment. Luna: Ouch. And once a director labels you as someone who can't read the consumer, that label sticks. Lucas: It does. She had two choices. One, leave the company entirely and try to sell herself to a new employer with a carefully scrubbed resume. Or two, stay and find a role where the specific failure was irrelevant. Luna: She transferred internally? Lucas: She did. She moved into corporate strategy — a small team that reports to the Chief of Staff. No brand P&L, no consumer-facing decisions. Her job became analyzing competitor moves and building internal dashboards. The skills she used were analytical, not creative. And her new boss didn't know about the reformulation disaster, because it wasn't relevant to the work. Luna: So she changed the context. But she also had to change the narrative. How did she frame it in the transfer interview? Lucas: She led with curiosity. She said, 'I've spent five years in brand, and I've learned that my strongest skill is digging into data to understand why things work — or don't work. I want to apply that to strategy questions where the stakes are different.' She didn't apologize for the failure. She reframed it as a learning experience that clarified what she's actually good at. Luna: That's smart. She's not hiding the past, she's showing she's self-aware. And the new team interprets that as maturity, not damage. Lucas: Right. And then — crucially — she performed. Within six months, she'd built a competitive intelligence dashboard that the CEO referenced in a quarterly town hall. Her new reputation became 'the person who made that dashboard.' Not 'the person who ruined the lemon-lime flavor.' Luna: So the transfer worked because she chose a role that played to her strengths, not one that forced her to prove she could do the same thing again. I think a lot of people make the mistake of trying to transfer into a similar role in a different department — like from brand to brand at a different division — and they just carry the baggage with them. Lucas: Exactly. If you stay in the same function, the same types of stakeholders, the same metrics of success, the reputation follows you because people talk across divisions. You need a functional or geographic shift. Sarah moved from brand to strategy — different deliverables, different rhythm, different evaluation criteria. Luna: And she also needed someone to vouch for her. I'm guessing her new boss didn't just take her word for it. Lucas: No, and this is a key point. She had what I'd call a 'reputation sponsor' — a senior leader in strategy who had seen her work on a cross-functional project a year earlier, before the reformulation disaster. That sponsor said to the Chief of Staff, 'Sarah's analytical instincts are excellent. She'd be a solid addition to your team.' That one endorsement outweighed the negative perception from her current director. Luna: So you need to cultivate those relationships before you need them. Because if your reputation is already damaged, it's harder to find a sponsor. But if you've done good work for someone else in the past, they can be your bridge. Lucas: Exactly. The sponsorship piece is often the difference between a transfer that resets your reputation and one that just relocates it. Luna: I think this episode is a good example of the kind of practical advice our listeners tell us they value. And you know, if you're listening and you've gotten something out of these episodes — maybe Sarah's story helped you think about your own situation — a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if that's something you've gotten value from. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small thing that makes a big difference for us. And we appreciate every bit of support. Luna: Alright, let's get back to the mechanics. So once you identify the new role, how do you actually manage the exit from your current team? Because if you leave badly, you can create a new reputation problem — 'the person who jumped ship after the failure.' Lucas: That's a real risk. You have to give proper notice, you have to transition your work thoroughly, and you have to frame the move as a growth opportunity, not an escape. Sarah told her director, 'I've learned a ton here, and I think my future is in strategy. This move lets me stay at the company and contribute in a new way.' She didn't say, 'I'm leaving because this team doesn't trust me anymore.' Luna: And the director probably knew the real reason anyway, but by being gracious, Sarah made it harder for the director to bad-mouth her later. Lucas: Right. And she also made sure her transition documents were impeccable. That left a positive last impression. Within a few months, the narrative shifted from 'Sarah's the one who messed up the lemon-lime launch' to 'Sarah was a solid brand manager who moved into strategy.' Luna: So there's a timeline here. How long does it take for the new reputation to stick? Lucas: In Sarah's case, about two quarters. She transferred in January, by June her dashboard was being used by the executive team. But she also made a deliberate effort to rebuild visibility — she volunteered to present at an all-hands, she joined a cross-functional innovation task force. She didn't hide in her new role. She actively shaped how people saw her. Luna: That's a good point. An internal transfer gives you a new canvas, but you still have to paint on it. You can't just show up and expect the reputation to repair itself. Lucas: No. And you also have to be patient. People in the old department will still talk. You'll hear rumors. But as long as you're consistently delivering in the new role, those echoes fade. The key is to put time and distance between you and the event that damaged your reputation. Luna: What about someone whose reputation is damaged by a personality clash, not a failed project? Say they had a conflict with a manager or a peer. Does the same approach work? Lucas: It can, but it's trickier. Personality clashes often involve emotional narratives — 'she's difficult to work with,' 'he's defensive.' Those labels can follow you if you transfer to a role where the same people are still stakeholders. So you need a more dramatic shift. Maybe move to a different office, a different division, or a different function entirely. Luna: And you probably need to address the behavior directly. Because if you were actually difficult to work with, a new team won't fix that — you'll just repeat the pattern. Lucas: Absolutely. The reputation reset is only effective if you've actually changed. Sarah didn't just transfer away from her problem — she changed the type of work she did, which played to her strengths and minimized her weaknesses. If you're transferring because you were a bad communicator, you need to go somewhere that forces you to communicate better, or you'll get the same label. Luna: So the takeaway: internal transfer can repair reputation, but only if you pick the right role, have a sponsor, manage the exit gracefully, and then actively build a new narrative. Lucas: That's the framework. And one last thing — timing matters. If the reputation damage is very recent, like within the last month, it might be too soon. People will say, 'Oh, he's just running away.' You want to show some resilience first — maybe take on a small project and complete it well, to demonstrate that you can still contribute. Then transfer. Luna: So you need to prove to yourself and others that you're not broken before you make the move. Lucas: Exactly. A reputation reset is not a magic wand. It's a strategy. And it works when you treat it with the same rigor as any other career move.