Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How a Quiet Contributor Got Promoted by Building a Playbook
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this story I came across about a senior analyst at a mid-sized insurance company — let's call the company AegisSure, not the real name — who was basically invisible for two years. Luna: Invisible how? Like, not getting face time with leadership? Lucas: Exactly. She was in claims adjudication, a department that's very process-heavy but also very siloed. She did good work, but her manager was swamped, and there was no real mechanism for her work to get noticed outside her immediate team. She was the quiet contributor archetype — competent, reliable, but not someone who'd naturally elbow her way into a promotion conversation. Luna: Right, and that's the kind of person who often gets overlooked, especially in bigger companies. Lucas: Exactly. So what she did — and this is the part I love — she noticed that the department's core process for adjudicating a particular type of claim was documented in about twelve different emails, three shared drives, and a couple of outdated PowerPoints from 2019. New hires took months to ramp up because there was no single source of truth. Luna: Oh, I've seen that. It's painful. And nobody owns fixing it because it's not anyone's explicit job. Lucas: Right. So she decided, on her own time, to compile everything into a single 40-page playbook. She interviewed the senior adjusters, she shadowed the escalation process, she even included screenshots and decision trees. And when she finished, she didn't just email it to her boss — she scheduled a 30-minute walkthrough with him and the VP of operations. Luna: That's smart. She didn't just hand over a document; she presented it as a deliverable. Lucas: Exactly. And the VP was impressed enough to ask if they could roll it out as the standard training material across three departments. Within six months, that playbook became the go-to resource for the entire claims division. And she got promoted to team lead. Luna: So the playbook itself was the ticket. But I think a lot of people hear that and think, 'Okay, I'll write a playbook too,' but they pick the wrong process or they do it in a way that feels like a side project rather than a career move. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the nuance we need to talk about. The first rule is: document something that is painful but not dying. By 'not dying' I mean it's a process that the company still relies on heavily, not one they're about to replace with a new system. If you document a dying process, you're just writing an obituary. Luna: Right. You want something that's core to the business but poorly documented. Like the claims adjudication process was for that company. Lucas: Second rule: don't do it in a vacuum. She interviewed people. That gave her social capital and made the playbook more accurate, but it also made people invested in her success because they contributed. There's a reciprocity dynamic there. Luna: That's a good point. And it also signals to leadership that you can lead a collaborative effort, not just write in a corner. Lucas: Third rule: the framing matters. She didn't call it 'My Playbook' or 'Samantha's Guide.' She called it 'AegisSure Claims Adjudication Playbook v1.0.' That made it feel like a company asset, not a personal project. And when the VP saw that, he saw someone thinking at an organizational level. Luna: That's key. The language of ownership but not self-promotion. It's 'this is for us,' not 'look what I did.' Lucas: Exactly. And then she presented it with metrics: how much time it could save in onboarding, how it could reduce error rates. She estimated that standardizing on the playbook could cut ramp-up time by about 40 percent. That's a number leaders care about. Luna: So the playbook itself is the artifact, but the real value is the process of building it — the interviews, the synthesis, the presentation. That's what shows promotability. Lucas: Right. And I want to be clear: this doesn't have to be a 40-page document. It could be a wiki page, a video series, a flowchart. The format matters less than the fact that you identified a knowledge gap and closed it in a way that's reusable. Luna: What about timing? When is it too early or too late to start something like this? Lucas: Too early is when you haven't yet learned the process yourself. You need to be an expert in it, or at least very competent, before you document it. Otherwise you'll get things wrong and lose credibility. Too late is when the company has already decided to replace that process with a new system or when someone else has already done it. Luna: So the sweet spot is when you know the process inside out, but it's still a mess. Lucas: Exactly. And the other risk is doing it in a way that feels threatening to your peers. If you document someone else's job and imply you could do it better, you'll make enemies. The framing has to be 'this helps all of us,' not 'I'm better than you.' Luna: That's a trap I could see someone falling into. 'I'm going to document how you do your job because you're doing it wrong.' That's not a playbook; that's a performance review. Lucas: Right. So the playbook should be about the process, not about the people. And ideally, you collaborate with the people who own the process. That way they're allies, not adversaries. Luna: Let's talk about the promotion itself. In this story, she became a team lead. Do you think the playbook alone was enough, or were there other factors? Lucas: I think the playbook was the catalyst, but not the whole story. She had a reputation for being reliable, she had tenure, and her manager knew she was competent. The playbook was the evidence that she could operate at the next level. It turned an abstract 'she's good' into a concrete 'she built something that impacted the whole department.' Luna: So it's about making your invisible work visible. I think that's especially important in remote or hybrid setups where you can't just walk by someone's desk and get noticed. Lucas: Absolutely. In a remote environment, written documentation is even more powerful because it's persistent. A playbook lives on the shared drive and gets used by people you've never met. Your name is on it every time someone opens it. That's a form of passive visibility that's hard to get otherwise. Luna: And it positions you as a subject matter expert. People start coming to you with questions. That's a reputation builder. Lucas: Exactly. So the playbook strategy works for almost any role where there's a process that can be codified. Customer support, project management, compliance, engineering. I've seen it work in marketing too — someone documented the campaign launch process and became the go-to person for new hires. Luna: What about the risk that your playbook gets used but you don't get credit? Like someone else takes it and runs with it. Lucas: That's a real risk. But you mitigate it by making sure your name is on it, and by presenting it to leadership directly before it gets disseminated. In this story, she presented to the VP before it was rolled out. That created a direct association between her and the asset. Luna: So the presentation is as important as the document itself. Lucas: Exactly. And you want to present it in a way that invites feedback and iteration. That makes it a living document, not a one-time thing. If you treat it as version 1.0, you're signaling that you plan to maintain it, which is a leadership behavior. Luna: I think that's a great angle for anyone who's feeling stuck in a quiet role. It's actionable, it's low-risk, and it builds skills you can use anywhere. Lucas: And honestly, if this episode helped you think about a process you could document, that's the kind of thing that makes the show worth supporting. We keep it ad-free, and listener support is what makes that possible. If it was worth a coffee to you, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that makes a big difference for us. And we appreciate it. Lucas: So to wrap up: pick a painful but alive process, interview the stakeholders, frame it as a company asset, present it to leadership with metrics, and treat it as version 1.0. That's the playbook for getting promoted with a playbook. Luna: And if you do it right, you're not just getting promoted — you're leaving the place better than you found it. Lucas: That's the best kind of career move. See you next time.