Being Your Own Best Advocate – Awards Edition

Being Your Own Best Advocate – Awards Edition

I will say it loud and clear up front, NO ONE WILL EVER CARE MORE ABOUT YOUR CAREER THAN YOU… and nor should they.  If you want to be successful, you have to care about that success, and put in the effort to achieve it.  It also means that, sometimes, you have to advocate on your own behalf.  Self-advocacy can be especially difficult for those who value humility; few of us want to be considered braggarts or self-aggrandizers.  As my late grandfather was fond of saying, “Don’t say you’re good, know you’re good.”

The truth is though, you have to sometimes say that you are good, or no one will know.  This is particularly true within bureaucracies, like the military.  There is nothing wrong with professionally mentioning what you have done and achieved.  You can then let others judge the value of those accomplishments, but they need to be aware of them first.

To illustrate the above, I am going to share a sea story.  I was lucky enough to receive the 2020 Taylor and 2019 Layton awards (sorry for the brag).  In both cases, I kept an eye out for the messages to be released.  Once they had, I approached my CAG and DCAG to ask if they would submit me for the awards.  They agreed to do, so I drafted both packages, had them reviewed by third parties, and then shepherded them through the admin process, including CAG’s signature and final submission.

Had I not kept an eye out for the announcements, no one in my chain of command would have told me.  Had I not approached CAG and DCAG, they would not have known the awards even existed.  The final drafts of the awards I handed CAG for signature required no further editing and were the exact write-ups that went to the boards.  At every step, I took an active role in advocating for myself.  Had I not, I would not have received either award.

Some the readers may still consider my actions to be shameless self-promotion and maybe it was, but again, I had an almost zero chance of the same outcome without the self-promotion.

Key points:

- While humility is a noble trait, there is nothing wrong with highlighting your performance, especially when asked to do so (e.g., submitting a brag sheet).  If you fail to advocate for yourself, do not be surprised when you fail.

- Take the time to educate yourself on what opportunities are available.  This can include everything from the Naval Intelligence community’s annual awards to fellowships to screened positions.  Do not expect this information to fall into your lap, but rather seek it out. 

- When drafting an award package, FITREP, brag sheet, or anything else, your goal should be that it be so good that it requires no further editing.  One reason for this is that sometimes no one will edit, whether it needs it or not.  Second, this is about you.  No one should be able to brag about you better than you. 

-- Always, always, always solicit third party reviews before sending them up your chain.  Getting a second, third, fourth, etc. set of eyes on a product can really make a huge difference.  Use your friends, peers, and mentors, including me, to help.

McFly 

This post first appeared in my "Mentorship Via Email" blog on MilSuite on 15 December, 2021.  https://www.milsuite.mil/book/people/jay.p.mcvann

The opinions expressed in this email/post are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of PERS-473 (INTEL), Joint Staff, United States Navy, Department of Defense, or United States government.