Career Success: Focus primarily on making everyone around you succeed

He makes a key point in the FAQ section:

"Q: So when am I supposed to do my own job?

Answer: First, remember that your job, like all others, sits within a network of jobs - the output of others jobs is required for you to be able to do yours, while the output of your job is used as an input into other peoples' work.

Second, this focus-on-others'-success can be defined broadly: other people require you to do your job well so that they can use your output to do theirs well, so one basic requirement of ensuring the success of those around you is to make sure you do your own job well! See that guy over there next to you? Is he writing some code or working on some project that you're going to be dependent on? If he screws up, it's going to mess you up, right? Well, think about your own project - if you totally botch it, aren't there other people who are also depending on you to do it well and if you don't, their success will be inhibited? Well, don't let them down! Do your job well!"

It's been posted before https://hn.algolia.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Falgeri-wong.com%2Fyis... but I came across it again after curating it in 2011 and was impressed by Yishan Wong's fundamental insights.

> Won't others get all the credit and recognition if I do this?

He dismisses this, but I've experienced this. In my first job, I wrote a lot of automation that improved the turnaround time to process units. In the annual review, it was made clear to me that I need to distinguish myself from the others, and so if I made everyone go faster, that didn't count.

My advice: If you're in such a job, leave.