Early in my career, I thought delivering excellent work would be enough to advance.
I had solid experience, technical skills, and confidence in my abilities. What I didn’t anticipate was how difficult it would be to articulate exactly what made me valuable to leadership.
In those early years, I fell into what I now call the “generalist trap.”
When asked about my strengths in performance reviews, my response was vague: “I’m good at product management, managing developers, charming customers… basically anything the department needs.” I thought versatility would be an asset. Instead, I was overlooked for key projects and leadership opportunities.
The turning point came after getting refreshingly honest feedback: “We know you’re capable, but we're not clear on your specific expertise, so we chose not to promote you.”
Ouch. That’s when I realized my positioning was essential for everyday career growth within my company.
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Expertise Doesn’t Equal Visibility
If you’re working within a company, you’re likely facing this same challenge. The paradox is frustrating: you have deep, valuable expertise, yet struggle to articulate it in a way that resonates with leadership and colleagues.
Traditional career advice rarely addresses this issue. In large organizations, your value is often assumed to be evident through your title or department. Your expertise develops organically through solving problems, but you rarely learn how to effectively position that expertise.
The most common positioning mistakes I see people make are:
- Being too broad (“I’m a good all-around team player”)
- Being too technical (“I implement normalized database structures with optimized query performance”)
- Focusing on tasks instead of impact (“I manage our weekly reporting process”)
The cost? Missed opportunities, lower visibility, and watching colleagues with clearer positioning get assigned to career-defining projects.
Where People Fall Short
Most professionals try to solve this through conventional approaches. They update their internal resume, adopt language from job descriptions, or mimic the communication style of senior leaders.
These methods can help, but they often fall short because they:
- Focus on generic skills rather than your unique expertise
- Emphasize corporate jargon over impact-centered language
- Fail to capture the methodology you’ve developed over years
The result is positioning that sounds professional but fails to differentiate you in a crowded landscape where everyone is competing for visibility and opportunity.
A Better Approach: AI-Enhanced Positioning
This is where generative AI tools come in. They excel at finding patterns in info and generating messaging variations—exactly what you need for powerful internal positioning.
Here’s the four-step process I now use:
- Experience mining: Use AI to extract your expertise from past projects and accomplishments
- Pattern recognition: Identify your unique problem-solving approach across different situations
- Stakeholder language analysis: Align your positioning with how leadership and key stakeholders describe their priorities
- Synthesis: Create a clear, compelling statement that communicates your unique value
The difference in results is dramatic. One of my coaching clients transformed from “I manage our data analytics processes” to “I help leadership make confident decisions by translating complex data into actionable insights that have improved operational efficiency by 22% across three departments.”
AI Prompts You Can Use Today
You don’t need technical expertise to implement this approach. Here's a specific AI prompt you can use with Claude or similar AI tools:
I’d like your help identifying patterns in my professional experience to develop stronger positioning within my organization. I’ll share details about 3-5 successful projects or accomplishments. For each:
* Identify the core business problem I solved
* Note my specific approach or methodology
* Highlight the measurable results achieved
* Extract any unique skills or insights demonstrated
After analyzing each experience, identify:
* Common themes across different projects
* My distinctive problem-solving approach
* The types of challenges where I create the most value for my organization
* The consistent results I deliver that align with organizational priorities
Here are my experiences: [Experience 1] [Experience 2] [Add more if needed]
Based on this analysis, suggest 2-3 potential positioning statements that capture my unique value to the organization and would resonate in performance reviews, project assignments, and promotion considerations.
Your Next Step
Positioning isn’t a one-time exercise but an iterative process that gets stronger with each project and interaction. Start with the prompt above, test your positioning with trusted colleagues, and refine based on their feedback.
If you’d like more AI guidance, I’ve created a complete library of AI implementation guides for professionals. Totally free. Access it here.
That's all for today, see you next week!
