Isn’t it ironic that one of the best ways to accelerate your career is to have people see and recognise your effort – yet for many of us, when that happens, such as when we get praised by our team, our initial reaction is to deflect and minimise the contribution?

We say things like,“Oh, it’s not a big deal. It was easy,” or “It’s nothing,” when in fact, it was a big deal and it did take a lot of effort. Our curt response is even a surprise to our well-meaning colleagues.