Humblebragging

This week’s buzzword that caught my attention is: humblebragging. It's mainly an online phenomenon or a social media one to be more specific.

Apparently there's two ways to do it in a work context:

1. Publicly thank your team.

Hopefully it does actually make the team feel good, who doesn't like to see their name in 'print'? But this has a double benefit for the poster, as they are in effect trumpeting themselves and showing what a great manager they are!

You know those business units in your company that do this kind of thing on the intranet - well now you know the name for what they are doing.

2. Make a fuss of your stakeholders.

While undoubtedly the poster is thanking and recognizing the stakeholders for their input and support, the poster is also bragging about how successful their project was.

The trick is not to do it too often or it just looks like, er, bragging.

The question is though... is it a necessary evil or unnecessary self-promotion?

I don't know, personally I only do it in my own annual or mid-year review, but that possibly never gets read by anyone other than me!

Being Irish/Australian makes it doubly hard though because we Irish just don't brag - for fear we'd be accused of "who do you think you are" or "far from that you were reared" aka humble, self-deprecating people.

While we Australians have the "tall poppy syndrome" where we don't talk about accomplishments, or even mention degrees after our names, lest we be cut down to size.

So I may never get the hang of it...