A colleague recently asked me, "How should I ensure that my work and my contributions get visibility within the company? What new skills do I need to move ahead?" Put another way, how can one stand out and advance his or her career in an increasingly competitive economy?

I sat in an internal project meeting, frustrated at the lack of progress on a significant company initiative. Across the table was our head of application engineering, explaining why the project was behind schedule. Sure, they had worked on it here and there, but there were missing deadlines and had no plan to get back on track. 

"Can you at least give me a new date when it will be ready?" I asked. "Nope, sorry," he said. "We'll get to it when we can." Then he said something I'll never forget. "You see, it's not about actually completing things, it's about showing we're making progress." My jaw hit the floor. Really?