Why I Built Measurent: A Founder’s Story of Professional Growth and Feedback

A Note from the Founder

I personally want to thank you for swinging by to say hello. It means a lot to me that you are here and I hope that I can be of help or service in some meaningful way in your amazing journey.

What's the Deal: Why Measurent Was Built

Ok, so here's the deal, I built Measurent for me. It's that simple. I am the customer. Persona numero uno; the first of many if you will. Ok, I'll stop. But seriously, the problems I've solved by building Measurent are problems I've personally experienced and overcome throughout my professional career.

The Lesson I Learned

You see, I'm a former member of the military and one of our mantras was "Quiet Professionalism". So as you can imagine, when I transitioned into the workforce, I kept that methodology. I worked very hard and believed that if you work hard, people will notice. This is not always the case, and as I found out over the years, self-advocacy is very important. Self-advocacy is all about recognizing your worth and ensuring others see it too. This was one of my biggest lessons, and as more of an introvert, I was outside my comfort zone.

Tracking Accomplishments: A Professional’s Journey

I'm also big on feedback. I got so much "growth" feedback as a Ranger in the 1st and 75th Ranger Regiment. At first I took it very personally, but after a while I realized that most of my growth feedback was to help me get better as a soldier. Strength feedback was great too, helping to reinforce the things I was doing well. As a professional though, depending on where I worked, feedback was delayed or non-existent. And, most of the time, it lived in software the company pays for, so I didn't even own my own feedback. After I moved jobs a couple times, I started to save my feedback, but that was a pain for me and I was not as organized as I could have been.

Tracking my accomplishments felt similar to gathering feedback from my colleagues and managers — except the tools I had were more about the company’s needs than my own professional success. The companies I worked for had internal project software and communications software, but it was all focused on the company, and was not geared toward my success as a working professional. Even if the company had some great HR software for reviews and 1:1's, it was more of a manager tool and again, was owned and controlled by the company.

I was managing okay. I had grown my career a little and was continuing to work hard, but then after a year of really killing it, I got my annual review.

The Straw and the Lesson: Advocating for Yourself

I had accomplished a lot that year. I launched some large software projects, received a title change, took on direct reports, was running a department meet-up, owned and improved the software hiring process, the list goes on and on. I was really feeling good about things.

My manager was great. I received a good review. I got a 3% raise.

"WHAT?!?"

I said thank you and appreciate it (remember, I subscribed to quiet professionalism), and went home. I went home feeling resentful. My manager was a good guy, he cared about me and was a good advocate. What happened? Why was my raise so small? It turns out that he didn't know all the things I had done.

Being a quiet professional was just not working for me, so I changed.

I took some time to dig through my emails, code commits, conversation history, and my poor memory to compose a 2 page word document that outlined in chronological order all of my accomplishments and things that happened that year that I was a part of. I asked for a meeting and my manager and I talked it all through. He said he would see what he could do.

I received a 10% raise later that week. I felt heard, valued and on top of the world.

This helped change my perspective on my professional career. I can be a quiet professional, but I need to advocate for myself and share my accomplishments with my manager and peers. I can do this in a professional way while still practicing humility and grace.

About Me: A Bit About Chris Campbell

My name is Chris Campbell. I have 3 kids and a lovely wife. In my free time, I train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and enjoy helping people grow their careers. I have plenty of stories to tell, and if one of them helps you along your journey, it was worth telling.