Example
What a report looks like
This is Otto's, and it's addressed to Otto — the report is written to the person it's about, so you're reading it over his shoulder.
Otto is a junior developer eighteen months into a workspace running kudoSnap. Nobody but Otto can open his own report — the names below are visible to him and to nobody else, which is the whole thing he'd be paying for.
Otto Otter
Strength Report · 18 months in
Example — invented data, and a surface we haven't built yet
What eighteen months of this adds up to
Your coworkers bring you the team's unsolved things.
Not the finished things, and not the decisions — the unresolved ones. When something is tangled enough that nobody can describe it yet, your name is what comes up. That is the clearest pattern in eighteen months of what your coworkers have said, and it has been true for long enough now that it is a role rather than a run of luck.
What sits under it is a particular combination. You read around things before anyone asks you to, and you notice the detail other people walked past. Either one on its own is common enough. Together they make you the person it is worth checking with early — and that is what your coworkers have been telling you, in the only vocabulary the app gives them.
The third thing is quieter and it may be the one you undersell most. People consistently say you turn up when they are stuck. Not that you are pleasant to work with — that you arrive. It comes from more separate people than anything else anyone says about you, which makes it the least deniable thing on this report.
So the short version: you are read as someone who makes problems legible, and who shows up. Neither of those was in your job description.
This is how the people around you see you, which is not the same as what you are like. It is one workspace, one stretch of time, and the particular set of coworkers who happened to share a channel with you. Somebody else's eighteen months would have produced a different page.
Worth noticing which paragraph above made you pause. That's the part you didn't already know.
The three things it keeps coming back to
The Spark · Your primary archetype
You are one experiment ahead of yesterday. Ideas start moving when you are in the room.
Your largest, and your earliest — it was most of what people said about you early on, before anything else caught up. It is also the one you are least likely to count as a skill, because reading about something before anyone asks you to has never felt like effort.
The Lantern
You light up the detail hiding in the dark. Your coworkers trust what you have looked at.
This one arrived later than the others and grew fastest. Several separate people have picked you for the reviewing question specifically — somewhere along the way you became the last check before things go out, and nobody made that official or mentioned it.
The Bridge
You are the way across. When someone is stuck, you are already there.
The most widely held of your three — it comes from more separate people than anything else you hold. That distinction matters: this is not two teammates who enjoy working with you, it is something most of the room arrived at independently.
Why three, and why they can change
You hold three because three is the most anyone holds. Several other facets have enough behind them to turn over, and which three are showing is recalculated every time this page renders — so this is a reading of where you are, not a permanent set. Nothing announces it when the order changes.
“Primary archetype” means the strongest of the three right now. It is a way of describing what people keep saying, not a type you have been assigned, and it is not a validated psychometric of anything.
Small things to try, given all that
Six moments you will meet again this month. None of these are corrections — they are things you already do, done on purpose and slightly earlier, plus one that is about doing less of one of them.
If you only take one: the fourth. It is the only one that changes how the work reaches you rather than how you handle it once it has.
In a meeting
Say the tangled thing out loud before you solve it.
You untangle faster than the room does, so by the time you speak you have often skipped the part that would have helped everyone else follow.
You'll know because Somebody writes down your framing rather than your answer.
Starting something new
Ask for the first few days to read around it, out loud, in the plan.
You do this anyway and usually on your own time. Said at the start it becomes part of the work instead of something you squeeze in — and people already expect it of you.
You'll know because It appears in the plan as a line item with your name on it.
Finishing something
Write the two-paragraph version and post it in the channel.
People say you make hard things make sense, and then most of what you finish ships as a link with no explanation. The summary is the part that travels.
You'll know because Someone who wasn't in the thread replies to it.
When somebody brings you the tangle
Ask them what they'd need in order to bring you the decision too.
The problem comes to you and the call gets made elsewhere. That is a fact about how the work is routed, and the people routing it have never been asked about it.
You'll know because The next time, they bring you both — or they tell you plainly why they can't.
When your week is already full
Say when the interrupt desk is closed, and put it in writing.
Being the person who turns up when others are stuck is the most widely held opinion about you. It also arrives unplanned, in the middle of your own work, and nobody is counting those hours except you.
You'll know because Somebody waits until the afternoon instead of asking at eleven.
In your next conversation about your role
Take this language with you and use it as written.
Two of the things you are relied on for — the tangle desk, and the last read before things ship — are not in your job description. That is a gap in the description, not in you, and you are the only person in the room who can point at it.
You'll know because The words “last check before it goes out” end up in somebody else's mouth.
One thing worth knowing: this report is private, but you're not sworn to secrecy. Nobody else can open it — and nothing stops you telling a coworker what it says, or asking one of them what they meant.
Where it all landed
Always Learning
41
votes, from 18 different coworkers
Sharp Eye
36
votes, from 11 different coworkers
First to Help
30
votes, from 19 different coworkers
Read the second number, not the first. Sharp Eye is 36 votes from 11 people; First to Help is fewer votes from 19. The second is the more widely held opinion, and the count alone would have told you the opposite.
Every facet, with its numbers
Delivery
38 votes · 21 coworkers
- Execution17 · 11p
- Tough Calls2 · 2p
- Untangling19 · 12p
Thinking
90 votes · 31 coworkers
- Sharp Eye36 · 11p
- Big Picture13 · 9p
- Always Learning41 · 18p
Connection
60 votes · 28 coworkers
- Making It Clear22 · 14p
- First to Help30 · 19p
- Getting Alignment8 · 6p
Multiplier
27 votes · 16 coworkers
- Feedback That Lands9 · 6p
- Making Room6 · 5p
- Level Head12 · 8p
Wildcards — 24 votes, which belong to no facet and are on their own tab.
Wildcards — 24 votes, which belong to no facet and are on their own tab.
What a low number here does and doesn't mean
Two facets are quiet: Tough Calls and Making Room. Neither is a finding about you, and the data cannot make it one — every question the app asks is about who is good at something, so there is no way for anybody to have said you are weak at deciding. A low number means the question came up and somebody else came to mind, or that it did not come up much.
One more caution, because it is the honest one: which facets you appear tallest in depends partly on which questions your coworkers happened to be asked. Two people with identical bars can have quite different underlying rates. Read the broad shape, not the ordering.
Who sees what in you
Four people account for a third of everything said about you, and each of them is picking you for something different. This is the most surprising table on the report for most people.
- Kira KoalaData Analyst28almost always for Sharp Eye
- Felix FoxSenior Engineer24almost always for First to Help
- Barry BearingtonBackend Engineer19almost always for Untangling
- Oliver OctopusProduct Designer16almost always for Always Learning
And 30 more people besides. The pattern worth sitting with: the coworker who has said the most about you is not the one who sees the thing most other people see. Kira has a very specific read on you. Nineteen other people have a different one.
Where you already have most of something
Not gaps — adjacencies. These are places where the things people already say about you sit next to something you are most of the way to being known for anyway.
Explaining is the shortest step from where you already stand.
People say you notice the thing others missed, and separately that you make hard things make sense. Those are close neighbours — noticing is most of explaining, and the only part nobody has asked you for is the writing down. It is the least new thing on this list.
You are already trusted with the problem. You are not asked for the call.
The tangle comes to you and then the decision happens somewhere else. Nothing here says you would decide badly — it says the question has not been put to you. That is the difference between being trusted and being invited, and being invited is partly about asking. Barry has brought you the broken thing more than anyone. He is the one to ask.
The steady thing is nearly a pattern.
A handful of people have said you keep your head when things go wrong. It is not a card and it does not need to become one. It is worth knowing it is there, because it tends to be what people remember about someone long after they have forgotten what they shipped.
The pattern that is about your job, not about you
Your recognition crosses four functions. Design, data, backend and people ops have all picked you.
Most people's recognition comes overwhelmingly from one function. Yours doesn't, and there is usually one reason for that: somebody is doing work that spans more than their title says. Four separate teams have learned to bring you things.
That is a fact about how your company is organised rather than a fact about you, and it is the one thing on this report that nobody but you is in a position to raise.
One smaller thing we noticed
- Nobody has said the same thing twice in a row. Across your repeat voters, almost every pair spans more than one facet. People are not picking you out of habit; they are picking you for different reasons on different days.
The ones that count for nothing
About one question in ten is a wildcard. They feed no facet, shape no card, and go nowhere near anything above. You have won 24 of them, which is a slightly absurd number and we thought you should know.
- Who makes Slack threads actually fun to read?×7
- Who gives the best snack recommendations?×6
- Who would you want next to you in a zombie apocalypse?×5
- Who has the most infectious laugh?×4
- Who would you road-trip cross-country with?×2
Seven people independently think you are the reason a Slack thread is worth reading. Make of that what you will.
These exist because a fortnight of nothing but competence is a long fortnight. They are also the only votes on this report that mean nothing at all, which is its own kind of relief.
The whole log, newest first
Every recognition you have ever received, with the name of the person who sent it and the question it came from. This is the part you cannot get anywhere else and cannot reconstruct — the DMs arrived unsigned.
Kira Koala said you notice the detail nobody else catches.
14 Jan · Sharp Eye · “Who notices the detail nobody else caught?”
Barry Bearington said you're the best brainstorm partner.
9 Jan · Always Learning · “Who's the best brainstorm partner?”
Felix Fox said you're the first to help when someone's stuck.
3 Jan · First to Help · “Who's the first to help when someone's stuck?”
Oliver Octopus said you're the person they want reviewing things before they go out.
19 Dec · Sharp Eye · “Who's the person you want reviewing it before it goes out?”
Penny Penguin said you're the first to try something new.
11 Dec · Always Learning · “Who's the first to try something new?”
Kira Koala said you write the clearest documentation.
6 Dec · Making It Clear · “Who writes the clearest docs?”
Francesca Frog said you're the first to help when someone's stuck.
28 Nov · First to Help · “Who's the first to help when someone's stuck?”
Barry Bearington said you're who they go to when something's broken.
21 Nov · Untangling · “Who do you go to when something's broken and nobody knows why?”
Gary Giraffe said you've somehow always already read about it.
14 Nov · Always Learning · “Who's somehow always already read about it?”
Kira Koala said they trust your work without double-checking it.
7 Nov · Sharp Eye · “Whose work do you trust without double-checking?”
Felix Fox said you take things from almost done to actually done.
31 Oct · Execution · “Who takes it from almost done to actually done?”
Oliver Octopus said you draw the picture that makes it make sense.
24 Oct · Making It Clear · “Who draws the picture that makes it make sense?”
Penny Penguin said you keep your cool under pressure.
17 Oct · Level Head · “Who keeps their cool under pressure?”
Francesca Frog said you spot what people are great at before they do.
10 Oct · Feedback That Lands · “Who spots what you're great at before you do?”
14 of 239 shown here. The real one goes back to your first week.
What's real on that page, and what isn't
Real: the twelve facets, the cards and the sentences under them, the questions, and the way a recognition reads when you open it. Every one of those strings is the one the product actually sends — the cards page and the full question list show the same ones.
Invented: Otto, his coworkers and all of his numbers. Nobody's real report was used to make this, because we can't see one.
Not built yet: the report itself. The counts and the cards are live in Slack today; the written summary and the full log with names are what the one-time fee will cover, and they don't exist yet. That's why the plan is marked coming soon rather than sold.