Being a creative marketing professional who actually gets to create is harder than you think, especially when it comes to moving your career forward. Not all of us want to be managers or executives, but we all want to thrive in our chosen field. Throughout this series, “Career Advancement Lessons from Star Trek,” I want to help writers, designers, developers, and other practitioners learn how to speak up for themselves and their craft. Our goal? To do remarkable work worthy of respect and recognition in the workplace.

The Character

“I didn’t notice a little box on my chair!” (“Unimatrix Zero, Part 1” – Voyager Season 6, Episode 26)

If you thought Ensign Boimler was a goody two-shoes on Lower Decks, then you never watched Ensign Harry Kim on Voyager. His entire schtick for the show’s seven-season run that he never got promoted, no matter what he did. And he did a lot. What was supposed to be a short first mission for himself and the newly christened ship ended up taking seven years to travel the 70,000 light years back to Earth from deep in the Delta Quadrant. He officially served as the operations officer, but his overall skills and intelligence saw him regularly solving problems across the Sciences and Engineering.

The ambitious only child of highly driven parents, he excelled at Starfleet Academy, eventually becoming the valedictorian of his graduating class. His strong internal drive to succeed meant that he cross-trained across multiple disciplines and fields of study. The more he knew and could do, the greater his chances of getting noticed and eventually promoted. Like all classic overachievers, he was a people-pleaser who often overextended himself across too many projects because he determined his worth by how others regarded his work. Harry Kim liked working and helping others because he was a good person, but he also needed a LOT of external validation.

To be clear, Star Trek has regularly featured this sort of character – an exceptional wunderkind who’s also very naïve. While they do serve as a foil for more experienced crew members (“Do we have to listen to this young whippersnapper?”), they’re also more of a focal point for the audience, as they learn about how the ship and mission works right along with this brand-new crew member. The difference with Harry Kim is that spent seven seasons being highly competent but rarely appreciated, especially within the traditional means and methods.

If you are even remotely interested in career development, then you’ve been a Harry Kim at some point in your life. The real question is: Are you still one, or has his naïve optimism been rung out of you by the drudgeries of daily life in 21^st century marketing? While it’s probably the latter for far too many of us, the fact that we’re still in the industry makes me think that you probably still believe that you hold onto hope that your effort, energy, and ideas will someday bear fruit. That is the “Harry Kim Conundrum” – It’s good to stay upbeat, even in the face of struggle, but that positive enthusiasm could prevent you from recognizing the reality of the situation.

The Challenge

Ensign Kim believed in the promise of Starfleet, both the high-minded one about exploration and bringing together disparate civilizations across the galaxy and the one that said he could become a captain if he worked hard enough. The problem? Voyager was FAR away from Earth, thanks to the literal plot device in the first episode that set the stakes for the show. Unlike regular starships, that crew couldn’t apply for promotions, inter-ship transfers, or intra-ship reassignments to advance their careers. They were all alone.

While never explicitly stated on camera by any of the characters, the show’s producers made it known that there always needs to be an ensign. The problem with that approach is that Ensign Kim was a main character who was highly involved in day-to-day ship operations. While it makes in-universe sense that a ship needs lower-ranking officers to do the everyday work (just like the characters on Lower Decks did), that logic flies in the face of precedents set on every prior Star Trek series. We saw lower-ranking officers – especially important ones to the plot – get promotions on a semi-regular basis.

But returning to the universe, the biggest challenge faced by Harry Kim was the senior staff, not that they didn’t support or appreciate him, but because they were there. Sure, he could have been promoted, and he definitely wanted to get promoted, but it would have been empty. He had nowhere to go. Unless a major character died (which only happened in the RAREST of circumstances), he was stuck in his role. For a motivated officer like him, that was more frustrating than anything. You can only do so many special projects for your boss before you feel like you’re spinning your wheels. So, while the big picture trial for the entire crew was getting back home to Earth from the depths of the Delta Quadrant, he probably felt lots of day-to-day drudgery just trying to keep the ship together.

Many of us have faced a challenge much like Harry’s – minus, you know, possibly dying on a spaceship on the other side of the galaxy.  People experience a lack of upward mobility at both small companies and large ones, and it stinks. All it takes is one weird situation for your career to feel stuck, no matter the quality of your work or the character of your team. Much like Harry, your department could all work well together toward a common goal and succeed despite awful odds, but no one will get a promotion, much less a raise. And that can be discouraging, because it goes against what we’re told in school and throughout Western culture: If you work hard and apply yourself, you’ll get ahead. Overcoming such frustrations while keeping your head up is harder than it looks.

The Chance

Like many people who need the approval of others, Harry Kim regularly sought out time with senior officers. Which made total sense. He understandably wanted to get better at his job. He wanted to succeed in Starfleet and get that captain’s chair, like his heroes before him. But it also didn’t take him too long to get frustrated with the lack of promotion opportunities. All the normal avenues he’d been promised at the Academy disappeared the second that Voyager arrived in the Delta Quadrant.

But that didn’t stop Ensign Kim. He keenly balanced his subconscious need to be a rule-follower with his desire to advance his career, no matter the obstacles.  Like all good self-motivated high achievers, he knew that he had to make his own way and to look for his own opportunities. If he wasn’t going to get promoted, he would still do everything he could to make the best of a bad situation. Keeping that optimism alive was one of the most low-key charming parts of his personality on the show, even though it could be annoying at times. He pushed himself to learn new things, even when stuck on the other side of the galaxy without any hope of promotion.

Sometimes, you must make your own chances. You need to place big bets on yourself. You trust your skills and abilities. To be sure, we aren’t talking about unbridled overconfidence where you think you deserve the raise or promotion because you’re due or because it’s expected. We’re talking about shaping your clear ideas, ample training, and proven experience into a unified whole that convinces your boss that you’re ready for the next step – no matter the situation. No one can do this for you, no matter how supportive your direct manager might be. You have to want it, and you have to pursue it.

The Choice

Halfway through the show, Ensign Kim approached Captain Janeway with an idea. If couldn’t get promoted on the ship, he wanted some command experience that would benefit him when Voyager did return to Earth. On top of his other responsibilities, he asked to serve as the overnight Bridge Officer while most of the crew slept. He knew this would be a big request – there were actual command track officers assigned to that role, while he worked in the operations division.

But in the immortal words of Shea Serrano, “Shoot your shot.” Kim didn’t have anything to lose. Sure, Janeway could say, “No, Harry. You’re too busy with other work, and I need to keep you fresh for the job you were trained to do,” but that response was worth the risk to him. And it paid off. He regularly began working assigned shifts with the overnight crew so that he could learn the rudiments of command. He made the choice to bet on himself and his skills, but he could do so because he’d built a strong working relationship with the senior staff.

To succeed like Harry takes a two-pronged approach that’s perfect for the driven among us but possibly kryptonite for us people-pleasers. On one hand, it’s easy to have big dreams and bigger ambitions because you know what needs to happen for you and the team to succeed. But on the other hand, you also don’t like being pushy, as you prefer for people to like you because you always do a good job.

First, you must learn how to speak with senior leaders. They are humans, just like you – at least the good ones. You can’t be afraid of them, as if someone will fire you for speaking out of turn in a meeting.  In fact, some of them might actually want to help younger team members, whether as an informal sounding board for ideas or in a formal mentorship capacity. They’ve been where you are, and they can teach you a few things, if you’re willing to listen and learn.

Second, you need to be willing to stand out – not your personality (though that’s part of it), but your ideas. As we’ve discussed with earlier ensigns, doing the work often isn’t enough to help you get ahead in your career.  Sometimes, you need to talk in meetings, knowing that you might have to defend what you’ve said and that you might be wrong. But if you can be wrong with professionalism and integrity, you will be noticed. And when you’re right about something in the next meeting, people will listen to you because they remember you from earlier meetings.

Is this a call to talk in every meeting? No. It’s not about seeking attention. It’s about knowing your voice and your worth. It’s about trusting yourself when you have ideas and connecting with senior leaders who want to cultivate junior leaders. Captain Janeway eventually trusted Ensign Kim with many jobs, tasks, roles, and away missions because he earned that trust through hard work and thoughtful conversations. He might have started his career on Voyager as a meek and mild brownnoser, but seven years later, he had proved his worth many times over – complete with promotions, awards, and accolades when the ship got back to Earth.

Header image courtesy of Star Trek.com.