Do you know why, when it comes time to choose someone to promote, or to lead the plum, career-boosting projects, or take over those highly visible responsibilities, your superiors pick the same people over and over? You provide your customers with excellent service. You come to work early. You stay late. But, still, you seem to be passed over every time.

You call your boss all kinds of dirty names behind her back. Yet ironically, the fault is yours.

Don’t agree? Let’s look at a simple psychological factor that you’ve been missing in your career strategy, and how to fix it right away.

How To Make Pecan Leaf Tea
We recently purchased a home with a swimming pool shaded by a couple of gorgeous pecan trees. The pool was in beautiful shape when we bought the home. But by the time we moved in, the pool was… um… disgusting. We were beginning to wonder if something had crawled in there and drowned, but the pool was so murky we couldn’t see more than ¼ inch below the surface.

And dumping chemicals into it didn’t help (did you know chlorine powder bleaches out your clothes and hurts like hell when you breathe it in?). What I didn’t know (because I couldn’t see them) was that lurking on the bottom of the pool were mountains and mountains of pecan leaves, steeping in the water just like tea. Realizing this damned pool was going to be a lot of work, we got bids from about a dozen different pool companies.

Incredibly, even though our pool was beginning to smell, we couldn’t decide which pool company to use. Like deer caught in the headlights, we were frozen with indecision.

But one simple factor would have made it easy for us to decide, yet it eluded us completely.

It Wasn’t Price
We had the estimates piled up on the kitchen counter. One quote was as high as $500 a month for pool service, while another one was as low as $100. You’d think we would have simply chosen the cheapest quote. But we didn’t.

In fact, this cheaper quote just made us even more confused. We never could understand such a dramatic price difference for what was essentially the same job.

Why We Couldn't Decide
We were missing the Whole Story. Every single one of the pool companies provided us with numbers, but not one of them gave us a single reason to choose them. Any reason would have been better than none. And 10 reasons would have clinched the deal, even at a higher price.

This is one of the main reasons why careers falter. We fail to educate our superiors about the unique advantages of working with us.

Impossible Puzzles Have Missing Pieces
Our brains are very uncomfortable unless they know why. And if we aren’t given that information, we make something up that seems logical. The pool companies should have educated me on the quality of the chemicals they use, their comprehensive insurance policies, or even the guaranteed ugliness of the pool boys they would send out when my wife was home by herself. We were looking for anything to help us decide. But they left it up to us to try and figure out.

So Now Let’s Take A Look At Your Career
Suppose you work for me. If I recommend you for an open position in our company, I risk my reputation. If I give you more responsibilities, I risk my sanity. If I put you in charge of an important project in our department, I risk my own performance review.

In each case, how little do you think I would want to know about your skills and abilities before I choose you? Every piece of the puzzle is absolutely essential.

You have to do more than let your boss know you want to be chosen. You have to give her reason to choose you. Provide all the juicy details. We instinctively distrust people who tell us less. Even if we find the person likable, we are less inclined to make ourselves vulnerable to them if we are left to try and figure out why it is safe to do so.

Why Your Boss Plays It Safe
We never did choose one of the original 12 pool service bids. I found a receipt from the pool company that the previous owner had used. They knew the pool and its pecan leaf tea, so we just went with them. They were a known quantity.

That’s how it is where you work, as well. Telling the whole story eliminates a big hurdle called risk. The less your superiors know about you, the more likely they are to just stick with who they always choose. Even if you express your interest to your supervisor, they are likely to pass you over if you don’t tell the why they should choose you. When faced with this scenario, they resort to who they know—your co-workers who always get the plum projects.

If you haven't done so already: (That's a clue!)

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