What it usually means
It usually means your reputation stops at your team. When your name comes up somewhere else, nobody in that room has a story about you.
It rarely means "be more sociable". It means a small number of specific people should know what you do.
What else it can mean
- The deciders do not know you. The people in the calibration or staffing meeting have never worked with you.
- You hear things last. Openings and changes reach you after they are settled.
- A style note. You are seen as heads-down, and it is being read as not interested.
What to find out first
Which three people outside your team would be asked about you before a decision. That is the list — not "the business".
What the research says, and where it stops
Among 448 employees, network position predicted salary and promotions — through sponsorship and through access to information.
Seibert, Kraimer & Liden 2001, Academy of Management Journal 44(2). Limit: Correlational.
In randomised experiments on LinkedIn, moderately weak ties passed on job opportunities more effectively than the strongest ties.
Rajkumar, Saint-Jacques, Bojinov, Brynjolfsson & Aral 2022, Science 377(6612). Limit: The authors say so first: this was about jobs at other firms, not moves inside one organisation. Adjacent evidence, not direct.
Which door
This is The Ladder — “I asked what's holding back my promotion. The answer is always vague.”
Read next
- The org chart is not the only map of how influence actually moves
- Why the right people do not know your name
Cite this page
Overlooked. “Build more relationships across the business.” — Feedback phrase decoder. https://beyondoverlooked.com/decoder/build-relationships/ (2026-09-26).