Protect your job—or set yourself up for a promotion—by communicating your quantifiable on-the-job results at a moment’s notice. Warm up with this exercise:

Is it a problem when your boss takes credit for your ideas? Peter Handal, CEO of Dale Carnegie Training, says “no.” Making your boss look smart to higher-ups, says Handal, and having your boss depend on you for good suggestions—“is certainly not going to do you any harm.”

Janie used to wear a ponytail to work, along with scant makeup, khakis, sweaters and loafers. Then a “Power of Image” workshop changed how she presented herself. Now, when she shares her ideas with senior managers, they listen and buy in to what she’s saying.

One admin wrote: “Our company just reorganized and changed our job titles from administrative assistant to ‘office assistant.’ None of the job functions changed. I feel demoted. Should we go to our manager and speak to him about our displeasure or just be quiet and not say a thing?”

To stand out in a competitive work­­­­place, you have to do the work­a­day equivalent of juggling with fire—say, swooping in to save a crucial project just in the nick of time—while streamlining a dozen different processes and keeping your boss on schedule. Right? Actually, little things may make a disproportionately big impact.