4 Excel Skills That Got Me Noticed by Senior Management (Excel Personality Week Special)
Last week, our brilliant marketing intern ran "Excel Personality Week" - helping people discover whether they're a Quick Fixer, Organiser, Engineer, or Reporter.
It got me thinking about my own Excel journey, specifically the 4 skills I learned during my apprenticeship that completely changed how senior management saw me.
Looking back, I realise I naturally developed skills that aligned with each of these personality types.
As a Quick Fixer, I learned to eliminate repetitive copy-paste work.
My inner Engineer pushed me to master complex formulas like the LET function.
The Organiser in me finally tackled my chaotic tab hoarding.
And channelling my Reporter side, I automated manual reporting processes.
Each of these wasn't just a technical skill - they were moments where I embodied a different Excel personality, and senior management took notice.
Here's what I learned from embracing each one...
The Quick Fixer: Eliminating Copy-Paste
Everyone seemed to have a very strange obsession with using copy-paste for everything.
Need data from one sheet to another? Copy-paste.
Monthly report updates? Copy-paste everything manually.
They thought they were being efficient. But being busy isn’t necessarily productive.
They might be doing a lot of work, but is it productive work?
The Lookup Formula Revolution
My first breakthrough came when I discovered Index-Match (sorry for you VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP fans, this is the best one). Suddenly, instead of copying data between sheets, I could just reference it automatically.
But the real game-changer was learning IF statements and combining them with lookups. Now I wasn't just copying data - I was making it intelligent.
Instead of manually checking if a client was "Active" or "Inactive" and typing it in or scrolling through the data, my formulas did the thinking for me.
From Tasks to Workflows
The Quick Fixer in me wasn't satisfied with just improving individual tasks. I wanted to eliminate entire workflows.
That's when I discovered macros and VBA. This meant I could take the 2 hours of repetitive copying and formatting to be a 30-second macro after clicking a button.
The Recognition Factor
The more I eliminated copy-paste work, the more people wanted me to look at their processes.
"Dillon fixed my monthly report - can you look at our inventory tracking?"
"Dillon automated our client updates - what about our project timelines?"
Each Quick Fix led to introductions to other departments. Each automation opened doors to new challenges.
The Quick Fixer Mindset
If you're naturally a Quick Fixer, you see repetitive work as a puzzle to solve, not a task to endure.
You don't just accept "that's how we've always done it" - you ask "how can we do this better?"
And senior management notices when someone consistently finds ways to work smarter, not harder.
That means even though I was “just an apprentice”, I become really valuable to the team and in-turn I got a lot out of extra learning opportunities.
The Engineer: Learning the LET Function
When I first came across the LET function, I genuinely felt like it was made for me.
I was someone who built long, complex formulas. I'm talking formulas so long that I discovered there's actually a character limit in Excel's formula bar (8,192 characters in-case you were wondering).
But my Engineer brain loved the complexity.
The more nested IFs, the more VLOOKUP combinations, the more satisfied I felt when it finally worked.
The Problem with Complex Formulas
However, a difficult realisation for me was: Just because you can build a formula that works doesn't mean you should.
My formulas looked like digital spaghetti.
They worked, but good luck explaining them to anyone else. Including future me, trying to debug them six months later.
I'd spend hours building these masterpieces, only to realise I couldn't remember how they worked when something inevitably broke.
The LET Function Game-Changer
Then I discovered LET, and I’m not kidding when I say everything changed.
Instead of one massive formula with seventeen nested functions, I could break it down into logical variables.
Each step had a name, a purpose, and a clear function.
Suddenly, my formulas weren't just functional - they were readable. Not just by me, but by anyone who needed to understand or modify them later.
The Handover Test
The real test came when I had to hand over my work to someone else.
With my old complex formulas, I'd have to sit down and walk them through every nested function, every reference, every logical step. It was painful for both of us.
With LET functions, they could actually follow the logic. They could see what each variable represented, understand the flow, and even suggest improvements.
The Engineer's Evolution
Being an Engineer isn't just about building complex solutions - it's about building elegant ones.
The LET function taught me that the best engineering isn't showing off how complicated you can make something. It's making complex problems simple for everyone else to understand.
And senior management definitely notices when your solutions don't require a PhD to maintain or have a single point of failure - aka YOU!
The Organiser: Stopped Tab Hoarding
I'll be honest - my spreadsheets used to be an absolute mess.
Every file had "Sheet1", "Sheet1 (2)", "Copy of Sheet1", "Sheet1 - WORKING", and my personal favourite: "Sheet1 - FINAL - ACTUAL FINAL - USE THIS ONE".
I thought I was being organised by keeping different versions.
In reality, I was creating chaos.
The Tab Naming Wake-Up Call
The wake-up call came when a colleague asked me to explain one of my files.
I spent 10 minutes just trying to find the right data because I couldn't remember which tab contained what.
That's when I realised: if I can't navigate my own work, how can I expect anyone else to?
The Simple Solution
The fix was embarrassingly simple: clearly label what-is-what.
Instead of "Sheet1", I started using "Raw Data", "Calculations", "Summary", "Dashboard".
Instead of keeping multiple versions in one file, I learned proper version control and file naming conventions.
Stop hunting for data and wasting time became my new motto.
The Design Bonus
But here's where The Organiser in me really came alive: I started looking at website and app UI/UX design to create proper hierarchy, colours, and better designed reports than others.
If the data was the same, but mine was easier to interpret because it wasn't plain text or ridiculously bright colours - I would be noticed.
And I was right.
The Professional Impact
Senior management started using my reports as templates.
Other departments asked if I could "make theirs look like Dillon's".
It wasn't that my data was better - it was that my presentation made the data accessible and professional.
The Organiser's Advantage
Being an Organiser isn't about being obsessively neat - it's about making information accessible.
When your work is easy to navigate, easy to understand, and easy on the eyes, people notice.
And when senior management can quickly find what they need in your reports, they start coming to you first.
The Reporter: Stop Manual Reporting
It amazed me how many people just did the reports manually because "that's how they'd always done it."
Every week, the same ritual: copy data from multiple sources, paste it into a template (at least they had that), manually calculate totals, format everything, check for errors, then do it all again next month.
I watched people spend entire days on reports that should have taken minutes.
The Management Perspective
Here's what I learned: management care about optimising time spent.
If their managers on higher wages are doing data entry instead of analysis, that's a waste of money and talent.
When I saw someone earning £40,000 a year spending two days a month on manual data compilation, I saw £667 of wasted salary. Every single month.
The Automation Opportunity
So I started automating their reports.
Instead of manual data entry, I built connections that pulled information automatically.
Instead of manual calculations, I created formulas that updated themselves.
Instead of manual formatting, I designed templates that applied consistent styling.
What used to take them 2 days now took 30 minutes - and most of that was just reviewing the results.
The Insight Factor
When people aren't spending their time on data entry, they can focus on what the data actually means.
Instead of "How do I get this number?" they started asking "What does this number tell us?"
Instead of being data compilers, they became data analysts.
And senior management definitely noticed the difference.
The Reporter's Value
Being a Reporter isn't just about creating reports - it's about creating insights.
When you automate the boring stuff, you free people up to do the thinking that actually adds value to the business.
And when senior management sees someone who can turn data drudgery into strategic insights, that person becomes indispensable.
That's how an apprentice becomes essential to the team - by making everyone else more valuable too.
The Excel Personality Revelation
Looking back at my apprenticeship journey, I realise something interesting: I didn't just learn Excel skills - I discovered different sides of my Excel personality.
Some days I was The Quick Fixer, eliminating copy-paste chaos.
Other days I channelled The Engineer, building elegant LET function solutions.
My inner Organiser transformed messy spreadsheets into professional templates.
And The Reporter in me automated manual drudgery into strategic insights.
The Real Secret
What I leant is that the most valuable people aren't those who excel at just one Excel personality - they're the ones who can adapt their approach to what the situation needs.
Sometimes your business needs quick fixes.
Sometimes it needs elegant engineering.
Sometimes it needs better organisation.
And sometimes it needs automated reporting.
Which Excel Personality Are You?
If you took part in our Excel Personality Week, you probably discovered your dominant type.
But here's the thing: every business problem requires a different personality approach.
The key isn't being locked into one personality - it's knowing when to channel each one.
Ready to Develop All Four Personalities?
Whether you're naturally a Quick Fixer, Organiser, Engineer, or Reporter, there's always room to develop the other sides of your Excel personality.
I offer a free "Let's Explore" consultation where we can discuss which Excel personality your business needs most right now, and how to develop the skills that will get you noticed by senior management.
No obligation, no sales pitch - just practical advice about growing your Excel capabilities across all four personality types.
Because the most valuable team members aren't just good at Excel - they're adaptable problem-solvers who can tackle any challenge.
Ready to unlock all four Excel personalities?
📧 Email: info@OfficeMango.co.uk
🗓️ Book directly: Let's Explore Consultation
Your apprenticeship in Excel mastery starts with understanding which personality to channel when.
Here is the original LinkedIn post as well that the blog is based on: