If you don't understand the rules of the game, you won't win and you'll end up bitter and disappointed. So here they are:
1- Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle! If you look closely, you'll notice that many emails and slide decks touting major achievements are actually nothingburgers but they are presented with a lot of exaggeration as double bacon cheeseburgers!
2A- Quantity over quality all day long! Quantity is quick and easy to measure, quality is hard to measure and lack of quality takes a long time to surface. You won't be held accountable and besides you would have probably moved on to a better position by the time the problems show up because you completed an impressive amount of work (albeit shoddy work).
2B- Always go for the low hanging fruit. Don't spend time on difficult or complicated work because that takes up valuable time and you need to focus on quantity.
3- Stay up to date on the latest mantra and repeat it when appropriate during meetings. Whether the current mantra is about AI, or the network, or the customer, or whether it's about 5-Yee being the most amazing and profitable technology ever! You don't have to believe it. You just have to show that you're totally on board.
4A- If you're a manager or above, spend at least 50% of your time schmoozing your boss and other higher ups. The rest of the time you should ride your team hard so you can report the massive quantity of work and achievements as per rules 1 & 2 above.
4B- If you're an IC, spend at least 30% of your time schmoozing your boss and other higher ups and report the massive quantity of work and achievements that you've accomplished as per rules 1 & 2 above.
This may sound harsh but look around you at who gets to move up and who doesn't and you'll see that it's largely true.