Category: leadership

Branding, Business & Bragging

Everyone knows that businesses love teamwork. Higher education loves teamwork, as anyone who has ever interviewed a college student knows. “Tell me about a time when you had to give someone critical feedback” usually leads to, “I was working on a team project, and John wasn’t doing his share.” We are taught to work and play in teams from the beginning. It’s codified into corporate mission statements, culture statements and recruiting messages.

We also are taught that bragging is to be avoided, and we seem to take pleasure in others failing. We enjoy seeing the infallible fail. There are the occasional celebrity flameouts (Charlie Sheen), the athlete who fades in dramatic fashion (Tiger?) and the business manager who gets what’s coming to him (anyone remember Chainsaw Al?).

So how do you balance the need to build your personal brand while balancing the needs of your team – regardless of your position on it – while also avoiding the fate of the arrogant? Carefully. Also, consider how you can – and should – make “team player” part of your brand. Here are a few tactics to start using and practicing now:

Ask how you can help. This could go in any direction. If you aren’t at the very top or bottom of your organization, your offers will go up, down and laterally. You get the opportunity to build great professional relationship – and maybe personal ones – while advancing your organization and your network. Oh, yeah. Don’t forget to deliver on what you’ve offered.

Give meaningful recognition. Subordinates will value it. Peers will appreciate you noticing. Just don’t patronize. Be real.

Practice talking about yourself. Many are uncomfortable with this, and for good reason. Done poorly, talking about your accomplishments can sound self-centered or worse. Done well, you can put your fingerprint on work you have done while also giving credit to those who have earned it. Your boss will ask you, “What are you working on?” Be ready.

The goal is simple: Be a real human who does good work in a team environment, who valuable and would be missed by the organization. Be able to discuss what you bring to the group while being gracious and willing to share the credit. Do some of these basics and you will be someone others want to work with and know, and you will bolster your brand.

Note: for a valuable article on the benefits and pitfalls of personal branding, see this article from Fortune.

Coke, Pepsi or Generic Cola?

Just what are you all about? Are you fizzy brown water in a red can, or fizzy brown water in a blue can? I spend a lot of time talking with my clients (while drinking Coke Zero, of course) about their career goals  and strategies to help them get there. Before we can figure out how to get to the goal, though, we need to know from where we are starting, and you need to know it about yourself. An important part of that is understanding what you are all about. What skills do you have? What are you great at? What do you love to do? What do you stand for? Are you Coke, Pepsi or a generic cola in a plain bottle? Unfortunately, many have trouble with this conversation.

Think about people who are accomplished in their fields. Steve Jobs is a driven genius who leads his company to create amazing technology that people don’t just want to buy and own. They lust after it. They have to have it. They stand in line for it. The Jobs brand is something that people expect to see and are disappointed if they don’t get it at the big Apple events. There is nothing fuzzy or uncertain about the Jobs brand.

John C. Maxwell is another person with a strong brand. If you are in any kind of a leadership position and haven’t read his books, I recommend that you get one, read it and use it. Today. Maxwell is a leadership guru who provides his readers with useful and inspiring tools that leaders can use immediately. Again, he has a strong brand that is compelling and offers value.

What is your brand? What does it say about you? What can you say about it? Are you seen as a tenacious, results-driven executive who builds effective teams that have delivered year-over-year growth for each of the last seven years, or are you a business manager with seven years of experience? Do you see the difference? Are you the former or the latter? Are you a real brand representing value, or a no name with no brand equity: buyer beware? Take some time and clarify that for yourself now. Your future depends on it.

Humble to a Fault

The highlight of my morning today was having phone conversations with two former colleagues with whom I had not spoken with in several years. Barb Kelly is doing amazing things in her own business (Technology Business Group), bringing her values, experiences and entrepreneurship to her work and her employees. The other is someone we will call Paul who is recovering from some serious medical issues and is preparing to reenter the workforce. Our conversation left me wanting to share this point: You have to sell yourself.

Paul is a talented leader who has the ability to create and build teams that are very effective. One of his teams that I had the opportunity to support delivered top results in his sales region through great team member development that led to superior engagement and a competitive (though not too competitive) culture and a strong will to win. Paul should be proud of his accomplishments, though a very strong sense of humility is getting in his way.

Our conversation was about job hunting strategies, including his resume, and how he needs to do a better job of selling his accomplishments. Step one is to get the interview. That will happen with a great resume that is full of accomplishments and results, solid networking and consistent hard work in the job search. Step two – the interview – will be the time to display that humility and stories about team development.

For all of us, the lesson is simple. Many of us have a hard time bragging about our accomplishments. Humility and the desire to not appear arrogant or over-confident act against us. As you search for the next great step in your career, though, this can be a fatal flaw. You have to sell yourself and the value you bring. Let your humility and servant leadership qualities shine in the interview and on the job. Don’t let those same qualities cripple your search.

Climbing Everest Blind

Erik Weihenmayer is an amazing person. He lost his sight as a teenager and in spite of this disability, went on to reach the summit of Mount Everest and, ultimately, the Seven Peaks – the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents. I had the opportunity to hear him speak in Orlando this week and I wanted to share my strongest recommendation to learn more about him if you have the chance. You will be inspired and amazed.

Erik’s message is that adversity is really opportunity. Adversity can help you grow and do things that you never thought you could do. It would be easy to simplify the message down to a simple sentence – “You can do it” – or a Nike ad slogan, but that would be doing a disservice to him, his accomplishments and his service to others.

How can we take this example and inspiring story and apply it in our own journeys that will never take us to the highest spot on the planet? Maybe it comes down to striving to do the best that you can every day, and when it gets difficult, relying on your team – family, friends, coworkers – to help you get through. Maybe it’s relying on your faith, knowing that there is a reason you are facing the steep hill in front of you, and it’s all for a greater purpose.

More important than this, though, is the question of what you can do for others. Erik spends time discussing his accomplishments, but he also gives lots of credit to those who helped him, those tied to the same rope line, those scaling the same mountain face who helped him reach his goals. What are you and I doing to grow and develop others? What are you doing to serve others? What are you doing today that will allow you to reflect and say that you did your very best to help others do their best? What are you doing to make it count? I may not have a summit day today, but I can take steps to get there.