A Brand Called You

A Brand Called You

by Valerie Pelan | Diversity Executive

Imagine this. A woman, Tania, expected to receive the manager position for a customer project team. She finds out from her peers that someone from another group is being strongly considered for the position. Tania can't believe it; she's been working with this customer for six months. She received rave reviews on her leadership and collaboration. It doesn't make sense. The other person doesn't know anything about that customer. She wonders, "Why are they considering someone else for my job?"

Tania reacts quickly to influence key decision makers before they decide. She holds meetings to position herself as the best choice for the manager role, actively self-promoting her knowledge, expertise and effectiveness with this customer. She relays information about her track record of successes, and after several meetings, Tania receives the coveted manager position.

Thinking, "Wow, that was close!" when the dust settles, she asks herself, "What could I have done differently to inform the key people about my accomplishments with that customer?" How could another person have gotten in the running for her new position without being on that project team?

In the book In Search of Excellence, author Tom Peters talks about the benefits of empowering decision makers at multiple levels of a company, and in a 1997 Fast Company article, "The Brand Called You," he announced the arrival of the personal brand. In the article, he said, "You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. There is no one right way to create the brand called 'You.' Accept this; start today or else!"

Branding, Not Bragging

Women in the workplace need to use their personal brands strategically to increase their visibility and to position themselves for future assignments. That means doing self-promotion, an essential skill for effective career advancement and management. The biggest misconception about self-promotion is that it's bragging. Bragging or overexaggeration about skills and accomplishments isn't smart. It will eventually backfire if a woman cannot produce the results she has aggressively stated. Instead, women should think of self-promotion as taking credit for their good work. Self-promotion uses the personal brand as a way for women to get the word out about their strengths and unique capabilities.

Women should watch and learn from peers and managers who use self-promotion well in order to increase their own career options. What do successful peers say about their triumphs? Do they use their personal brand statements to tell how they achieved results with limited resources or to explain how they contributed to the success of a team? Women need to keep the playing field competitive by self-promoting and using their personal brand statements to talk about their accomplishments and skills.

Effective careers are built on three factors: interest, possessing necessary knowledge and competencies for effective performance, and taking advantage of available opportunities. A personal brand supports all three. Opportunities are often created with preparation and self-confidence, whereas competent performance without assertive self-promotion creates a recognition vacuum. Women need to take credit for their contributions because if they do not, someone else less deserving will. Leaders should encourage women to actively participate in discussions and tell people what they are working on. Women who sit in their offices and think their work speaks for itself are missing career opportunities to self-promote, influence and network. One question that can act as a litmus test for a personal brand is: "Can a woman say that people anticipate meeting her having heard about her good work before they meet?"

In the current business environment, most managers feel the weight of e-mail saturation and meeting overload as well as conflicting agendas, changing expectations and leadership challenges. No one can expect their managers to get the word out about them. Women, in particular, need to realize it is important to self-promote and not expect others to do it for them. Discussions about career management include the Fallacy of Recognition and the Fallacy of Reward. In a nutshell, these mean that people are accountable for their own careers. Competent work needs assertive self-promotion if women want to stand out from their peers. Further, public recognition and financial reward often go hand in hand.

Making It Happen

Active self-promotion at team meetings and purposeful networking across the organization and outside the company are key activities. Successful networking is a career booster. Women can maximize their rewards by promoting themselves as good managers or corporate navigators. For example, a female manager, Sherry, had three different leaders in one year due to organizational realignments. A proactive approach to the situation was critical, so she met with each of them and used her personal brand statement in the meetings to help keep her career plan on track despite company reorganizations. She knew she'd done the right thing because when she looked at her male peers, they were all huddling together trying to figure out their next move.

Diversity executives, coaches and other leaders may be asked, "How does a personal brand support my career plan?" Essentially, women need to close any confidence gaps with positive information about their strengths and capabilities. To obtain a promotion or that key career move, leaders need to believe that a woman will be successful in that position. Also, sometimes women have an uphill battle making sure people know they are serious about their careers. A personal branding statement can eclipse these situations by helping women manage other people's perceptions.

Women need to think of their personal brands like a sales elevator speech; it's all about the value and in-demand skills they can provide. Women should pepper their brand statements with examples of unique skills, strengths and results they have achieved. Consider the following verbiage: thrives in times of organizational change; exceeded sales goals for two consecutive years; makes decisions on complex projects; collaborates across the organization; creates new, different, workable solutions; motivates others to achieve; articulates a vision or a strategy; connects the dots; works well during ambiguity. These are skills that are transferable to the next position or project. Women have to get out of their offices and network using a well-crafted statement.

Further, personal branding requires that women take an honest look at what they can achieve. Women should use "I" when speaking about themselves to build credibility and accountability. In the following example, the word "I" begins a positive and assertive statement and tells others why the woman has a competitive edge:

"Did you know that I'm working on project X? Our team of eight is making good headway identifying obstacles and designing plans to overcome them. My role is instrumental in the development of a new process to replace the outdated one. I have enjoyed working closely with the customer's team. We will have a solution and complete this phase of the project under budget and right on time."

Personal branding statements can emphasize needs a person can fulfill and position a person as available and ready to be engaged or eager to learn something new and challenging. The key is to be consistent with messages. Women need to decide what strengths they will promote and what will move their careers forward in the direction they want. Here is an example of a brand statement for a woman who wants to move back to an area where she excelled:

"Did you know that I worked in the controller's group for eight years before I took the job in product management? I was advised to round out my career and do a rotation in the product side of the company. I am looking forward to getting back to the numbers side of the company. I love working with budgets, monthly trends and forecasts. I value the experience I have had in this group, but I think it's time to move back to the financial side of the business. Who do you think I need to connect with to make that happen?"

Another way women can brand themselves is to use tag lines. These tag lines summarize skills in memorable phrases such as: stays with it until it gets done; creativity that produces results; on-time, accurate financial analysis; or creates options where options did not exist.

The Personal Branding Plan

There are the four steps women can take to design a personal branding plan:

Step 1:

Write out statements that differentiate. Include key points that demonstrate unique skills or areas of expertise.

Step 2:

Check for consistency between brand statement and career opportunities. Are there opportunities in the desired area? Update career plans and ensure they are realistic.

Step 3:

Develop action steps to get the word out. Who does the woman need to talk to, meet with and network with?

Step 4:

Start using the branding plan in many situations. A woman should connect with people inside and outside her organization and design a networking plan with a realistic timeline.

Networking is all about connections. Effective networking can enhance a woman's reputation and increase her exposure. Information should flow to influential people and provide the connection points to enable career opportunities. When a woman networks, she should use her personal brand as word-of-mouth advertising and as a way to connect. Consider the following example of a personal branding statement that quickly states the person's strengths and engages the other person to share their own information to cement the connection and establish a networking relationship:

"I am the manager of the X team. I focus on meeting sales goals and customer requirements. I've found that by setting expectations and measurable goals in the beginning, the sales team can move forward with a more focused plan. What works for you?"

A woman needs a personal brand statement to tell people she is a winner. She should adopt a mindset that is assertive, project a positive attitude and communicate effectively.

Coke or Pepsi?

Consumers choose between brands in the marketplace through a complex process involving objective reason and subjective emotion. A similar process unfolds every day in the workplace. John or Susan? Tim or Maria? Statistics reveal that John and Tim are selected more than Susan or Maria in most workplaces, especially at the senior levels. Supervisors point to objective assessments, but their subjective connections to personal brands influence their decisions as much, if not more, than the assessments. Fair? Maybe not. Reality? Yes.

While organizations work to reduce institutional bias, women can be empowered to undertake individual personal branding strategies that maximize their success in spite of bias. Research tells us that men and women approach the process of branding themselves quite differently. If the majority of the leaders and powerful voices in an organization are male, the model for success tends to be male. This allows men the freedom to focus on creating individualized personal brands while constraining women to conform to a make model of success before they can create their personal brands.

So what can diversity executives do to prime their organizations and empower women? First, introduce personal brands into the organizational lexicon as inclusive models of individual success, and use them as formal and informal developmental tools. Then, implement the "C" Your Brand model of personal branding as a tool to integrate branding into professional development.

'C' Your Brand: Control, Communicate and Calibrate

1. Control the brand.

Control is using your power to direct or determine an outcome. Branding is a dynamic and forward-facing process; a woman has to brand herself for where she wants to go, not for where she is today. Control starts by identifying daily behaviors needed to drive desired outcomes.

Once outcomes are articulated, she - and her supervisors - should list the characteristics and behaviors most likely to be identified with people who have achieved those outcomes. Since this list may look and feel masculine, she should sort the criteria to adopt what feels comfortable, tweak what can be tweaked and add her own touches where possible. The focus for this step is to identify the outcomes and craft a personal brand that attracts support for movement toward those outcomes.

2. Communicate the brand.

Control the brand, then communicate it frequently and consistently. Daily behaviors build the brand, and seeking opportunities to express the brand is an individual strategy to sell it. This is where organizational inclusion efforts can buttress women's individual efforts; as women build their brands, the organizational culture needs to shift to accept personal brands that don't fit historical models of success.

3. Calibrate the brand.

Calibrating a brand is about controlling the brand and knowing when a change of direction is necessary in order to stay the course. The process of personal branding should include feedback intake and processing systems that allow women to differentiate between resistance to organizational change and sincere constructive feedback about their personal brands. Brands need to be consistently calibrated in order to stay relevant and be effective, but again, the calibration of women's brands needs to introduce different models of success.

So will it be Coke or Pepsi? Nike or Reebok? Inclusion or business as usual? Viewing inclusion through a branding lens creates an opportunity to see how our connections to people - emotional, personal and subjective - influence our decisions and how women can use branding as a tool for empowerment, individualization and professional success. When empowered and encouraged to create a strong personal brand, a woman can control her professional journey and use her power to direct her own career.

[About the Author: Valerie Pelan, President and founder of Integrated Focus, is a certified Executive and Leadership coach. Her 20 plus years management experience at AT&T and EDS gives her a unique perspective on the challenges facing leaders and their teams in today's diverse and global marketplace.]