August, 2007
by Denise P. Kalm, DPK Coaching
Denise Kalm has 30 years experience in IT including application programming, enterprise systems management and performance management/capacity planning at Pacific Telephone and Bank of America. She moved to vendor land in 2000, spending 5 ½ years with BMC on the EPA product line, then recently became the senior product marketing manager for enterprise job scheduling products at CA, Inc., formerly Cybermation. She is a regional officer of CMG, has held many volunteer positions within that organization and is a frequent contributing author. Prior to entering the IT profession, she was a biochemical geneticist. Her hobbies include flying, Jazzercise, writing and scuba diving. Her book, Lifestorm, on the Oakland Hills fire, is available on Amazon. She is an executive and personal coach as well, offering phone and in-person coaching.
About the Author
Denise P. Kalm, CA, Inc. formerly Cybermation
We think of brands primarily in terms of marketing products or services, but in this competitive workplace battlefield, branding yourself is critical to keeping the job you want or obtaining the new one you desire. There are many possibilities and methods for formulating your brand - to learn how you need to be viewed, you need to understand what job/position you want. (Later articles will focus on how to assess your career, how to determine where you want to be next and how to market yourself).
A personal brand is simply the way you are seen by colleagues, peers and managers. Your brand is a synthesis of:
None of this is who you are inside. Your default behavior tends to rely on your core personality and your reactions to your defense mechanisms, but this is under your control. You can choose how you want to be viewed and this "brand" can be different for different situations or professions. Let's look at two branded people: Tiger Woods, Martha Stewart.
Tiger shows up as the quintessential gentleman and nice guy. He is friendly, polite, shows intelligence in his interviews and is a class act. He does his job with excellence and diligence. When it isn't his day on the course, he takes his lessons home to inform his next game. No club breaking or throwing for him! He offers not only a model for how to play the game, but also how to live one's life - his integrity shines through everything he does. This combination is a clear brand - the slogan "Be a Tiger" says it all.
Similarly, Martha Stewart is the quintessential mistress of home-making; she takes it to the level that Julia Child took cooking. She is hard-driving, a consummate do-it-yourselfer: to do a Martha means making it from scratch to the extent of growing your own wheat). She is tough, demanding and very aggressive. She has created a successful empire from nothing and is defined as a successful businesswoman. The problem is that her personality - how she shows up - often turns people's envy to hostility. And makes her a target, rather than an inspiration.
So how do you define your own brand? It is your personal statement. The way you present yourself is a combination of appearance, speaking style and body language. In some industries, there is wider latitude for dress and demeanor (think of the world of music); in others, like figure skating, there is actually an extremely narrow band of acceptability. IT and major businesses fall somewhere in between. In the first 30 seconds, people make up their mind about you. Your appearance is a big factor in this. They also notice things like your promptness, your preparedness and your degree of comfort with the interaction. Take your cue from people you admire who are at the level or job role you wish to have.
But it is more than the superficial aspects of your persona. Demonstrating intelligence and knowledge can be most easily accomplished by silence and great listening skills-- punctuated by the occasional injection of brilliance. When trying to figure out how you want to be perceived, consider what you would want to hear if you happened to eavesdrop on a conversation about you. Does this match how you show up now?
What is your work style? Are you the go-to person for technical answers? Are you known for top-notch time management, always achieving your goals when you say you will? Is the time pressure induced by procrastination a disaster or a way to inspire your best work? If your work style keeps you in "flow" and you are achieving the recognition you want, this part of your brand is working for you. If not, you might want to ask - what does a great day at work look like for you? When everything is humming, are you getting stuff done?
What we offer can look like it is limited to our resume, but increasingly, it is a lot more than that. Companies are beginning to truly value what was previously dismissed as the soft or right brain skills. Are you the Oracle guru? Or are you valued for your agility in learning and getting up to speed fast? What is the one skill or ability you personally value for which you aren't getting credit? Are there gaps between what you can offer and what you would like to be able to offer? Communication skills, both written and verbal, are very important. In our IM and email world, people are not always aware of the image they present in these short messages. It is all a part of how you are viewed, so text accordingly.
Finally, there is your distinctive competence - what makes you special. We all have special gifts. But too often, in an attempt to fit into the corporate world, we have dismissed or downplayed them. Or we don't realize the importance of identifying and celebrating these skills. You might be the best at explaining complex technical concepts to business people, or one of the few who can talk mainframe, UNIX and Windows. Perhaps you are gifted at arbitration - the one person who can achieve the win-win when people are at odds with each other. Your distinctive competence is at the core of your brand; when you discover what sets you apart, you can market this to ensure your place wherever you want to be. The biggest challenge is really being clear on these distinctions and understanding how you can use these to benefit your organization. Once you identify these, it will be easy to show your value to others.
A clear "positive" brand identifies you as a "keeper;" an employee of high value to your company. Defining and honing your brand is a task worth doing; when you establish your brand, you control your destiny.
Stay tuned next month for another issue of "Your Career Coach." If you have ideas or suggestions for topics, please let me know at .