SodaPDF-compressed-Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

by dlavieri

  3) When you’re trying to make your case. When we fall into

  debate mode during a meeting, we may ignore others’ comments

  and obsess about the points we want to get across. Instead, it’s

  more effective to understand our colleagues’ goals and concerns

  so well that we can frame our suggestions with a minimum of

  conflict. Collaboration is a vital career skill, and it starts with

  appreciating the viewpoints of all the players.

  4) When you’re in the middle. Have you ever found yourself

  caught between two warring parties? You know it would be a

  mistake to take sides, but it can be a challenge to participate in

  meetings without seeming to align with one faction or another.

  The best approach here is to consistently present yourself as an

  open-minded listener. Let everybody know you’re always willing

  to be fair and hear what folks want to communicate.

  5) When they’re hard to get along with. Once we start think-

  ing of people as difficult, we may stop really hearing them. As

  they speak, we feel defensive and start working on our rebuttals.

  At some level they know we’re ignoring them, so their obnox-

  ious behavior gets worse. You can often defuse a tense situation

  by putting aside your resistance and concentrating on what is

  being said. By quieting your negative inner commentary, you

  may launch a new era of healthy communications.

  6) When you want to look confident. When people feel insecure,

  they may chatter about nothing, brag too much, or insist their

  opinions are correct despite the weight of the evidence. Genuinely

  confident people aren’t afraid to stay quiet. They already know what

  they think and now they want to know what you think. If you want

  to come across as self-assured, look for opportunities to shine the

  spotlight on others. Ask questions and be respectful of the answers.

  Listening is a powerful strategy. It can help you understand what’s hap-

  pening, show that you care, and contribute to the growth of a supportive

  community.

  4

  tweak Your Brand to

  send clear messages

  do you feel squeamish when people start talking about “personal branding”?

  Maybe you think it means pretending to be something that you’re not.

  If that’s your view of branding, get over it. There’s the real you, the essential person that you are. And related, but not exactly the same, there’s the

  professional. Your professional persona should be deeply rooted in your true

  values. But the person you are on the job is just a piece of your whole package.

  Also, in your professional life—whether or not you know it—there’s your

  personal brand. Your brand might be quite different from the essential you,

  and even the on-the-job you. Even if you don’t want it or like it, you do have a brand. It’s already out there, alive, and influencing the way people react to you.

  Understand and shape your personal brand

  Your brand distinguishes you from everybody else.

  Originally, the word “brand” simply meant a name or symbol indicat-

  ing the owner or producer of a product. For example, ranchers used hot irons

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  to brand cattle so they could spot their own steers among the free-roaming

  herds. And back when soap was usually just called “soap,” Pears Soap was

  named after the barber who invented a new kind of gentle cleaning bar.

  Today, the term “brand” isn’t the same as a brand name. In a “branding”

  effort, marketers try to distinguish a product, highlighting how it differs from its competitors. But the modern concept of “brand” is even broader than that, because it encompasses not just the qualities of products but also how customers feel about those products.

  When we refer to a “brand,” we’re getting at something that reaches

  way beyond the actual product to include a full range of customer reactions.

  For example, the Coca-Cola brand reflects not just soft drink attributes and

  whether people like the taste, but also the emotional reactions customers

  might have to the happy messages in Coke commercials.

  Your personal brand isn’t the same as the real you, because it’s defined

  partly by what people think about you. It’s based on their assessments of your expertise, your work, and your character. Your brand is powerful enough to

  open—or close—career doors. But it might be quite different from either who

  you are or the high achiever you try to be when you’re on the job.

  In other words, even if you are a good person and you work hard, there’s

  no guarantee that your brand reflects your best qualities and will bring you

  the career success you deserve.

  This is a lesson that Sally* had to learn. She’s a smart, tech-savvy, and

  collaborative project manager, but she’d been turned down for promotions.

  Beth, her manager, asked me to help Sally understand why she wasn’t being

  taken seriously.

  With Sally’s permission, I spoke with some of her colleagues. Several

  described her as “a flake.” Part of Sally’s reputation was based on her appearance. She loves fantasy events and science fiction conventions, and sometimes she allowed weird fictional characters to influence her fashion style at work.

  Even worse, she bored colleagues by talking endlessly about the weekends she

  spent at shows related to her interests.

  People liked Sally and found her amusing, but they thought her hobbies

  were silly. Sally’s eccentric personal tastes had become such a big part of her brand that coworkers overlooked her strengths.

  As we talked, Sally concluded that she didn’t have to give up the things

  she loved to do in her free time. But she didn’t want her passion for them to hold her back at work. So she launched a three-pronged plan to rebuild her

  brand within the company:

  tweak Your Brand to send clear messages

  33

  1) Manage appearances. Sally aimed for a more mainstream per-

  sonal style, so that her coworkers’ reaction to her clothes and

  grooming wouldn’t blind them to her competence. She began

  dressing more like her boss and she tucked her long hair into

  a neat French braid. She also stopped trying to interest work

  friends in her weekend activities.

  2) Build expertise and let it shine. Understanding that it’s not

  good enough to appear more like everybody else, Sally wrote a

  “brand statement” that described ways she wanted to be seen as

  unique. In particular, she hoped to be recognized for her techni-

  cal abilities. She set the goals of becoming expert in a hot new

  technology and having her expertise recognized. She took an

  online course, kept studying and experimenting on her own, and

  published an article in an industry journal. As she learned more,

  Sally prepared a “how-to” guide for her colleagues and, with her

  characteristic enthusiasm, she said “yes” when they needed help.

  3) Show up like a leader. Sally took a course that required her

  to start a leadership journal. As she wrote about the leaders she

  admired, she became more conscious of how she wanted to

  appear. She wrote a list of the leadership characteristics she most

  admired, loo
ked at it frequently, and thought about it as she

  planned her participation in routine meetings. Visualizing the

  kind of leader she wanted to be helped her become more confi-

  dent about her contributions and decisions.

  Rather quickly, Sally changed her brand. Beth said other managers

  were talking about how Sally had “finally grown up.” With her new, well-

  chosen expertise, Sally became known as an innovative thinker. Soon, she was

  assigned to a key project.

  Try these strategies to manage your brand

  To gain control of your brand, start with an honest assessment of how you

  come across. If you’re creating impressions that don’t serve you well, then it’s your job to change them. If you’re ready to do some rebranding, start here:

  → Research your current brand. When marketers want to enhance

  a product brand, they may start with customer surveys. If you

  want a better sense of your brand, gather feedback from other

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  Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

  people. On the job, this might take the form of a “360 review” in

  which your bosses, direct reports, and other col eagues are quizzed

  by a third party about your performance. A simpler approach is to

  ask col eagues how you might be even more helpful.

  → Look in the mirror. As Sally found, people are more likely to

  regard you as successful if you fit in with the crowd and look

  professional. Even in dress-casual offices, your aura of success is

  impacted by your personal style. People are influenced not only

  by how you put your look together, but also by the way you

  speak and carry yourself. If you feel that it’s time for a make-

  over, find inspiration by looking around for people who appear

  energetic, polished, positive, and powerful.

  → Promote your work. It is not enough to build expertise and

  do good work. You need to share news about what you’ve been

  doing and learning. You could give speeches, write articles, or

  send out progress reports. Or you can show what you know

  in more subtle ways, such as offering your services to someone

  who needs your help.

  → Shape your online presence. The way you show up in an

  online search has become vital to your broader professional

  brand. When you meet someone for the first time, the person

  may have already Googled your name. You can’t get around this

  by doing nothing. Your name is out there somewhere. An easy

  starting point for your online strategy is to create your profile

  on LinkedIn.com. If you can’t bear to share, you don’t have to

  complete the entire form. You can project your brand to the

  world simply by typing in a few sentences in the “Summary”

  section of LinkedIn’s profile template.

  Building your brand is the antithesis of being fake or manipulative. It’s

  about becoming better attuned to how your work impacts other people, more

  aware of relationships, and more adept at understanding and displaying your

  inner self.

  5

  start now to

  Build leadership

  into Your Brand

  lodged within your broader image is your brand as a leader. Your reputa-

  tion as a potential leader may take years to fully develop, but it begins long before you manage a team or have a lofty title. Even when you’re just starting out, your leadership reputation influences how much people trust you and

  whether they want to work with you.

  It starts in small ways. You look like a leader any time you spot a problem,

  create a plan to solve it, and then execute your plan. You act like a leader when you treat other people with respect and you leave them feeling a bit more positive. And you can become known as a leader when you accept responsibility

  and follow through on what you promise.

  As we discussed in Chapter 4, the full scope of your personal brand

  includes the impression other people have about you, from your clothes to

  your technical skills. The leadership component of your brand is particularly important because it’s close to your core values. If you have a strong leadership 35

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  Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

  brand, other people will have faith in your ability to deliver at a high level.

  Beyond that, when you’re clear about the kind of leader you want to be, your

  own standards will help you to make decisions. And once you decide how you

  want to be known, it will be easier to focus on your highest priorities.

  How to make leadership part of your brand

  How people regard your potential to lead is a significant part of what makes

  you distinctive. Your particular aura as a leader may have a huge impact on

  the kinds of opportunities that come your way. This four-part exercise can

  help you define and project a leadership brand that will serve you well:

  1) Create your vision of leadership. A simple way to create your

  vision of the leader you will become is to compile a list of per-

  sonal qualities that you want to develop, and that you want oth-

  ers to see in you. Begin your vision by coming up with the names

  of leaders whom you admire; they could be teachers, bosses, or

  historic figures. When you’ve named three to five leaders, start

  your target list of personal qualities by asking yourself:

  ◆

  What characteristics set these people apart?

  ◆

  Which of these characteristics do I want people to use

  when they describe me?

  ◆

  Which of these qualities sounds most like me when I’m at

  my best?

  2) Expand your vision list. Review the following words and

  phrases that many people have used to describe effective lead-

  ers, and add to your own list any qualities that strike you as

  important:

  ◆

  Always growing. The best leaders are constantly learn-

  ing something new. It doesn’t have to be job related. Your

  development as a leader is tied to your development as a

  person, and the growth areas you pursue in your free time

  can impact the way you show up on the job.

  ◆

  Self-aware and good at building relationships. Research

  by leadership expert Daniel Goleman suggests that strong

  leaders are distinguished from the mediocre ones by their

  level of “emotional intelligence.” And that means you

  start now to Build leadership into Your Brand

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  have self-awareness, like noticing when you’re too angry or

  distracted to handle a delicate matter. In his book Social

  Intelligence, Goleman says “we are wired to connect” with

  one another and by becoming more self-aware we get better

  at managing our interactions with others.

  ◆

  Positive. A leader’s attitude has an enormous impact on the

  team, and most people are more productive when they are

  around positive people.

  ◆

  Engaged. To lead we must be actually focused on the

  people and activities around us. Other people can sense

  whether we tend to stay present in the moment, which can

  influence whether they see us as genuine and charismatic

  leaders.

  ◆

 
Service oriented. Leadership may begin with the feeling

  that you want to help others, perhaps by delivering what

  they need or helping them to succeed. The concept of “ser-

  vant leadership” emphasizes attributes like kindness, trust,

  empathy, and the ethical use of power.

  ◆

  Well organized. Good intentions aren’t enough to deliver

  results. To achieve their goals, effective leaders develop

  work habits and systems associated with productivity.

  ◆

  Collaborative. There’s a big demand for people who can

  work well with others to achieve shared goals. One reason

  for this is that innovation is so often the outgrowth of a

  collaboration involving people with different views and

  skill sets.

  ◆

  Energetic. To be at their best, leaders must manage not

  just their time but also their energy. This includes physi-

  cal energy, which is linked to exercise, nutrition, and stress

  management.

  3) Study your vision list. Now that you have a list of the leadership qualities you intend to develop, post it in a conspicuous place and

  look at it frequently, including each morning. Because we tend

  to remember pictures more easily than words, some people like

  to create an icon to represent the characteristics they’re work-

  ing on. Bill*, a client, came up with five attributes to define his

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  Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

  style of leadership. For each one he created a symbol—a simple

  picture—to capture a quality he wanted to develop. Because

  he’s an avid biker and was training for a mountainous 100-mile

  ride, his symbol for “perseverance” was a triangle, representing

  a challenging mountain. Bill could glance at his sketch of those

  five icons and instantly recall the characteristics he hoped to

  develop as a leader. Eventually, to thank his wife for supporting

  his efforts, he had a jeweler find or create each of the icons in a

  charm. Then he was reminded of his growth path each time he

  looked at the lovely gold bracelet that his wife wore.

  4) Act this way. A key to projecting your brand is identifying the