You have probably heard a lot about the importance of developing your personal brand and presence. It is a truly relevant topic in this day and age to be able to position yourself for who you are, what you stand for, what your expertise is. I frequently invite my coaching clients to do so, first within their own organizations and communities and then, using Social Media tools in a professional and useful manner to grow their web presence and get on the global map!
But, does this personal presence help or hinder the organizations they work for? You might be surprised how many companies are still afraid of their employees growing their brand “too much”, becoming difficult to manage, expensive, or “too visible”. This point of view begs some further consideration for the times we live in. It is of course a legitimate concern to retain talent in the organization, but to do so at the expense of their development is truly shooting yourself in the foot! It will most definitely not work in the long run. Consider the message that a company sends by not wanting their talent to shine outside of their walls and sometimes not even inside. I know at least one CEO who consistently says he wants no protagonists, as if the work is done by some anonymous drone. As you can imagine, loyalty and sense of belonging are virtually non-existent in his organization.
The fact that your collaborators grow their personal brand can benefit the organization in many ways. A few of them are:
Expanding the Visibility of the Company Itself. Every time talented people from your organization find a way into the public eye, there is an interest as to their current occupation. Your company name will not only be mentioned, but serve as a sort of “last name”. If many people from your organization are visible as experts and active participants in the global community, your company name is visible as well. What does it say about an organization that these brilliant people are an active part of their day to day work? Its speaks volumes that you have respected, valuable people on board. Individual efforts to grow personal branding will take your organization to a global, viral positioning as they multiply, so you would do well to be proud of their accomplishments instead of afraid of them.
Talent Attracts Talent. In the long run, to maintain a competitive advantage, it is important not only to retain talent, but to attract new talent. Nothing attracts great people more to an organization than admiration for the people that already work there. A company where collaborators are active in the world and stay relevant in their field positions itself as a breeding ground for talent and a trustworthy haven for people who know what they are worth.
The Work Environment Improves. Although making your champions visible makes them vulnerable to invitations from competitors, the truth is, talent scouts will find them sooner or later anyway. Trying to keep a bright light from shining is a futile undertaking. The fact that their employability improves makes them more attractive to the job market, but also makes them feel more secure and appreciated. It sends the message that this organization values its people enough to care about their future, whether they continue to collaborate here or not. While nothing can guarantee that a given person will work in your company forever, you can be pretty darn sure that they will be active promoters for life if you play your cards well.
Bottom line is, your organizations would do better to educate key employees in the best way to grow their personal brand, leveraging the opportunity for all parties involved. Create a work community that knows how to do this. Of course, only organizations that feel confident and worthwhile feel they can risk this. There are important questions to address:
What kind of organization do we want to be?
What message do we wish to send to our own talented staff and to the global talent market?
If everyone wanted to work for us, What message would that send to our clients, stakeholders and partners?
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[...] This post was Twitted by monedays [...]
Monica – this is a great post and a thought that I know is bothering many organisations. What do they do when the brand of some key employees is in some cases as visible, if not more visible, than the corporate brand? Truthfully I think we are only at the tip of this particular iceberg. I’ll be interested to see how all of this is handled in the year to come.
Best
Dorothy
[...] This post was Twitted by timdouglashr [...]
What a penetrating and thoughtful post, Monica. There are organizations who worry that “their” people who have strong personal brands are likely to be hired away by the evil competition. The solution, they believe, is to prevent their stars from getting known.
I suspect that these are the same companies who don’t believe in helping managers develop a broad base of valuable skills because it makes them more attractive to recruiters like Dorothy. They’re misguided in both situations.
Personal branding is nothing new. There are only some new tools. The fact, though, is that either in 1990 or 2010, everybody in an industry knows who the stars are. Any recruiter worth his or her salt knows who they are, too.
The solution is to embrace development and branding. Help your people develop their skills and become known for them. That will make your organization a great place to work.
Some of your people will jump ship anyway. Deal with it. But you’ll have more good ones than most and those good ones will have a higher mean performance level and more developed social networks. It’s one of those situations where control is futile, so stand back, encourage and help and you’ll come out better.
Very timely post for me. Tomorrow I begin a 16 city tour over the next few months. I’ll be speaking on various topics but mostly leadership. While in front of hundreds of people I’ll talk about many things related to developing your leadership skills. One thing I absolutely will not talk about is my personal twitter feed, LeadToday. There is some good leadership insights posted there but as I said, it is my “personal” twitter feed. I work for a rather large company and there is more than a little concern about “self-promotion” so even though the LeadToday twitter could help these customers of my company they will never know about it.
It’s interesting because I have almost total freedom as to the customers I work with, where I go and when I go. The topics I present are mine to decide and I manage my team with almost no oversight. But building a “personal” brand is really scary for big companies for reasons that truly escape me. I’m sure they know I’m not going anywhere, I’m well compensated and I love the industry (golf) that I’m in so there is no reason for concern there. Guess it will remain a mystery to me.
I agree with everything you say Monica, there are indeed many benefits to an organization when their people have a strong personal brand. If anyone doubts this maybe they should ask themselves this question: Would you like strong people responsible for your business or weak ones.
Thank you for your comments. As always, even better food for thought than the original post! Steve´s experience is very commonplace and it is just engrained in big organizations to fear losing their talent. It takes awareness of the issue and real guts to see the benefits, but as the world shrinks before our eyes it will become inevitable that stars will shine. Wally’s suggestions are of course right on for leaders interested in changing this and yes, Dorothy we will have to wait and see. For now, I direct readers to three wonderful resources that will help you get to know these thought leaders up close and personal:
Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/12/21/babies-and-big-people.aspx?ref=rss
Dorothy Dalton’s Future Perfect Carreer Transition Strategies
http://dorothydalton.wordpress.com/
and of course follow @LeadToday on Twitter, or better yet…if you get the chance to hear him speak, go for it.
I am left with the question then, What to do if you are the one growing your personal brand, as Steve describes. That’s a great subject for another post…
Monica, great post! Problem is, when it comes down to it, employers only care about themselves and the bottomline. Ironically, the practice of hindering personal promotion or hiding yours stars will only hurt the company. This seems to be common practice at established/smaller companies where everyone working in the ivory tower has been in place FOREVER! Is this a common a trend or are younger companies just as at fault? Thanks again!
Monica, this is a great post. Thanks for referencing to my slidehow also.
I consult in business and social media. One thing that I do a lot of is individual online profiling. As if business development and sales wasn’t a challenge enough when self-employed. I am selling a service that as you and other suggest many large companies reject.
I think if the benefits are communicated to organisations in terms of metrics they want to achieve then rejecting the concept of profiling top talent would be super hard for them.
From an HR / talent perspective – a more engaged workforce, faster self-led professional development, enhanced company culture, profiling top talent as experts in their field, talent attracts talent.
From a workflow / efficiency perspective – speeds up communication and information needs.
From a marketing perspective – If top talent all have an impressive online profile they are all contributing a micro amount to how the company looks online at a macro level (it is like free marketing). Also, employees take greater responsibility for the wider promotion of the company.
Monica, they’re great points that you make. With respect to CEOs who don’t want talent to shine outside the organisation, this is surprisingly common. What’s more, this same behaviour is almost inevitably happening inside the organisation. Many CEOs are, unfortunately, overly ego driven and their egos are at the same time surprisingly fragile. That means that instead of growing, nurturing and supporting talent within and beyond the organisation, they instead smother and seek to control that talent.
It’s a complex subject and it has many facets, but it’s not surprising that they object to positive public profiles for talent. It’s symptomatic of much larger organisational issues.