Through my wife's business I have had the opportunity to be connected to Keith Kochner at Mentorfish.com for the last few months and have found his teaching exactly what we need in the 21st century. Lots of great content, he is prolific with new insights and learnings - even for someone like me who tends to explore and read a lot!
Keith is coming to Toronto next week to hold a live evening event so you can get a full experience of what he has to offer. Cost is just covering running costs of the event, but I know you will get way more value - hope to see you there.
With consistency and progression comes change. As you spend more time consistently delivering on what you say your brand is and find your career progressing in the right direction, you are going to reach a point where new challenges and opportunities arise. New skills are developed and new ways to communicate your uniqueness present themselves.
This week see's the 100th edition of the Tuesday Toonie weekly e-tip, which I feel is quite a milestone. Thank you for reading, commenting and recommending to others for the last 2 years.
It is also a great time to announce some small changes to the format and delivery of this weekly resource. When we started the Tuesday Toonie the rise of Facebook and Twitter was really starting to gain traction and people subscribing to news and blog feeds was rising. Now this weekly Tuesday Toonie is only being read 10-20% of the time by people via the e-zine delivery method - the rest of the time you are reading it or getting to it via social media or directly at the blog.
This does not make the content any less valuable but with our inundated in boxes and busy lives it does beg the question about sending it out in full format in an e-zine rather than a quick mailing, linking to the blog for the full content. So going forward the Tuesday Toonie is going to be a 21 second or less read. Enough for you to maybe stop and think for a moment about your career and if you want to understand more then go to the blog to get more on that weeks topic.
We will be continuing with the monthly Inukshuk e-zine that delves deeper in to the subject of career management and personal leadership branding and provide in there links to all the previous months weekly Tuesday Toonies for anyone you might have missed. We also continue to blog and post other very latest links and resources via social media - especially our Facebook page and my LinkedIn updates, or you may just prefer to be made aware of the Tuesday Toonie via one of these methods - so if you have not done so please connect with us at;
No doubt the business school case studies in years to come about the sad demise of Kodak and it's brand will raise many questions about the effectiveness of it's leaders.
The filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Kodak this week has many lessons for all businesses, but what can you learn from this and be sure that you are not facing the same in your career?
1. Don't underestimate the impact your ideas have.
It was the mid-70's when Kodak actually developed for the first digital camera. Can you imagine how far ahead they may have been in the market place and for how long had they moved on this revolutionary idea.
Personal Brand Lesson - just because your industry or vocation has done it the same way for a long time and everyone is comfortable with that way does not mean an idea out of left field is not a better one. Be willing to challenge the status quo.
2. Don't be complacent or greedy.
Kodak leaders decided to shelve the digital camera because they felt it was going to do too much damage to their highly lucrative and profitable film business.
Personal Brand Lesson - it makes sense to maximise your value with the core strengths you have. But know that you need to continually develop yourself and add new skills. Demands and markets change, so your brand has to evolve over time. Anticipate demands and start adding to your skill set now.
3. Be Prepared to Re-brand
The plan for Kodak is to sell it's $2 billion worth of patents and emerge as a more agile company in the printer business. They see revenue and profit in ink (HP generates $9 billion a year in ink cartridges). But does the tagline of the "Kodak Moment" still apply? Likely not, as they become less and less synonymous with photos a re-brand of the company would almost seem inevitable.
Personal Brand Lesson - the experts tell us that the workforce of the future might well be in many different vocation, not just jobs, in their lifetime. The foundation and core of your brand might remain the same, but sometimes the message and your target audience will change and a re-branding is necessary.
How do you see business the lessons from the likes of RIM and Kodak apply to your career and personal brand?
For those of you that have heard me speak you know that coffee is one of my popular brand examples. After all why drive past five Tim Horton's to get to a Starbucks black coffee - especially now that you can get 4 oz of extra liquid for at least 60 cents less in Tim's new Extra Large cup versus a Venti?
The answer is it's not just about the coffee.
If it was you can just get a regular cup of Joe from the corner convenience store for less, or better still use the same amount of time it takes to sit in the drive through to brew a cup at home for just pennies.
It really is about the emotions you connect to one brand of coffee or one store versus another. It's about the stories you tell yourself and the experiences you have had or heard about (good or bad) that drive your buying decisions.
The same applies to your personal brand. People are not going to promote you or second you on to their great project just because you are good at what you do. They are going to look for emotional connections and listen for stories that apply to you and no-one else.
People are going to want to hire you, work with you and for you based on how they perceive and have experienced your brand, your operating uniqueness.
Sometimes one of the hardest parts of the work in defining your personal brand is identifying your purpose. Mother Theresa was a great example of someone with a purpose- to help the poor in Calcutta.
Another is Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, with his dream of providing water to the third world with his One Drop- see the video at the Globe and Mail.
But we may feel we do no have the money or the perseverance of these great examples, it might even put us off from ever attempting to find one.
It does not have to be that difficult or daunting.
In my presentations and workshops I give the example of Andrew Witty, the current CEO of Glaxo SmithKline the giant pharmacuetical company. As a graduating student travelling and volunteering in Africa he was struck by the poverty and lack of access to drugs that would save many. He carried that impact with him for over 20 years - having joined GSK as a sales rep and eventually getting the top job.
When you are considering your own purpose it might be something very personal and close to home. or it might be a cause you are pasionate about but feel at this time you can do little to effect any change.
Do not lose focus or belief because someday you might become another Andrew Witty.
The passing of Steve Jobs resulted in an outpouring of emotion and praise that I would suggest was almost unprecedented. A Google search shows over 234,000,000 web pages - 70,000,000 more than Obama!
Now part of that visible reaction was due to the fact that we have so much more ability to communicate to many more people - ironically in many cases using the very tools that Jobs helped develop.
Also that technology and it's speed helped produce fast reactions - with many online eulogies, pieces and collections (see below).
Also significant media responses such as whole ad-free magazines ( like Business Week, Time ) and newspaper inserts ( San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times) dedicated to him. E-books launched ( by Wired) and sold on Amazon within hours and an upcoming biography rushed forward by 6 months.
And the inevitable surveys on the future of Apple;
Poll: How will Apple perform without Steve Jobs?
They'll do just fine (52%)
Become stagnant (21%)
Fail (10%)
I'm not sure (18%)
In currently reading Paul Allen, Co-founder of Microsoft's autobiography it is apparent that Steve Jobs was not always a liked man, or a pleasant leader to work with and for.
But the ultimate test of a strong brand is defined "by a perception, good or bad, that your customers or prospects have about you".
In Jobs case it would appear that with his own personal leadership brand the many positive attributes, skills and unique abilities far outweighed the negative in the vast majority of eyes. He will certainly be missed by many.
12 contrasting and insightful perspectives I found on Steve Jobs:
Many people know me for driving past a Tim Hortons (or three!) to get to a Starbucks! As I only drink black coffee the connection I have to Starbucks is more than just the coffee - its the other emotional connections I make with the brand.
Starbucks marketing team has been held up as a great example of using social media to engage consumers and they have over 25 million fans of Facebook for example, which obviously dwarfs a Canadian centric brand like Tim Hortons, although they have an impressive almost 1.7 million fans on their page.
But the emotional connection that Tim Hortons is able to generate from its loyal following is quite impressive. Their web site EveryCup.ca was established to capture the unsolicited letters they were receiving about their customers love of their local Timmies and the impact on their lives.
I am not sure their recent move to offer prizes for the best letters was actually necessary, but competition for fans and comments is apparently hotting up!
This was a Facebook post by Tim Hortons on September 14th:
"What living historical or pop culture figure would you like to have coffee with?"
This was a Facebook post by Starbucks on October 7th;
"Who is your favorite person to have coffee with?"
What emotional connection do people make to your personal brand? How are you capturing and communicating that?
Last week John Baird, Foreign Secretary and one of the Canadian governments leading figures, caused a bit of storm with a recent business card re-design.
He seems even to have strayed from the 'brand standards' that are recommended and his Chief of Staff even had to sign a disclaimer to formally acknowledge that his office was advised against the changes.
There is always the challenge of wanting to have a business card that best communicates your brand, but it also has to be remembered when representing an organization that the card also has to convey their brand - even when it comes to Government.
In a rush to stamp his own brand on the card, Baird seems to have committed three sins of business card design:
1. He actually had the 'Canada' word and brand of the flag removed entirely from the card. If you represent a well recognised brand have that on your card, it adds to your credibility.
2. He changed it to a unlingual card, not having the reverse done in French, even though he is bilingual and represents a bilingual constituency. If you have a unique or differentiating skill or strength, see if you can highlight this - having the card double sided with a second language is very visible and memorable.
3. His mailing address in the capital Ottawa was at a building named after a Liberal prime minister AND Nobel Peace Prize winner - but not from the same party as Baird. If you have an issue that you would rather not be associated with but it's a key part of your professional details, the business card is not the place to display this dis-satisfaction - have a little more class.
Even in this very technological and connected online world, the business card is still an important part of your personal brand communication, in fact it might be the only printed tool you have. Take some time to ensure it is a balanced and clear reflection of who you are and what you want to be known for.
The appointment of Meg Whitman as CEO of Hewlett Packard this week brought immediate doom and gloom predictions from analysts and market experts - unfortunately this comes as no great surprise.
Regular surveys including yearly studies by Catalyst find the following:
Companies with the greatest number of women on their boards performed significantly better financially than companies with fewer female board members.
Women in high-ranking corporate positions offer their companies many benefits, so much so that many firms purposefully seek out female directors.
Because there are so few female CEOs, a new female CEO appointment generates more uncertainty -- and more negative reaction -- among investors than the appointment of a new male CEO.
A principal reason why there are so many more male CEOs than female ones is the incompatibility of family dynamics and the way the work world is structured in the U.S.
Men aren't more likely than women to be born with the qualities of a successful CEO, but the opportunities to develop those qualities are weighted toward men.
As the proportion of men to women in the C-suite becomes equal, women leaders should be less interesting, unique, and noteworthy -- and therefore less subject to skepticism and negative reactions.
it is a shame that the positive aspects of Whitman's personal leadership brand such as 'Communication" are not valued more in these equations (but then how do you measure it??!!), especially as the nay-sayers are more focused on the challenges that the business faces (problems that were in place well before Whitman joined) rather than her ability to solve them.
The recent firing of Carol Bartz at Yahoo only helps ingrain these negative perceptions. Short term expectation, pressure on profit figures and rapidly changing markets will likely not improve things for all CEO's (male and female) for the forseeable future.
These are not always the words you would expect to hear from a leading CEO when admitting that a move they made in the market was the wrong one, or at the very least one that should have had a more considered approach.
They are certainly not the words that Jim Balsilee the Co-CEO of Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry, has uttered (well at least not publicly). The latest analyst reaction to RIM's worsening performance is not positive, siting current executive leadership as one of the barriers to returning glory.
But this is exactly how Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix started off a recent blog post to explain that the move the company made on increasing prices without consulting their customers was perhaps the wrong one. He went on to admit the fears he faces from being so successful in one realm that any other new ventures may never match up. Finally he went on to say:
"I want to acknowledge and thank our many members that stuck with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.
Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions."
Both close in age, Hastings a masters graduate of Stanford and Balsillee a masters graduate of Harvard are certainly no dummies - so what are the lessons you can learn from their respective personal leadership brands?
Clear belief in a vision that was inspiring, innovative, and moved markets to a whole new level. When you have such a vision be sure to clearly communicate it to those that need to know about it and don't waver from that belief and message.
Know that you cannot do it all yourself. Identify where your strengths and your operating uniqueness lies, do that and find other ways to get the rest done. Your leadership will be much more effective hiring others to do what you do not do well, outsource areas that are not a core expertise, be open to others input and insights.
Listen to what is going on in your marketplace. Trailblazing got you to where you are, but it may not sustain you as your market matures, competitors catch up or overtake you and customer demands change. Gather feedback, ask for opinions, watch reactions to ideas - but then act on them, do not plug your ears, sing loudly and pretend you cannot hear the noise.
When you make a mistake fess up. And do it sooner rather than later. in today's world where transparency is so evident and expected, people may not love what you have done but will respect you more for admitting when you are wrong and doing something about it versus hoping its all going to go away or continue doing what you have always done.
Know when it's quitting time. When you have built something so impactful stepping aside is going to be extremely tough - look at how hard it must have been for Steve Jobs. But sometimes the damage you are doing to yourself as well as the products, service, company and all of its employees is greater than the benefit of your staying, bow out gracefully versus getting the Carole Bartz phone call.
Define what you want your personal leadership brand to be and stick to the plan.
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